Financial Gazette (Harare)
Njabulo Ncube
13 November 2009
Harare — THE Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) temporarily buried the hatchet with its rival partner, ZANU-PF, when it attended a Cabinet meeting yesterday after a three-week boycott that shook the transitional government.
The re-engagement comes hard on the heels of a Southern African Development Community (SADC) Troika meeting in Maputo, Mozambique, where ZANU-PF and the two formations of the MDC were given up to 30 days to iron out their differences.
The Troika also unveiled South African President, Jacob Zuma, as the new mediator, replacing Thabo Mbeki, the former SADC point-man to the Zimbabwe crisis whom the MDC-T once labelled a dishonest broker.
Zuma was tasked with monitoring the implementation of the power-sharing pact which has been dogged by bickering and other petty squabbles for the past nine months or so.
Cabinet meetings are normally held on Tuesdays, but this week's meeting was shifted to yesterday to allow President Robert Mugabe, who was out of the country attending a Sino-African summit in Egypt, to chair it.
Following its partial withdrawal from the coalition on October 16, the MDC-T had been boycotting all Cabinet meetings over the strategic direction the inclusive government should take until yesterday when it re-engaged its rival, ZANU-PF.
Although details of yesterday's Cabinet meeting were not immediately available, The Financial Gazette has it on good authority that nearly all MDC-T Cabinet ministers were in attendance.
James Maridadi, the spokesperson for the premier, confirmed that his boss and his ministers attended the meeting.
"They were in attendance. Remember, they suspended the dis-engagement to give SADC and the new facilitator, President Zuma, a chance to deal with the Zimbabwe situation and try and bring finality to it," said Maridadi.
"President Zuma will be coming in two weeks as per the directive from the Troika last week to the entire Zimbabwe delegation," Maridadi added.
Edwin Mushoriwa, the spokesperson for the MDC-M, said his party had a standing resolution that its ministers should attend all Cabinet meetings.
"If our other colleagues also attended, at least they have fulfilled the SADC resolution last week that the three parties should immediately engage in dialogue," said Mushoriwa.
"The ball is now in our court as the parties to the GPA (Global Political Agreement) to fully implement the pact as directed by SADC," he said.
Prime Minister Tsvangirai and Deputy PM Mutambara are now expected to engage President Mugabe over the outcome of the Troika meeting in Maputo since they failed to do so in the past days due to his sojourn to Egypt.
South Africa's head for International Relations, Ayanda Ntsaluba, told journalists in Pretoria on Tuesday that the political impasse in Zimbabwe had raised concerns from regional leaders that the situation "could get out of hand".
Ntsaluba said the regional leaders in SADC were very concerned by the fall-out, hence, the mini-summit last week in Maputo.
"The worst fear of all of us is that the petty squabbling and the politicking among the leaders will lead to the squandering of resources," he said.
"The fact that there are clear timeframes, as tight as they are, it's a significance of some degree of impatience that the political leaders must not squander what appears to be the opportunity, the only opportunity, to pull it (Zimbabwe) out of the abyss. The inclusive government, essentially, is the only game in town."
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