Will Robert Mugabe wriggle out of deal?

The Times
September 15, 2008

Jan Raath in Harare and Jonathan Clayton in Johannesburg
Zimbabwe's bitter political rivals are expected to sign a landmark
power-sharing agreement today designed to end months of violence and years
of economic misrule.

President Mugabe and the Opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, are to
initial the deal to set up a transitional government at a ceremony in Harare
in the presence of regional heads of state, including South Africa's
President Mbeki, who has mediated the accord.

Behind the inevitable back-slapping, handshakes and hugs, observers will
strain to see who is smiling the most. They may find very few indeed.

The ruling Zanu (PF) and opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
both appear nervous about the future.

Insiders in both parties remain split over whether the agreement - reached
after weeks of negotiations - can end the country's long decline, or whether
it will simply open a new chapter in its misery.
Mr Mugabe, whose policies are responsible for an 11 million per cent
inflation rate, one million starving people and millions more living in
penury as refugees outside Zimbabwe's borders, remains President.

For many of his foes that is a huge failing of the accord. Others say that
it was always unrealistic to expect a man who sees himself as "father of the
nation" to leave office in one move. He has to go slowly and with dignity
and - crucially - assure his henchmen in the security services that he is
not abandoning them.

Some say that he has made real concessions. "This process has been slow, but
the old crocodile's teeth are slowly being pulled out one by one, and soon
he will not able to bite back," said one analyst close to the talks.

Others argue that Mr Tsvangirai is in danger of being hoodwinked by a
superior political operator and could end up as a powerless Prime Minister
overseeing a Cabinet devoid of any power. "He is there to get the West off
Mugabe's back, that is all. He will run rings around him," said a senior
Zambian diplomat close to the talks.

Signs of division and charges of betrayal within the MDC emerged even before
the signing ceremony. If unchecked, these could be the deal's undoing as Mr
Mugabe, who once vowed that he would never share power with the Opposition,
will not hesitate to take advantage and strengthen his position anew.

Details of the accord will only be made official at the ceremony, but it is
known that Mr Tsvangirai will become Prime Minister and chair a Council of
Ministers, made up of most of the Cabinet. His party will have 13 Cabinet
posts and Zanu (PF) 15.

However, Arthur Mutambara, the head of a small faction of the MDC, will also
have three Cabinet seats, opening up the possibility of horse-trading to
undermine the new Prime Minister. Zanu (PF) also has two Vice-Presidents,
whose roles are unclear.

The arrangement runs for 18 months while the parties negotiate a new
constitution, under which fresh elections will follow. This could be the key
to its future success or failure.

If a new constitution is adopted and truly free elections follow, the deal
will be the moment Mr Mugabe's brutal rule came to an end. There is little
doubt he would suffer a crushing defeat in a truly free poll. Time and
again, however, the wily former guerrilla leader has wriggled out of
commitments to conduct such elections.

Some in the MDC maintain that it could have had a significantly stronger
position if Mr Tsvangirai had not allowed himself to be bullied by Mr Mbeki,
Mr Mugabe and Mr Mutambara, a senior diplomatic source said.

Western diplomats have expressed doubts that the deal will prevent Mr Mugabe
from taking advantage of large inflows of donor finance.

How it should work

- Robert Mugabe will remain President but will have reduced powers. Morgan
Tsvangirai becomes Prime Minister with two Opposition deputies

- Two ceremonial Vice-Presidents will be drawn from Zanu (PF)

- The Opposition has demanded control of the police while allowing Mr Mugabe
to keep charge of the military

- Mr Mugabe will chair the Cabinet, with Mr Tsvangirai sitting as
vice-chairman. Mr Tsvangirai will head a Council of Ministers, which will
contain members of the Cabinet

- The MDC will have a majority of one in the new Cabinet, with 16 posts
between the two factions to Zanu (PF)'s 15 posts

Source: agencies

MDC, Zanu-PF endorse political deal

http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=4083#more-4083

September 15, 2008

By Our Correspondent

HARARE - The MDC National Council, the party's supreme decision-making body,
on Sunday endorsed the SADC-brokered political settlement that is expected
to be signed in Harare Monday.

The National Council meeting was preceded by a meeting of the National
Executive where Prime Minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai divulged details
of the political deal.

Tsvangirai also unpacked details of the agreement to his National Council,
which also unanimously endorsed the deal, a party spokesman said.

The MDC endorsed the pact a day after President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF
supreme-decision making body, the Politburo, also met in Harare Saturday and
unanimously adopted the power-sharing agreement, the party's legal affairs
secretary, Patrick Chinamasa, confirmed to The Zimbabwe Times.

The rival political parties agreed to a power-sharing deal on Thursday, seen
as a panacea to the country's deepening economic and political crisis.

South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has been mediating the on-and-off
negotiations for more than seven weeks, said the agreement would be signed
Monday in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital.

He offered no details of the highly secretive pact. Negotiations had stalled
as Mugabe and the MDC leader wrangled over how to share executive powers.

The Zimbabwe Times heard that the parties met in Harare on Saturday to work
out the composition of the new government. Chinamasa said details on the
government would also be revealed to the public at Monday's official
ceremony - set to be attended by regional and continental leaders.

Details filtering through from Saturday's meeting reveal that a decision had
been taken to abolish the ministry of State Security, under which the
much-feared Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) falls under.

The MDC will take over control of the Home Affairs ministry under which the
police force and the Registrar-General's office fall.

The MDC had also secured the Finance Ministry and that of Justice, Legal and
Parliamentary affairs. A Prisons Ministry has apparently been established.
Prisons previously fell under the Justice Ministry.

Mugabe will chair a cabinet of 31 ministers - 15 from his Zanu-PF, 13 from
Tsvangirai's MDC, and three from Arthur Mutambara's breakaway faction of the
MDC.

This division of power is hardly generous to the MDC, considering that
Tsvangirai ran well ahead of Mugabe in the March 29 presidential election
and that the MDC caucus has a 110-99 majority against Zanu-PF in Parliament.

The deal will be balanced by a Council of Ministers, chaired by Tsvangirai,
which will supervise the Cabinet's day-to-day work. Mugabe will chair
Cabinet meetings on Tuesday with Tsvangirai as his deputy.

The parties have also approved the establishment of a National Economic
Council to spearhead economy recovery.

A statement issued by the MDC said of the National Council meeting Sunday
said: "Noting the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on 21 July 2008
by the principals of the three political parties in the dialogue;
"Further noting the arrival at a power-sharing deal on 11 September 2008;
now therefore:

  1.. The MDC National Council endorses the agreement arrived at in the
inter-party talks.
  2.. The MDC National Council expresses its profound gratitude to the
negotiation team and congratulates the team for a job well done.
  3.. The MDC National Council further empowers the negotiating team to
hammer out the finer details of the agreement such as the issue of governors
and other portfolios of government."
The Zimbabwe Times heard the Senate which had adjourned to October 7 and the
House of Assembly to October 14 would be recalled soon to give legal
authority to the new arrangement under Constitutional Amendment No 19.

The amendment will enable the setting up of an inclusive government, which
in turn will initiate an all inclusive process of constitutional reform
which will include civil society.

That process will last 18 months by which time a new democratic Constitution
must be implemented, which will also include a time frame for new elections
at some point to be conducted in terms of the new Constitution.

The new inclusive government will be headed by Mugabe as President, albeit
with greatly reduced powers.

The military must make unequivocal statement

http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=4108

September 15, 2008

Editorial Comment

FOR the nation of Zimbabwe, after going through seven weeks of nail-biting
anxiety while waiting for a conclusive outcome to the negotiations between
Zanu-PF and the MDC, the announcement of a deal late on Thursday was
somewhat anti-climatic.

What should have been good news in the ears of every Zimbabwean certainly
did not induce a widespread wave of euphoric celebration.

So sudden and so totally unpredictable, given the aura of secrecy in which
the negotiations were shrouded, was the outcome that many were left nursing
a renewed sense of disquiet, if not reeling in outright disappointment. The
fact that the details of the deal were postponed for three days to Monday
added an element of suspicion to the general apprehension.

Even after the deal is signed on Monday, celebration is likely to remain
muted until a certain event occurs. The absolute need for that event to
occur is accentuated by utterances attributed to President Robert Mugabe
when he addressed the Council of Chiefs as he officially opened their annual
conference in Bulawayo on Friday morning.  Mugabe is reported to have
informed the usually pliant but now apparently somewhat rebellious
traditional leaders that Zanu-PF and the MDC would never work together.

Zanu-PF and the MDC were like water and fire, Mugabe is reported to have
told the assembled chiefs. Usually it is oil and water that are known to
have mutually exclusive qualities. It is likely that in his speech Mugabe
substituted fire for oil purely by mistake or through a slip of the tongue.
But the irony of the president's imagery is that whereas oil and water
simply do not mix, the element of his choice, fire, can actually be doused
or extinguished by water.  Mugabe did not specify which of the elements of
his imagery represented his own party and which represented the MDC.

Going by the result of the March 29 elections it would appear that, as far
as the majority of the electorate of Zimbabwe is concerned, the MDC stood
for the water, while Zanu-PF was the fire.

However inappropriate President Mugabe's imagery as expressed before the
Council of Chiefs, it is disconcerting that he should be using such strong
and antagonistic language just as negotiators representing his own party
were working on the final details of the deal that he agreed to later that
day. Mugabe's utterances in Bulawayo raise the question whether the deal to
be announced on Monday has his full endorsement or that of the party that he
leads.

Long before last week's deal was agreed, in the period leading to the
harmonised elections held in March, Zimbabwe's security chiefs caused
consternation among the country's citizens when they publicly declared the
position that they would not salute a leader other than President Mugabe,
even if another leader won the presidential election. Movement for
Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, was clearly the target of their thinly
veiled threat.

The Joint Operations Command has become a veritable thorn in the flank of
the nation since Zanu-PF and its leader lost the parliamentary and
presidential elections on March 29. In the run-up to that election the
commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, General Constantine Chiwenga and
the Commissioner General of the Zimbabwe Republic Police, Augustine Chihuri,
stated categorically that they would never accept or respect Tsvangirai as
President. Events since March 29 have left the nation in no doubt that only
Mugabe was acceptable to them.

Tsvangirai's victory was reversed when a second election was held in June.
Mugabe, the acceptable politician emerged as leader this time around after
the shedding of much innocent blood.

In the unfolding circumstances of a deal which elevates Tsvangirai to the
status of prime Minister of Zimbabwe, while the MDC takes over control of
the Ministry of Home Affairs along with the police force, it would be folly
to sweep the earlier threats of the commanders under the carpet in the hope
or the assumption that Messrs Chiwenga and Chihuri have, without actually
saying so, accepted the political changes and embraced the new Prime
Minister.

It is imperative, rather, that the security chiefs declare their position
either concurrently with or soon after the signing of the deal. It is very
likely that once such unequivocal assurance is enunciated the people of
Zimbabwe will rise as one in spontaneous celebration.

Alternatively, the new Prime Minister should at the earliest opportunity
approach the commanders while extending a hand of reconciliation and an
assurance that they will be treated as part of the new Zimbabwe. He could
assure them that he and the MDC have nothing against them as individuals;
that any disagreement with them in the past was more over the role they
played in fostering lawlessness than over their person.

Zimbabwe was originally launched in 1980 on a magnanimous policy of national
reconciliation. Let the New Zimbabwe be sustained by a mutual reconciliation
among citizens.

As commander-in-chief, Mugabe ordered the security forces to perform acts
that were completely outside their constitutional mandate. The rift between
the people and the security establishment began when the Central
Intelligence Organisation, the police and the army began to act as
instruments of Zanu-PF.

It is immaterial that the army remains under the control of Mugabe as long
as the military act constitutionally and the police under Tsvangirai are
empowered to arrest those who do not abide by the law.

Once the police ensure that the rule of law prevails and elements such as
Jabulani Sibanda and Joseph Chinotimba are weeded out, Zimbabwe will be well
on its way to economic recovery. Otherwise, as long as such undesirable
characters rule supreme, the much needed investors will give our country a
wide berth.

FOR the nation of Zimbabwe, after going through seven weeks of nail-biting
anxiety while waiting for a conclusive outcome to the negotiations between
Zanu-PF and the MDC, the announcement of a deal late on Thursday was
somewhat anti-climatic.

What should have been good news in the ears of every Zimbabwean certainly
did not induce a widespread wave of euphoric celebration.

So sudden and so totally unpredictable, given the aura of secrecy in which
the negotiations were shrouded, was the outcome that many were left nursing
a renewed sense of anxiety, if not reeling in outright disappointment
altogether. The fact that the details of the deal were postponed for three
days to Monday added an element of suspicion to the general apprehension.

Even after the deal is signed on Monday, celebration is likely to remain
muted until a certain event occurs. The absolute need for that event to
occur is accentuated by utterances attributed to President Robert Mugabe
when he addressed the Council of Chiefs as he officially opened their annual
conference in Bulawayo on Friday morning.  Mugabe is reported to have
informed the usually pliant but now apparently somewhat rebellious
traditional leaders that Zanu-PF and the MDC would never work together.

Zanu-PF and the MDC were like water and fire, Mugabe is reported to have
told the assembled chiefs. Usually it is oil and water that are known to
have mutually exclusive qualities. It is likely that in his speech Mugabe
substituted fire for oil purely by mistake or through a slip of the tongue.
But the irony of the president's imagery is that whereas oil and water
simply do not mix, the element of his choice, fire, can actually be doused
or extinguished by water.  Mugabe did not specify which of the elements of
his imagery represented his own party and which represented the MDC.

Going by the result of the March 29 elections it would appear that, as far
as the majority of the electorate of Zimbabwe is concerned, the MDC stood
for the water, while Zanu-PF was the fire.

However inappropriate President Mugabe's imagery as expressed before the
Council of Chiefs, it is disconcerting that he should be using such strong
and antagonistic language just as negotiators representing his own party
were working on the final details of the deal that he agreed to later that
day. Mugabe's utterances in Bulawayo raise the question whether the deal to
be announced on Monday has his full endorsement or that of the party that he
leads.

Long before last week's deal was agreed, in the period leading to the
harmonised elections held in March, Zimbabwe's security chiefs caused
consternation among the country's citizens when they publicly declared the
position that they would not salute a leader other than President Mugabe,
even if another leader won the presidential election. Movement for
Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, was clearly the target of their thinly
veiled threat.

The Joint Operations Command has become a veritable thorn in the flank of
the nation since Zanu-PF and its leader lost the parliamentary and
presidential elections on March 29. In the run-up to that election the
commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, General Constantine Chiwenga and
the Commissioner General of the Zimbabwe Republic Police, Augustine Chihuri,
stated categorically that they would never accept or respect Tsvangirai as
President. Events since March 29 have left the nation in no doubt that only
Mugabe was acceptable to them.

Tsvangirai's victory was reversed when a second election was held in June.
Mugabe, the acceptable politician emerged as leader this time around after
the shedding of much innocent blood.

In the unfolding circumstances of a deal which elevates Tsvangirai to the
status of prime Minister of Zimbabwe, while the MDC takes over control of
the Ministry of Home Affairs along with the police force, it would be folly
to sweep the earlier threats of the commanders under the carpet in the hope
or the assumption that Messrs Chiwenga and Chihuri have, without actually
saying so, accepted the political changes and embraced the new Prime
Minister.

It is imperative, rather, that the security chiefs declare their position
either concurrently with or soon after the signing of the deal. It is very
likely that once such unequivocal assurance is enunciated the people of
Zimbabwe will rise as one in spontaneous celebration.

Alternatively, the new Prime Minister should at the earliest opportunity
approach the commanders while extending a hand of reconciliation and an
assurance that they will be treated as part of the new Zimbabwe. He could
assure them that he and the MDC have nothing against them as individuals;
that any disagreement with them in the past was more over the role they
played in fostering lawlessness than over their person.

Zimbabwe was originally launched in 1980 on a magnanimous policy of national
reconciliation. Let the New Zimbabwe be sustained by a mutual reconciliation
among citizens.

As commander-in-chief, Mugabe ordered the security forces to perform acts
that were completely outside their constitutional mandate. The rift between
the people and the security establishment began when the Central
Intelligence Organisation, the police and the army began to act as
instruments of Zanu-PF.

It is immaterial that the army remains under the control of Mugabe as long
as the military act constitutionally and the police under Tsvangirai are
empowered to arrest those who do not abide by the law.

Once the police ensure that the rule of law prevails and elements such as
Jabulani Sibanda and Joseph Chinotimba are weeded out, Zimbabwe will be well
on its way to economic recovery. Otherwise, as long as such undesirable
characters rule supreme as they have been allowed to do over the past eight
years, the much needed investors will give our country a wide berth.

Zimbabwe opposition wants equitable share of provincial governor posts

http://www.apanews.net/

     

      APA-Harare (Zimbabwe) Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party has said it will push for an equitable share
of provincial governor posts under a power-sharing agreement reached last
week and which is set to be signed before at least ten Southern African
Development Community (SADC) leaders in the capital Harare on Monday.

      The MDC said its national council endorsed Sunday the political
settlement between its leader Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe
but mandated its negotiators to "hammer out the finer details of the
agreement such as the issue of governors and other portfolios of government".

      Mugabe and Tsvangirai met on Saturday together with Arthur Mutambara
of a smaller MDC faction to agree on the allocation of cabinet portfolios
among the three parties.

      It is understood that Mugabe's ZANU PF would have 15 ministers out of
a 31-member cabinet while Tsvangirai's MDC would get 13 and Mutambara's
faction the remaining three positions.

      The issue of the ten provincial governors remained unresolved after
Mugabe unilaterally appointed members of his party to head the provinces
last month. The MDC wants the allocation of governor positions to also
reflect the configuration of the cabinet.

      Mugabe and Tsvangirai are expected to officially sign the
power-sharing deal on Monday before announcing the all-inclusive government
that is expected to rescue Zimbabwe from its current political and economic
crises.

      JN/nm/APA
      2008-09-15

£1bn aid in the balance as west waits to gauge change in Zimbabwe

· Package depends on proof Mugabe not still in control
· Power over police and bank become key tests

Chris McGreal in Harare
The Guardian,
Monday September 15 2008

Robert Mugabe listens during the summit of the Southern African Development
Community. Photographer: Mike Hutchings/Reuters

About £1bn in western aid to revive Zimbabwe's economy will hang in the
balance today as western donors watch to see how a power-sharing deal to be
signed by President Robert Mugabe works in practice before committing a
rescue package.

Under the deal with his arch-rival Morgan Tsvangirai, Mugabe is to surrender
many of his powers for the first time in 28 years. But though the agreement,
to be formally signed today, marks a huge climbdown by Mugabe, foreign
donors indicated that they want to see just how much power Tsvangirai wields
as the new prime minister in the coalition government.

"We want to see this government in action before we commit our support to
it," said a European diplomat in Harare. "We need to see Mugabe is not
continuing to run things. There will be benchmarks, litmus tests of who's
really in charge."

Donors, including Britain, the EU and the US, are broadly agreed to inject
about £1bn in aid over a year to reverse more than a decade of economic
decline that has brought inflation above 20,000,000%, mass unemployment,
empty supermarket shelves and forced about 4 million people to leave the
country to find work.

Agriculture has collapsed, leaving millions without sufficient food and
reducing many to one meal every other day.

Tsvangirai will be keen to see the foreign money as soon as possible in the
hope of bolstering public support by swiftly moving to alleviate people's
misery.

The power-sharing agreement brokered by the South African president, Thabo
Mbeki, gives the opposition a majority of one in the cabinet and places
Tsvangirai in charge of the daily administration of government.

When the 31 cabinet posts are divided in the coming days, Tsvangirai's
Movement for Democratic Change is likely to win control of the finance
ministry because Mugabe recognises the donors will not want to see a Zanu-PF
minister in charge of their funds. But diplomats say that their governments
will be looking for other signs that Tsvangirai is in control.

One test will be if the MDC gains authority over the police and if it is
able to remove the highly partisan police commissioner, Augustine Chihuri,
who said he would not salute Tsvangirai if he were elected president and
whose force played an active part in the bloody assault on opposition
supporters during the election.

Western donors are also keen to see the governor of the central bank, Gideon
Gono, sacked because of his alleged role in the plunder of the country's
hard currency reserves and fuelling inflation by furiously printing money.

Nonetheless it will be difficult for western countries to turn their back on
today's watershed agreement because they risk being accused of failing to
accept an African-mediated settlement. The evident hostility and suspicion
with which Mugabe regards Tsvangirai and the expectations of western
governments was evident in a column in the state-run Herald newspaper by the
president's spokesman, George Chiramba, under a pseudonym. It called the MDC
in government the "enemy within" and accused it of taking its orders from
Britain and other powers.

"For a party that has always relied on government and intellect for policy
incubation, [Zanu-PF] has to learn to govern in a new environment where the
enemy is within, well embedded," Chiramba wrote. "The west will now have an
eager listening post, right up to cabinet. There will be lots of policy
pre-emption."

Many Zimbabweans are cautious about the political settlement. Lining up for
bread in shops with otherwise bare shelves, or queuing for the pitiful
50p-worth of currency they are permitted to withdraw from the bank each day,
people are desperate for reasons to hope.

However, men such as Arthur Mubaiwa, who was part of a very long queue for
petrol yesterday, say they know Mugabe and they do not have full confidence
in Tsvangirai.

Unpacking the historic power-sharing deal

http://www.zimonline.co.za/

     

by Mutumwa Mawere Monday 15 September 2008

OPINION: As the world tries to digest the implications of the inter-party
power-sharing deal that is to be signed on Monday, September 15 2008, in
Harare, it is important that we pose to think carefully about the deal's
structure, fundamentals, consequences, challenges, and opportunities.

The deal is a complex one and the protracted nature of the negotiations
confirms the challenges that were inherent in constructing a "win-win"
transaction balancing the interests of a class of personalities that
hitherto had no basis to share the same negotiating space.

Zimbabwe is not the first conflict-ravaged country to face similar
challenges and overcoming them. Indeed, only 28 years ago, the country faced
a somewhat similar challenge and in the final analysis, negotiations saved
the day and out of the Lancaster House conference, with all its acknowledged
imperfections, emerged an outcome that allowed the transfer of power to take
place.

Future generations will no doubt reflect on this deal and I have no doubt
that consensus will emerge that it represents the best chance for the
country to move forward.

For many of us who have not been privy to the negotiations, it is always
easy to criticise the actors but given the nature of the problem and the
character of the actors, there can be no doubt that Zimbabwe stands to
benefit from a deal whose genius is in its unique construction.

The world now knows that a new national unity cabinet chaired by President
Robert Mugabe will be formed comprising 31 nominees drawn from the three
parties as follows: MDC-T (13), ZANU PF (15) and MDC-M (3).

Based on this framework, the Cabinet that will operate like a board of
directors of any company would be chaired by Mugabe in his capacity as head
of state and government premised on the notion that sovereignty vests in him
on account of his contention that he won the controversial presidential
run-off election.

Notwithstanding the outcome of the election, Mugabe believes that he is the
ultimate guarantor of the 1987 Unity Accord that has allowed the leadership
of the former ZAPU party to remain in senior positions of ZANU PF and
government without having to subject themselves to any election.

Under the Unity Accord, ZANU PF's presidium comprises of the president from
the former ZANU party, two deputies one drawn from the former ZAPU and the
other from the former ZANU parties, and a National Chairman from the former
ZAPU.

The current incumbents are as follows: (i) Mugabe (who contested the March
2008 presidential elections); Vice President Joyce Mujuru (a duly elected
member of parliament who also contested the elections); (iii) Vice President
Joseph Msika (who did not participate in the election fully knowing that his
fate was causally connected to Mugabe); and (iv) John Nkomo (who also did
not participate in the election and if he had would most probably have lost
anyway).

Both Msika and Nkomo's interests were critical in the deal construction.
They were both nominated as Senators signifying even before the conclusion
of the negotiations that Mugabe was not about to dump them. So it must have
been obvious to all that any deal that would enjoy the support of Mugabe had
to ensure the relevancy of these two individuals in the state.

Accordingly, instead of having a non-executive chairman, ZANU PF must have
pushed for a package deal accommodating the four senior members of the party
in the new framework.

The age profile of the incumbents is instructive. Msika at 85 is older than
Mugabe while Nkomo at 74 is younger than Mugabe and Mujuru at (53) is the
youngest. The average age of the ZANU PF presidium incumbents is 74 years
making it one of the oldest clubs to run a country that is in such a crisis.

Ordinarily, the Zimbabwean crisis requires an energetic team but what makes
the country unique is that retirement in the game of Zimbabwean politics is
not a preferred option.

When the composition of the ZANU PF leadership and the attendant internal
succession challenges are put in a proper context, it then becomes obvious
that leaving Mugabe and his two deputies outside the Council of Ministers or
more properly described as an executive committee supporting a CEO of a
company made more sense to transition the country from the old politics of
accommodation.

The composition of the Cabinet at 31 plus 3 (Mugabe, Msika and Mujuru)
leaves ZANU PF with 18 representatives and MDC with (13 plus 3) 16
representatives effectively giving ZANU PF the majority of the full Cabinet.
It is not, however, clear what happens when the Vice Presidents vacate
office and whether they will have a vote in Cabinet.

Assuming that the Council of Ministers in which the MDC (combined) has the
majority (13 plus 3) versus (15) works like a normal executive committee in
companies, it means that a resolution passed by the council may not need to
be debated again at the full board meeting. In arriving at any resolution in
the Council of Ministers' meeting, one would have to assume that ZANU PF's
views will be incorporated in the deliberations given the composition.

It would, therefore, be untenable if Cabinet were to duplicate the functions
of the CEO's team. Any chairman of a board of directors is compelled to work
through the CEO and using this analogy one has to be comforted that the deal
on the table creates a separation between the past and the future.

Mugabe must be acutely aware that his brand of politics will not advance the
national interest particularly if private investment and multilateral and
bilateral development finance is needed.

Any incumbent president who has been in power for 28 years must be tired of
people telling him what they think he wants to hear. There is evidence that
Mugabe's world view has been shaped by people who have invested in him being
out of touch. The proposed deal presents a threat to ZANU PF members who
have over the years invested in Mugabe's ignorance.

Mugabe is surely not fully aware of the damage his administration has caused
to the economy and politics of the country otherwise he would have agreed to
step down and allow fresh blood to change the direction in which the country
is going.

By remaining as the chairman of the board, the proposed arrangement provides
an opportunity for Morgan Tsvangirai as the CEO to unmask the true nature of
the regime to Mugabe who will no doubt also benefit from knowing the
squandered opportunities resulting from a government that over the years
lost touch with the ordinary citizen.

It was not surprising that on August 27, 2008, after opening parliament,
Mugabe acknowledged that his party was deeply split and signalled that a
ministerial purge was imminent even if no deal was struck with the
opposition. He said: "This Cabinet that I had was the worst in history. They
look at themselves. They are unreliable, but not all of them."

One could have forgiven Mugabe for saying this if he was not the chairman
and CEO of Zimbabwe Incorporated. However, what this demonstrates is that
Mugabe may actually be a victim of his own actions. By surrounding himself
with sycophants and crafty politicians, he may actually be in need of
therapy.

ZANU PF has not been able to tell Mugabe what time it is. It is now time for
the people to tell him the truth and hopefully his last defenders who may be
against the deal will no doubt be scheming on how best to derail the deal.

In most organisations, the CEO is the face of the company and given the
consensus that Zimbabwe needs a new face to lift it up to new heights,
Mugabe will increasingly find himself not relevant to the future of the
country as the truth about his administration's actions is exposed not only
to the world but to him.

The country needs to change direction and any external support will be
linked to the CEO's ability to convince both private and public sector
actors that a new dawn has arrived and there is no turning back.

Based on the above, I join many well wishers of the new Zimbabwe to embrace
this deal not only because it is the best of many possible and realistic
worse alternatives but it provides an opportunity for Mugabe to begin to
know his own party through the victims who now have a historic role to
bridge the knowledge, execution and capital gaps that confront the country.

The deal provides hope and from Monday it is up to all who mean well for the
country to play their part.

The country needs healing and its future is in the hands of those who have
the courage to look at it not as it is but as it should be.

Leaders can only inspire citizens to scale the heights and it is, therefore,
important that we do not condemn Tsvangirai to the same world of ignorance
that Mugabe has been locked in by assuming that change can only come from
the actions of state actors and not from the dreams and aspirations of
individual actors. - ZimOnline

Zimbabwe unsafe for business - World Bank

http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=4089

September 15, 2008

By Our Correspondent

HARARE - Zimbabwe is one of the worst places for doing business in the world
today according to a survey by the World Bank and World International
Finance Corporation (IFC).

According to the Doing Business 2009 report released this week, Zimbabwe
currently experiences an unstable economic environment characterised by high
inflation, shortage of foreign currency, multiple pricing, declining
investor confidence and production, international isolation and persistent
water and electricity shortages was ranked number 158 out of the 181
countries surveyed.

"In Zimbabwe a severe administrative backlog has substantially increased the
cost of procedures relating to construction permits and led to delays
averaging 474 days for approvals," the report said.

Doing Business ranks economies based on 10 indicators of business regulation
that track the time and cost to meet government requirements in starting and
operating a business, trading across borders, paying taxes, and closing a
business.

The rankings however do not reflect such areas as macroeconomic policy,
quality of infrastructure, currency volatility, investor perceptions, or
crime rates.

Doing Business 2009 ranked 181 economies on the overall ease of doing
business. The top 25 are, in order of performance, Singapore, New Zealand,
the United States, China, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada,
Australia, Norway, Iceland, Japan, Thailand, Finland, Georgia, Saudi Arabia,
Sweden, Bahrain, Belgium, Malaysia, Switzerland, Estonia, Korea, Mauritius,
and Germany.

If there is no long term economic solution in place, Zimbabwean customers
eating at restaurants would end up paying the price posted on a blackboard
when they had finished dessert, not the price quoted when they sat down, the
report remarks.

Inflation (11, 2 million percent) has been eating away at any form of
investment linked to nominal value.

Monetary authorities also seem to be fighting a losing battle against the
long-term battle with 'insurgents' and suicide bombers in the form of price
distortions, reduced productivity, negative growth, high money supply growth
and weakening parallel market exchange rates.

According to the report, Africa had a record year for regulatory reforms
that make it easier to do business, with 28 countries completing 58 reforms,
the sixth in an annual series of reports published by IFC and the World
Bank. Three of the world's top 10 reformers of business regulations are in
Africa this year: Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Botswana.

"With more reforms of business regulations in Africa than in any previous
year, we are seeing many countries get inspiration from their neighbours
about how to reform," said Sabine Hertveldt, a co-author of the report.
"Increasingly, countries in the region are committing to reform agendas that
make it easier to do business."

Among regions, Eastern Europe and Central Asia led in reforms of business
regulation for a fifth consecutive year, with more than 90 percent of its
countries making improvements. The top 10 are, in order, Azerbaijan,
Albania, the Kyrgyz Republic, Belarus, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Botswana,
Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Egypt. Singapore leads the global
rankings on the overall regulatory ease of doing business for a third
consecutive year. New Zealand is runner-up, and the United States third.
Bahrain and Mauritius join the ranks of the top 25 this year.

"Economies need rules that are efficient, easy to use, and accessible to all
who have to use them. Otherwise, businesses get trapped in the unregulated,
informal economy, where they have less access to finance and hire fewer
workers, and where workers lack the protection of labor law," said Michael
Klein, World Bank/IFC Vice President for Financial and Private Sector
Development.

"Doing Business encourages good rules, and good rules are a better basis for
healthy business than 'who you know,'" he added.

For close to eight years, Zimbabwe's economy and quality of life have been
in slow, uninterrupted decline. They are still declining this year, people
there say, with one notable difference: The pace is no longer so slow.

Indeed, Zimbabwe's economic descent has picked up so much speed that
President Robert Mugabe, the nation's ruler for the past 28 years, has lost
so much support.

In recent weeks the national power authority has warned of a possible
collapse of electricity supplies.

A breakdown in water treatment has set off a new outbreak of cholera in the
capital, Harare.

Lift exchange restrictions - Harare stores

Business Report

September 15, 2008

By Tom Robbins

Cape Town - Lifting foreign exchange restrictions on Zimbabwean
retailers would enable Massmart to stock up its two big-box Makro stores
there, chief executive Grant Pattison said on Friday.

Retailers and analysts agreed that lifting import restrictions
on raw materials and finished goods, thus filling up store shelves again,
would be the first sign that a political deal was delivering a real
improvement in the retail environment.

Despite the erosion of Zimbabwean consumer purchasing power by
inflation, currently at more than 11 million percent, supply cannot meet
demand.

Store expansion in the shrinking economy was not on the agenda
for now, participants said last week.

Pattison said Massmart would be able to normalise stock levels
within months at its stores, which were still
breaking even but selling significantly less than the total R500
million in annual sales achieved by outlets of a similar size in South
Africa.

But to gain better access to foreign exchange, multilateral
finance organisations would likely have to provide financial support to the
country, he said.

Pattison said his initial thoughts were that any political
settlement in Zimbabwe would improve the business climate there, but by how
much remained an unanswered question.

"The country has in effect had no government since the election
and any government will be better."

After President Robert Mugabe's ruling party lost control of
parliament in the March election, some analysts
had high hopes that donor countries would rapidly offer
significant financial assistance.

This would alleviate rising government debt and ease foreign
exchange restrictions.

Similarly, there were hopes that a presidency under opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai would reduce government spending and that the two
moves would curb inflation.

But Investec Africa Fund portfolio manager Roelof Horne told
Reuters that last week's power sharing deal would likely result in less
Western generosity and less enthusiastic cuts in government spending than a
complete transfer of power.

Nothando Ndebele, a portfolio manager at Renaissance Specialist
Fund Managers, said the first South African retailers to benefit from a deal
leading to the economy's stabilisation would be those selling basic
necessities, such as Pick n Pay, Shoprite and Massmart.

But she cautioned that even if foreign exchange were to become
more freely available to retailers and allow them to stock up stores at
normal levels again, it would take time for spending power and consumer
confidence to return.

Zimbabwean authorities would have to take harsh measures to curb
rampant inflation, such as raising interest rates and cutting back on
government spending.

"This could result in more consumer pain in the short term,"
said Ndebele.

An immediate opportunity for grocery retailers would be to take
back market share from the black market, which had mushroomed as a result of
foreign exchange limitations. If the recovery were sustained, these grocers
would be able to use existing footholds to expand, followed by an
improvement in selling discretionary goods such as clothing.

Pep commercial director Louis Brand agreed that the biggest
challenge because of foreign exchange restrictions was to keep shelves
stocked, but he said Pep would remain cautious until "one sees the agreement
on paper".

Pep has a 40 percent stake in 200-store clothing retailer Power
Sales, which made a "small" profit.

Rebuilding of economy will take time - PPC

Business Report

September 15, 2008

By Roy Cokayne

Pretoria - The rebuilding of Zimbabwe's economy will be a long process,
according to Pretoria Portland Cement (PPC), the listed cement and lime
producer.

"I don't think it [the rebuilding] is going to happen overnight," John
Gomersall, the chief executive, said on Friday. "Mozambique provides a good
example. In 1996 they had new elections and the war ended, but it's taken .
until now, a period of 12 years, for cement demand to get back to 80 percent
of what it was in 1976, when the war broke out."

He said Zimbabwe needed an economic and fiscal plan and rescue package,
because it could not survive with inflation running at millions of
percentage points.

The first step to rebuilding the economy was to have a stable currency. This
would require a World Bank or International Monetary Fund credit line to
underpin the currency, because the country had no foreign currency reserves.

A new Zimbabwean currency linked to either the rand or the dollar would also
have to be introduced, he said.

Gomersall added that there was virtually no building in Zimbabwe at the
moment in the major centres. Nor were there even any signs of low-level
construction in the rural areas.

However, Gomersall was "hopeful and positive" about Zimbabwe and looked
forward to a long and strong recovery.

Porthold, PPC's wholly owned Zimbabwean unit, was previously owned by Anglo
American Zimbabwe. PPC acquired it in September 2001 for $54 million (R429
million at current rates).

Gomersall said at the time that the deal was a strategic move to expand PPC's
regional footprint. PPC believed Zimbabwe's economy would recover in the
medium term.

NGOs body rules out immediate end to Zim's woes

http://www.zimonline.co.za/

     

by Nokuthula Sibanda Monday 15 September 2008

HARARE - The National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (NANGO)
has ruled out an immediate end to the country's mounting political and
humanitarian woes despite a power sharing deal brokered by President Thabo
Mbeki last week.

In a statement, NANGO said the power sharing deal reached between President
Robert Mugabe and the two formations of the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) was a flawed and elitist pact that may yet fail to
address the needs of ordinary Zimbabweans.

"It is NANGO's considered view that a Government of National Unity founded
upon an elitist power-sharing agreement is no guarantee that the
humanitarian and other needs of the people of Zimbabwe will be addressed and
healed," NANGO said in a  statement.

"In light of this (agreement) NANGO will continue to rally its membership
and broader civil society to press for structural reforms in pursuit of
constitutionalism, improved social service delivery, transitional justice
and adherence to international standards and norms of rule of law, respect
for human rights and good governance.

The NANGO, which represents more than 1 000 NGOs operating in Zimbabwe said
it hoped the agreement would at least provide an environment that would in
the interim ensure the rule of law as well as allow for conducive
environment for civic bodies to carry out humanitarian, civic education and
developmental programmes without undue restraint.

Mugabe, opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara will sign
the power-sharing agreement in front of African leaders today. Details of
the agreement are set to be released today after the singing ceremony. -
ZimOnline

Zimbabwe now needs large investment

Business Report

Investors will bite only if they view the settlement as credible - Drafting
of a new constitution critical
September 15, 2008

By Ethel Hazelhurst

Johannesburg - Zimbabwe needed a massive and immediate injection of funds
from abroad to revive its economy, but how soon investment would begin
flowing in would depend on whether investors saw the settlement brokered
last week by President Thabo Mbeki as credible, analysts said on Friday.

John Robertson, an independent Zimbabwean economist, estimated that about
US$15 billion (R120 billion) was needed to restore the country's devastated
industries as well as its economic infrastructure.

Possible grant donors or providers of concessionary loans are multilateral
lending agencies as well as the Southern African Development Community, the
EU and the US. But private investment capital will also be essential.

Dianna Games, the chief executive of Africa@Work, estimated that Zimbabwe's
manufacturing sector was operating at between 25 percent and 30 percent of
its capacity. She said the country urgently needed to be recapitalised and
predicted it could be a target for emerging market funds.

If a credible government were installed, the economy, which had been
shrinking for seven years, could start to turn around within a few months
and go on to stage a broadbased economic recovery, "led by manufacturing and
infrastructural spend", according to Goolam Ballim, the chief economist at
Standard Bank.

However, the damage to the country's agricultural sector, particularly the
beef industry, could take up to 15 years to repair, according to Robertson.

"It takes time to restock herds and reintroduce skills," he said.

The new government will have to take emergency action to halt inflation.
Despite draconian efforts to curb prices, inflation was 52 million percent,
Robertson said. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe put June inflation at 11.26
million percent.

Sean Gammon, an analyst at Imara Asset Management, said: "The
depoliticisation of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is vital." He said the
government would have to stop printing money to meet its needs.

While a halt to printing money was the first move towards eliminating
hyperinflation, analysts said the government would have to move quickly to
restore the country's productive capacity.

Ballim said the key to a full recovery was a constitution that honoured
private property rights, in the broadest sense of the word - "the right to a
fair return on capital".

Zimbabwe's latest bout of economic troubles was triggered by land invasions
that started in February 2000 and displaced commercial farmers, cutting the
domestic food supply and depriving the country of its main source of foreign
exchange earnings.

The economic decline has accelerated over the past two years, as price
controls drove food from the shelves. So the new constitution, which has
still to be written, is critical, as are the terms of the agreement to be
signed today by Robert Mugabe, who has been president for 28 years, and
Morgan Tsvangirai, whose Movement for Democratic
Change won the election.

Ballim said the country still had "robust institutions", such as the ability
to collect revenue to fund expenditure.

Stephen Gelb, the executive director of the Edge Institute, said: "A lot of
South African companies have warehoused or written off investments and would
be prepared to resuscitate them if the economic climate were to improve."

The benefits to neighbouring countries of a Zimbabwean settlement would be
enormous.

Games said: "The problems in that country have had a serious effect on
regional trade."

However, the problems relating to Zimbabwe's disintegration go further, as
refugees flooded over its borders to seek work elsewhere.

In the run-up to the news of an agreement, the Zimbabwean dollar, trading on
the parallel (black) market, collapsed to Z$30 000 to $1 on Friday, from Z$7
500 a week earlier, according to Ballim.

Power-sharing bad for Africa, says Kriegler

http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke

By FRED OLUOCH
Posted Saturday, September 13 2008 at 14:29

The power-sharing deal between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai in
Zimbabwe has kicked off a raging debate about the impact of hurriedly
negotiated power sharing arrangements on democracy in Africa.

The Zimbabwe deal came hot on the heels of a similar arrangement in Kenya
where President Mwai Kibaki agreed to share power with opposition leader
Raila Odinga, following the disputed December 27 general elections.

Several questions arise over this emerging trend: Are African politicians
retreating from the path to democracy and multi-partyism which they fought
for in the early 1990s and reverting to this monolithic arrangements in the
name of power-sharing coalitions?

Analysts are warning that the Kenyan and Zimbabwean examples could
discourage entrenched African leaders some incumbent presidents in Africa
from accepting free and fair elections in the hope of sharing power with
their opponents.

Although power-sharing pacts are signed in the name of national
reconciliation, the impact has been to undermine the functioning of
parliamentary opposition parties on the continent.

This same debate has been raging in Uganda, where immediately after Mwai
Kibaki and Raila Odinga signed the power sharing accord in February,
opponents of President Yoweri Museveni started putting pressure on the
government to follow the Kenyan example and to adopt a more inclusive
administration in ostensibly to bring about harmony between the government
and the opposition.

In a conversation with The EastAfrican, South African retired judge, Johann
Kriegler - who is leading an independent commission investigating the
integrity of Kenya's 2007 elections - maintained that the trend towards
power sharing pacts was dangerous arguing that competitive elections, though
costly, are cheaper than civil war.

"The winner-take-all nature of politics in sub-Saharan Africa makes
elections more volatile, bitter and intensive, with candidates tending to
incline towards shortcuts, violence, intimidation and bribery. But to say
that coalition governments are a better option, is like saying that a cow
has mastitis so we better shoot it to cure it," said Kriegler.

He added that Africa must come to terms with the fact that the only way to
change governments without bloodshed, is through elections.

In Kenya, the post-election crisis would appear to have convinced the
political elite that the way out of the winner-take-all mentality is a new
constitutional dispensation that promotes the practices of inclusion.

In Burundi, there is pressure on President Pierre Nkurunzinza to incorporate
the Palepehutu-FNL rebels into the government, as a way of ensuring that the
cease-fire agreement signed in June, holds till the 2010 elections.

In the past, power-sharing arrangements in Africa were confined to countries
that has experienced civil war and were were part of cease-fire
arrangements.

A recent example is that of the Democratic Republic of Congo between Joseph
Kabila and former rebel chiefs Jean Pierre Bemba.

Another is that of Sudan where the former rebels of the Sudanese People's
Liberation Movement (SPLM) agreed to form a government of national unity
with the government in Khartoum.

But the Kenyan and Zimbabwe examples stand out as those of recalcitrant
incumbents who are not willing to give up power.

However, the main cause of worry is that the power-sharing trend could
follow the scenario of post-independent Africa, where founding presidents
adopted the "one country one party" chorus that later plunged virtually the
entire continent under dictatorship.

The clamour for multi-party democracy in Africa started like a wave in 1989,
following the end of the Cold War. Power-sharing as a political solution
could just follow the same path.

Dr Ben Sihanya, a Constitutional Law lecturer at the University of Nairobi,
noted that it is worrying that Africa seems to be running away from free and
competitive elections in what he call the Kibaki/Mugabe principle.

"It is worrying that one day we could be confounded by an incumbent who will
cling to power with the knowledge that he could still be the chief executive
and at worst, share power. It is also worrying that the international
community is warming up to the idea on the premise that opposition is a
luxury Africans cannot afford in such circumstances," said Dr Sihanya.

But judge Kriegler would hear none of it, arguing that elections in Africa
are hard to live with but much worse to live without. He maintains that
Africa must make multiparty democracy work because it is a reality.

"If the people are entitled to have a say in the government of their
country, they have got to have a say in the choice of that government. The
only way to keep governments on their toes, it is for people to have the
right to tell the government, 'get out, we have had enough of you.'"

Judge Kriegler has extensive experience in African affairs having planned
and supervised elections in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Sudan, besides being
part an election Commission of Inquiry in Uganda. He has also lectured in
Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia.

He emphasises that when incumbents steal elections or try to disqualify
their most likely opponent on bogus grounds such as that his grandfather was
not born in the country, it is the people who suffer.

"Most people would wrongly believe that you are cooking your opponent. But
the victims of that fraud are the citizens, who are entitled to a fair,
informed choice of government," he said.

He is of the opinion that Africans, just like any other people, have
inherent human dignity that entitles them to have a say in the governance of
their countries as enshrined in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights
which was also borrowed by the African Union Constitutive Act.

Zimbabwe deal to open investment flow

Business Report

New laws expected to ease indigenisation rule - Mineral resources especially
attractive to new funders
September 15, 2008

By Justin Brown

Johannesburg - Billions of rands in investment could flow into Zimbabwe's
economy, especially in the mineral resources sector, after the political
settlement reached last week between Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) and President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF.

Eddie Cross, the MDC policy co-ordinator, said on Friday that the settlement
with Zanu-PF would have a "dramatic
impact" on Zimbabwe's economy and mining sector.

A new cabinet will be announced this week. Cross indicated that the new
cabinet would seek to do away with legislation passed by the previous
government, particularly the law that required 51 percent of all major
companies in Zimbabwe be sold to indigenous Zimbabweans.

"We don't intend to maintain that position in any shape or form. That will
be subject to immediate review. We plan to revise the policy for mining so
as to make it more investor friendly. It is a high priority for us to get
all mining projects . being planned under way."

Although the MDC supported indigenisation in some form, "the kind of
indigenisation proposed by the Zimbabwe government is absolutely not
acceptable", Cross said. This point had been made by investors, including
newcomers China and India.

Cross said: "We will still seek Zimbabwean participation in major parts of
the economy, but it is going to be investor friendly."

The MDC was unlikely to prescribe in law a level of indigenisation, he said.
Cross predicted massive new investment in the mining industry. "Already
investment . is coming in at about $50 million [R402 million at current
exchange rate] a month over the last year. I would expect that to treble
almost immediately." He mentioned "numerous major mining projects on the
boards".

Sean Gammon, an analyst at Imara Edwards Securities, said: "The key issue
will be the ability of the parties to formulate, agree and execute policy,
and in this light the practical interaction between Mugabe, as head of
cabinet, and Tsvangirai, as head of the council of ministers, is core.

"On paper this looks like a cumbersome structure that could, if the parties
so choose, result in stultification of the reforms so clearly needed.

"The agreement does, however, provide an impasse to the political paralysis
of the last six months, and a prospect of arrest of the economic decline of
the last (or was it a lost?) decade," Gammon said.

He added that the priority would be to address economic problems and to
develop the new constitution.

Quoting the Zimbabwean media, Gammon said President Thabo Mbeki had
negotiated $1 billion of funding from the African Development Bank for the
resuscitation of Zimbabwe's economy.

He said the country could attract up to $6 billion in investment over five
years and donor support of between $3 billion and $5 billion.

Dan Simelane, the Africa development manager at African Rainbow Minerals
(ARM), said the settlement was a "very positive" development. ARM, which
earlier this year registered a company in Zimbabwe, was looking at mining
assets there, including platinum group metals, coal, chrome and iron ore.

David Brown, the Impala Platinum chief executive, and Nick Bias, an Aquarius
Platinum spokesperson, both said
it was too early to comment on the settlement agreement.

Pranill Ramchander, a spokesperson for Anglo American, declined to comment
on the settlement.

Anglo Platinum, of which Anglo owns more than 75 percent, owns the Unki
platinum project in Zimbabwe.

SADC court reserves judgment on Zim farmers' case

http://www.zimonline.co.za/

     

by Simplicious Chirinda Monday 15 September 2008

HARARE - The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal on
Thursday reserved judgment on an application by a group of Zimbabwean white
farmers against the seizure of their land by President Robert Mugabe's
government, a senior official with the court said.

Tribunal Registrar, David Mkandawire told Zimonline that the court was
adjourned for judgment to study objections from the Zimbabwean government
lawyers but did not say when exactly the judgment would be delivered.

"The matter was heard with objections from the Zimbabwean government lawyers
but the matter was reserved for final ruling by the judges," said Mkandawire
speaking from Windhoek. "I will have to consult on the date but it's most
likely to be next week."

The regional court had temporarily barred the Harare government from
confiscating land belonging to 77 white farmers pending the outcome of an
application by the farmers challenging the legality of Mugabe's programme to
seize white-owned land for redistribution to landless blacks.

The white farmers wanted the Tribunal to declare Mugabe's controversial land
reform programme racist and illegal under the SADC Treaty.

Article 6 of the regional treaty bars member states from discriminating
against any person on the grounds of gender, religion, race, ethnic origin
and culture.

A ruling declaring land reform illegal would have far reaching consequences
for Mugabe's government, opening the floodgates to thousands of claims of
damages by dispossessed white farmers.

Such a ruling could also set the Harare government on a collision course
with its SADC allies particularly if it - as it has always done with court
rulings against its land reforms - refuses to abide by an unfavourable
Tribunal judgment.

Farm seizures are blamed for plunging Zimbabwe into severe food shortages
after the government displaced established white commercial farmers and
replaced them with either incompetent or inadequately funded black
farmers. - ZimOnline

Zim expats scoff at settlement

The Sowetan

15 September 2008
Namhla Tshisela

Zimbabweans living in Johannesburg say the only acceptable deal in their
country is for President Robert Mugabe to go.

Those Sowetan spoke to yesterday scoffed at the power-sharing deal between
Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Speaking at the Glenanda temporary shelter for displaced victims of
xenophobia in southern Johannesburg, Meshack Sidhuna, 26, said he would
return to Zimbabwe when the currency regained its strength.

"Things will change only when Mugabe is removed from power," Sidhuna said.

"Only then will our money be worth anything and will our people get jobs,
fuel and food."

Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation rate, said to be 11,2million
percent.

Mpumelelo Ndlovu of Yeoville was sceptical of Mugabe's motives.

"Maybe Mugabe realised that his reign was coming to an end and that people
were eventually going to overthrow him," Ndlovu said. "The country is in a
mess and transforming it will take a long time."

Bongani Ndlovu said Mugabe and Tsvangirai could never be equal. He said the
opposition leader would be a lame duck leader.

" Nothing will change as long as Mugabe is still in power," he said.

Mlilo Chauke was optimistic that the agreement would bring welcome change to
the country.

"If both parties work together the economy will grow and sanctions will be
lifted," Chauke said.

"I will only go back when basic foodstuffs such as cooking oil and bread are
freely available."

Vilified at home and abroad, Thabo Mbeki may be missed when he is gone

The Times
September 15, 2008

Analysis: Jonathan Clayton
President Thabo Mbeki, whose slow but persistent efforts to negotiate a deal
in Zimbabwe have brought him little but political brickbats, could be
forgiven for feeling hard done by at today's ceremony.

At the moment of his greatest diplomatic triumph, a man often accused of
being more interested in foreign than domestic affairs faces political ruin
at home.

Last week's decision by a High Court judge to dismiss 16 charges of
corruption, fraud and racketeering against Jacob Zuma, his great political
rival, has left Mr Mbeki in the firing line.

The judge effectively agreed that Mr Zuma had been the target of a
Mbeki-inspired political conspiracy and accused the President of abuse of
power.

Mr Mbeki, who was already weakened when Mr Zuma ousted him from the
leadership of the ruling African National Congress last December, now faces
calls to step down before the end of his second term in April 2009 or face a
vote of no confidence in the National Assembly, and possibly even
impeachment.
A scholarly, complex man, given to citing Shakespeare, Mr Mbeki will be very
much aware of Enoch Powell's dictum that "all political careers end in
failure".

He will feel he can blame his own demise on two very different Africans -
the charismatic grassroots hero of the township poor, Mr Zuma, and the
Marxist loner turned guerrilla leader, Robert Mugabe.

For years Mr Mugabe treated his neighbour's tireless interventions with
contempt. He broke one commitment after another, leaving Mr Mbeki a laughing
stock to many on his continent. Even Mr Zuma got in on the act. After he was
elected ANC president, he moved the party away from his ANC Government's
line by suggesting he would take a much tougher stance on Zimbabwe.

The promised policy change delighted Western countries, which reconsidered
their initial unease at the prospect of a Zuma presidency. Mr Mbeki stayed
silent, honouring a commitment he made to Mr Mugabe not to make public any
details of talks.

Ironically Mr Mbeki could be the person to ensure today's agreement finally
delivers good governance for Zimbabwe. He has insisted the accord includes a
monitoring group, made up of representatives from countries in the Southern
Africa Development Community.

Without Mr Mbeki's presence, that group could become just another toothless
diplomatic initiative. It would be a supreme irony if Mr Mbeki has to sit in
the political wilderness and listen to Western states lamenting his absence
from the diplomatic playing field.