Zimbabwe rivals sign draft amendment Bill

Zimbabwe’s rival political parties on Thursday signed a draft constitutional amendment Bill that – once passed by Parliament – will allow President Robert Mugabe to form a new unity government outlined under a September power-sharing deal.

But sources, who were involved in the inter-party talks, were quick to point out that agreement on Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill No. 19 did not mean a power-sharing government will be in place soon, especially because a host of issues that the Morgan Tsvangirai-led opposition MDC formation had raised were not addressed.

Analysts see a unity government as best placed to tackle a severe economic crisis ravaging Zimbabwe and seen in the world’s highest inflation rate of 231 million percent, acute shortages of food and basic commodities.

“The night is still very young on this thing (unity government),” said a source from the Tsvangirai MDC, who did not want to be named because he did not have permission from the party to discuss the matter with the Press.

“We signed the draft bill but that does not mean we gave commitment to join the unity government before all these other equally important issues are resolved,” the opposition official added.

Tsvangirai’s party, which holds the most seats in Parliament and could very easily block passage of Amendment 19, had wanted the talks to also discuss equitable sharing of key ministerial posts, distribution of gubernatorial posts, ambassadorships and other top government posts.

But negotiators from Mugabe’s ruling ZANU PF party and the other MDC formation led by Arthur Mutambara declined to discuss these issues saying they had instructions from their principals to only discuss the draft constitutional Bill.

In addition, ZANU PF and the smaller MDC formation noted that the contentious issue of control of the home affairs ministry that Tsvangirai’s party wanted discussed had already been resolved by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and therefore could not be reopened.

“Issues that SADC has dealt with already like the ministry of home affairs should be left to be resolved by the regional body,” said a source from the Mutambara-led MDC formation, who spoke on condition he was not named.

The SADC, which tasked former South African President Thabo Mbeki to mediate in Zimbabwe and is the guarantor to the power-sharing deal, three weeks ago ruled that MDC Tsvangirai and ZANU PF jointly control the ministry of home affairs and ordered the rivals to immediately form a unity government.

But the MDC – which insists it should control the home affairs ministry that oversees the police after ZANU PF retained control of the army – rejected the ruling and accused the SADC of siding with Mugabe.

Tsvangirai on Wednesday called for Mbeki’s recusal as mediator, accusing the ex-South African leader of incompetence as a mediator and of bias in favour of Mugabe.

The opposition leader said in statement that his party would no longer participate in the negotiations officially until Mbeki was removed by SADC as mediator, adding his MDC’s negotiator was remaining in talks on an “without prejudice basis”.

Tsvangirai was travelling to north Africa last night and could not be reached for comment on Amendment 19. But his representative in the negotiations signed up all the agreed details of the constitutional amendment yesterday.

However Tsvangirai, Mugabe or Mutambara can still reject the signed Bill or seek changes to or deletion of some of its clauses despite the fact that they authorised their representatives to sign up on Thursday.

According to our sources, agreement on Amendment 19 was only possible after negotiators agreed to stick to the principles outlined in the September 15 political agreement and to exclude all clauses and provisions that were not in the accord but were contained in two conflicting drafts that had been submitted by ZANU PF and MDC-T.

For example, ZANU PF’s proposal that Mugabe be given powers to dissolve the unity government in the constitutional amendment was thrown away on the basis that it was not part of the September 15 unity agreement.

Also rejected were proposals by MDC-T to give more powers to the office of prime minister that will be held by its leader and to make the proposed council of ministers more powerful than Cabinet.

Negotiators, who began leaving South Africa after concluding talks yesterday, also agreed to reinstate the original agreement that was signed privately by their principals on September 11 and to throw away a version of the agreement that was fraudulently altered by ZANU PF and given to political leaders to sign on September 15.

“We were able to reconcile many of the differences between MDC-T and ZANU PF on the details of the constitutional amendment very easily because we agreed to just stick to the outline of the actual unity agreement,” said one negotiator.

Meanwhile Mugabe is expected to proceed with gazetting the constitutional amendment after which it will be tabled in Parliament for approval to give legal force to an historic power-sharing agreement that has however looked likely to collapse as parties wrangle over its implementation. – ZimOnline