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 THE principals in the inclusive government, President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara met on Friday for nearly seven hours and agreed on Commissions, whose members will be sworn in this week, The Standard can report.
The chairs of two of the Commissions — the Electoral and the Human Rights — were yesterday named as Justice Simpson Mtambanengwe and Professor Reg Austin respectively.
Justice Mtambanengwe was seconded to the Namibian bench in 1994 and served for 12 years as a High Court judge, Acting Chief Justice of Namibia and chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Namibia.
Professor Austin served as the UN Chief Electoral Officer in Cambodia and Afghanistan. Between 2005 and early 2008 he undertook electoral and governance related work as an independent consultant with the UN and other agencies, in Cambodia, the Solomon Islands, Ghana and Timor Leste.
Justice Mtambanengwe, and Professor Austin were actively involved with the political and armed struggle of the Zimbabwean nationalist movement during the 1960s and 1970s before Zimbabwe became independent. These commissions are critical in laying the groundwork for next year’s elections.
In an interview yesterday, Tsvangirai said the meeting of the leadership on Friday provided a “candid evaluation” of the Global Political Agreement and the fragile government.
“We all think there should be greater pace on the constitution-making, National Healing and setting up of independent commissions,” he said describing as “cautiously optimistic” their assessment of the performance of the Government of National Unity.
It was important, he said, to confound the sceptics. During his attendance and participation at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, world business leaderssought assurances that Zimbabwe was on the road to recovery.
“I emphasised that the country is on the road to recovery and there is need to reward it on the progress that has been made,” he said.
On ongoing farm invasions, he said Friday’s meeting had agreed that no farmer should be removed from his land until all crops have been harvested.
An audit of the land reform due to commence this week would proceed because the government wants to move away from land disruptions to productivity and security of tenure.
He described as “sabre-rattling”, “hot air” and “counter-productive” recent attacks on him and the MDC-T and dismissed suggestions from Zanu PF that his party bears responsibility for the removal of targeted sanctions against the leadership of President Robert Mugabe’s party and its senior officials by the Europe and the US.
“For me personally and the MDC-T, we cannot accept liability for a policy that has been imposed by other countries.”
He said what was critical was to ensure that hope is kept alive and the country does not slide back “because we have the mandate of the people to deliver. People have expectations”
Asked how this was possible when there were reports of disruptions to activities of the constitution-making process by Zanu PF supporters, the Prime Minister said during the meeting of the National Security Council which also took place on Friday it had been “emphasised” to the security sector that there should be no interference or hindrance.
In an earlier interview with VOA, the Prime Minister said that early elections could be the only way to solve the country’s political problems.
In an interview he said talks about fully implementing the agreement that brought about Zimbabwe’s unity government, set to resume Monday, are unlikely to resolve the outstanding issues.
“There is going to be a deadlock, and I have said to our party representative that let’s finalise this, let’s not procrastinate by saying we are going to have another meeting. Let’s see what we have agreed and what we have not agreed,” said Tsvangirai. “Therefore we are able to say to President Zuma and Sadc that Zanu PF is refusing to implement and therefore as far as we are concerned the only solution is that let’s agree on a road map to an election.”
Zuma is mandated by the Southern African Development Community with facilitating talks on the implementation of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) which brought about Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government. Sadc is a guarantor of the deal along with the African Union and South Africa.
Tsvangirai told VOA that the political and legal environment will have to change before any further poll is conducted in Zimbabwe.
“We cannot go into an election under the same conditions. It will not be an election it will be war as usual,” he said. “Remove all the intimidation, all the violence we can undertake an election in this country and beat Zanu PF. What we want is a new constitution. Yes, there have been some delays, but I think that the consultation will be in line for us to have a referendum by November or October. Then we can decide the date of election next year.”
BY OUR STAFF/VOA
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