Zimbabwe opposition fracturing over transitional deal?

Caption: Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai rejected a proposed deal, but some NGOs believe a politically neutral figure should head any transitional government

Talks aimed at forming a transitional authority in Zimbabwe have been suspended pending the result of ongoing talks between South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki and African Union Commission Chairman Jean Ping in Pretoria today. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change is demanding an AU envoy to mediate alongside Mbeki whom it distrusts to be impartial.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai this week declined to sign a provisional agreement that had reportedly been accepted by ZANU-PF and a rival MDC faction headed by Arthur Mutambara. The MDC believes it will get a better deal if an AU envoy is engaged to balance Mbeki’s bias towards ZANU-PF leader Robert Mugabe.

Zimbabwe’s civil society organizations are calling for a “people-driven” transitional authority headed by a politically neutral figure as a way out of the current impasse. A statement by several leading non-governmental organizations rejects a government led by either Tsvangirai or Mugabe.

“We want a neutral person,” said Lovemore Madhuku, head of the National Constitutional Assembly, an NGO that promotes constitutional reform. A transitional authority would have a mandate to draft a new constitution prior to a new presidential election, but “such an arrangement must not be headed by a person from ZANU-PF or the MDC”.

The statement came at a sensitive time for the MDC and could prove embarrassing for Tsvangirai. The NGO group includes Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, the Zimbabwe National Students’ Union, and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions – from which Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change emerged in 1999.

The NGOs wanted “people-driven constitutional development”, the NCA’s Earnest Mudzengi yesterday told a Washington, DC, meeting. That required “broad-based consultation with interest groups such as women, labor, churches, and media” and ratification in a national referendum.

“Things are getting back to normal in some areas,” said Jestina Mukoko, of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, one of several activists speaking by videoconference from Johannesburg. But opposition activists are still being attacked, she said, particularly in Midlands province. Police in Gweru, the provincial capital, today raided the offices of the National Association of Non-Governmental Organizations. The organization’s provincial chairman was arrested and files on the victims of political violence were confiscated.

Prior to free and fair elections, state institutions such as the judiciary, police, security services, and welfare agencies must be depoliticized and reformed, Rindai Chipfunde-Vava, director of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, told the DC event, organized by Freedom House.

Otto Saki, of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, said the NGOs were “confident that our position will be taken seriously.” But MDC activists reacted angrily to the statement, describing it as a stab in the back and a propaganda boost to the Mugabe regime.

MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa dismissed the proposal as unrealistic. “Why would they need a neutral person, who was not voted for by the people, to be in charge, when facts are that the people of Zimbabwe made a choice on March 29 in a legitimate election?”

South African president Thabo Mbeki, the Southern African Development Community’s mediator, is reportedly close to finalizing a negotiated settlement. The compromise is expected to produce a presidency with diminished powers and an executive prime minister. Both factions of the MDC – Tsvangirai’s group and the minority Mutambara faction – would receive senior leadership positions.

The MDC is wary of repeating the experience of ZAPU, ZANU-PF’s former partner in the liberation movement. It entered a national unity government in the early 1980s after internecine violence claimed up to 20,000 lives. ZAPU leader Joshua Nkomo was made interior minister but was effectively neutered by Mugabe and his party dissipated.

“We all learn from history and try to avoid the pitfalls that affected ZAPU,” said Eldred Masunungure of the University of Zimbabwe. “[The MDC] suspect that there may be something up the sleeves of ZANU-PF so they want to exercise extreme caution rather than plunge into negotiations that may not give them favorable results.”