The 15-nation Southern African Development Community has called for a regional summit to resolve the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe. The summit could be held as early as this week as the country’s neighbors try to persuade President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF to honor the recent power-sharing accord signed with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

The allocation of the interior ministry, which oversees the police, was the main sticking point in allocating cabinet portfolios. But ZANU-PF is also keen to hold on to key economic posts as it believes it can appeal to Russian and Chinese investors to take advantage of the country’s rich mineral wealth, including lucrative nickel and platinum concessions.

Zimbabwean democrats and civil society activists are increasingly frustrated at what they perceive to be international disinterest in the stalemate and the looming humanitarian crisis. One activist quoted in Jon Lee Anderson’s must-read Letter from Zimbabwe in the New Yorker pleads for Western intervention:

“It’s the U.S.’s responsibility, because it is democratic, and is the most powerful country in the world,” Mudzuri said. “Don’t expect Russia and China to do it, because they are not democratic, and, meanwhile, wherever there is a dictatorship, and natural resources, they will loot our countries.”

University of Zimbabwe political science professor Eldred Masungure is more optimistic, arguing that although the process would take time, the end result is inevitable. “The reality in Zimbabwe is that there is political transition … from authoritarianism to democracy,” he argues. “There is bound to be resistance from some quarters but that will end. This is beyond the political operators. It is not stoppable.”

Zimbabwe's generals threatened to take the country down to the level of Somalia, said MDC senator David Coltart

A stalemate over the allocation of Cabinet portfolios is threatening to undermine the fragile power-sharing deal reached last week between Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF, and Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Fundamentally, we have a deadlock threatening the whole process, not only over the ministers but the [10 provincial] governors as well,” said Tendai Biti, MDC secretary general.

The fragility of MDC-ZANU-PF relations is evident in the fact that official state media continue to insult the MDC leadership despite prohibitions against such attacks in the accord. The abrupt resignation of South African president Thabo Mbeki, who has mediated the talks, will not help resolve the current impasse.

Democracy activists and foreign governments responded cautiously to the pact, reached after several weeks of talks. The pact is a “capitulation” by the MDC, as Tsvangirai will have only “cosmetic authority”, said Lovemore Madhuku, head of National Constitutional Assembly, a former grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy.

“The MDC must have control over key ministries responsible for restoring economic stability to Zimbabwe, facilitating the distribution of humanitarian assistance, and overseeing the country’s security and police services,” said a Freedom House statement last week. The democracy watchdog also called for transitional justice issues to be addressed, and for credible elections within two years, repeal of repressive laws, civil society involvement in constitutional revision and for monitoring parties’ compliance with the power-sharing deal.

But David Coltart, a senator affiliated with the Mutambara faction of the MDC, defended the agreement as the best possible deal in the circumstances. Opposition negotiators agreed to painful compromises because of the urgency of the humanitarian crisis and because of fears that Mugabe would be deposed by hard-line generals who would take the country “down to the level of a Somalia,” he told a Wilson Center meeting in Washington, DC. last week.

The deal entailed a “substantial transfer of power”, Coltart said, while admitting that a sizeable ZANU-PF Cabinet presence represented a “poisoned chalice” as they would do everything to sabotage genuine change.

The next three to six months will be characterized by instability, said Karen Alexander, an analyst with the Institute for Democracy in South Africa. Morgan Tsvangirai is perceived as the key to attracting Western aid and investment - “the man with the ATM card for the nation,” she told the Wilson center event. Recent events in Zimbabwe raise wider issues for African democracy, including the dangers of adversarial first-past-the-post electoral systems that generate “exclusionary” outcomes, and - as in Kenya - of accommodating post-electoral violence that subverts the democratically-expressed will of the people.

According to Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, a grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy, the fact that authority to govern derives from the will of the people means that  the power sharing deal “in itself is a negation of the very fundamental requirement that assumption of office into national political leadership must be anchored in credible electoral processes.”

The national unity government represents a subversion of the national constitution, said another NED grantee, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. “Only a Transitional Authority should be put in place with a mandate to take Zimbabwe to fresh, free and fair elections that will hopefully not be disputed by the parties. ”

The role of the international community is crucial to the new unity government’s survival, writes Knox Chitiyo. The MDC is expected to deliver on foreign investment, but the European Union, United States, World Bank and International Monetary Fund are waiting for the new government to “prove itself”. These institutions are proving reluctant to hand over the ATM card until Cabinet positions are determined.

“Every day that passes without Prime Minister [Morgan] Tsvangirai being able to point to a tangible improvement in day to day life, the more threadbare the agreement, signed just a week ago, will look,” writes Africa analyst Michael Holman. “Books and medicines, agricultural inputs and spare parts, should have been on their way to Zimbabwe within hours of the deal being signed.”

It is easy to criticise Tsvangirai’s “inconsistent and erratic leadership”, he concedes. But “the fact is western governments have been outmanoeuvred” by Mugabe. Already under fire from his ZANU-PF base for conceding too much power, Mugabe will fiercely resist efforts to unshackle the media and restore the independence of the police and judiciary.

Southern Africa analyst RW Johnson believes the crunch will come when Tsvangirai moves to replace Gideon Gono as Governor of the Reserve Bank and to professionalize the security forces, especially if invites the British Military Assistance and Training Team (BMATT), which trained Zimbabwe’s army and police after independence. BMATT’s first order of business would be to help crack down on ZANU-PF’s murderous “war vets” and Green Bomber youth league, he writes.

The next few weeks will show whether Mugabe “intends to subvert the deal now reached - or whether he will be pushed aside by a determined opposition.”

Democracy and civil society activists are unhappy that Mugabe will retain executive power under the new accord

Details are emerging of the power-sharing deal between Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF, and Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Democracy activists and foreign governments have responded cautiously.  

Reports suggest that under the accord, reached after several weeks of talks, Robert Mugabe will remain President, head of the armed forces and chair the cabinet in which his Zanu-PF party will have 15 ministers. The current two ZANU-PF vice presidents, Joseph Msika and Joyce Mujuru will stay in post.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai will become Prime minister, chair a newly-created council of ministers or national security council, and control the police force.  Tsvangirai will also have two deputies, one from ZANU-PF and the other likely to be Arthur Mutambara, the leader of a rival MDC faction. The Movement for Democratic Change will have 16 ministers, including three from the minority Mutambara faction. 

Ominously, reports suggest that Tsvangirai’s ZANU-PF deputy will be the hard-line Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former head of the country’s Central Intelligence Organization and alleged architect of the country’s post-election violence.

Details of Cabinet seats have yet to be released, but Mugabe will keep overall control, and ZANU-PF will probably maintain control of ministries covering national security. Tsvangirai is likely to become foreign affairs minister and the MDC will take control of economic affairs.

The deal will be finalized over the weekend, but democratic and civil society activists appear divided in their response. Tsvangirai today said he was “satisfied with the content of the agreement’. But while some describe the deal as a capitulation to Mugabe, others believe it is a necessary compromise given the circumstances.

“The fact that Mugabe remains in power as head of state and head of government means the MDC is the one coming into this deal as a junior partner,” said Lovemore Madhuku, head of National Constitutional Assembly. He described the pact as “capitulation” by the MDC, since Tsvangirai would have only “cosmetic authority”.

The deal is “more image management than a substantial shift in executive power,” suggests a Stratfor analysis. “Ultimately, the deal will not substantially alter Mugabe’s grip on power due to his expected continued control over the most significant Cabinet positions and ministries.”

“Given Mugabe’s control over the armed forces and a capable private militia (not to mention veto power in the country’s Senate over any untoward MDC moves in Zimbabwe’s lower house of assembly), his government will be able to contain Tsvangirai’s from several angles,” it concludes.

But some opposition figures believe that difficult compromises were necessary to end the stalemate and create the political space for a future genuine democratic transition. “We wanted a titular head of state with an executive prime minister but that did not happen,” said MDC chairman and parliamentary speaker Lovemore Moyo. “So what we got at the end of the day perhaps was probably nearly a sister-sister power-sharing.”

Other observers suggest the power-sharing deal will remain fragile given the lack of trust between the two parties. The co-existence of two centers of power could also be a recipe for political paralysis and eventual conflict.  

The deal was brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki, acting on behalf of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the mediation process was seen as a test of Africa’s ability to take ownership of its own problems. “We have seen African mediators brokering peace and stability solutions in African conflicts like in Burundi, Ivory Coast and other places. This is another example of that,” said Olmo Von Meijenfeldt an analyst from the Institute of Democracy in South Africa. “The deal will change perceptions about African-led mediation,” he believes.

Civil society groups are also concerned that the deal reportedly offers an amnesty to security services personnel responsible for violent atrocities and human rights violations. Zimbabwe’s National Association of Non Governmental Organisations yesterday called for the ‘pursuit of comprehensive justice during times of political transition’, advocating ‘retributive justice’ and ‘truth seeking’.

The proposed reconvening of Zimbabwe’s parliament will undermine already fragile talks between Zimbabwe’s ruling party and the main opposition on a power-sharing agreement, an opposition spokesman has said. The move by Robert Mugabe’s illegitimate regime is widely perceived as a crude attempt to stoke fears that it intends to backtrack on a commitment to power-sharing.

The failure of regional leaders to broker a pact means that “we are back to square one,” said an official of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. The world’s major powers are unlikely to take significant steps against Mugabe, argues Zimbabwean Peter Godwin, but Mugabe’s demise may come another way:

“How do you fight a dictatorship using democratic means?,” Morgan Tsvangirai asked me. “In Africa, they usually use the gun. We have resisted that.” The unspoken words were “so far.” Tsvangirai had gone out of his way during the campaign to give assurances that any transition would be peaceful, offering amnesty to Mugabe’s coterie and promising to make no move against their bank accounts. Times change. In Johannesburg, during the period of The Fear, a senior M.D.C. figure had offered a vision of the future. If cheated at the ballot box, he said, the M.D.C. could pull out of the political process in Zimbabwe entirely, set up a government-in-exile (possibly in Botswana), and appeal to the world for recognition as the legitimate government of Zimbabwe. And then elements within the M.D.C. would fight back, launching an armed guerrilla resistance. The senior official described all this to me as a “worst-case scenario”-but also as something for which plans were being laid.

The West should bypass South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki, widely considered to be biased against the MDC, argues one observer. It should work with “true allies of Zimbabwean democracy like Botswana and Zambia” to end Mugabe’s rule and recognize the MDC as a government in exile.

The West has generally allowed African institutions such as the AU and SADC to take the lead, as in the case of Somaliland or Liberia,” says Dave Peterson, Africa Program Director of the National Endowment for Democracy. But, he notes, “Botswana and Zambia, especially with the death of Levy Mwanawasa this week, just don’t carry the weight in the region.” He is skeptical that the MDC would form a government in exile.

Zimbabwe’s acting president Robert Mugabe will receive amnesty from prosecution and a ceremonial job-for-life as “founding president” under a draft settlement to resolve the political stasis, reports suggest. Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai would become executive prime minister.

The most contentious aspect of the draft deal is a proposed blanket amnesty for any Zimbabwean “who in the course of upholding or opposing the aims and policies of the government of Zimbabwe, Zanu-PF or either formation of the MDC, may have committed crimes within Zimbabwe”. This would give Mugabe and his senior associates immunity from prosecution for human rights abuses, and is likely to be fiercely resisted by opposition activists

Under the power-sharing deal, Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF will pick one of Tsvangirai’s two deputies who will run the strategic ministries of defense and home affairs. Other ministries would be divided equally between the two parties, with one allocated to the MDC Mutambara faction.

In order to resolve the country’s acute economic and humanitarian crises, and to reassure international donors, independent experts unaffiliated to either party will be put in charge of key ministries. These technocrats will likely go to the Ministry of Finance and Investment, and the ministries of Justice, Land Resettlement Implementation, Agriculture and State Enterprises.

According to a detailed draft of more than 50 pages, leaked to a Johannesburg newspaper, a transitional government will govern temporarily before arranging fresh elections at a date yet to be agreed. The MDC want afresh poll within 24 or 30 months, while Zanu-PF is arguing for five years. MDC leaders remain concerned at ongoing violence against their activists and supporters.

The draft will provide the agenda for a face-to-face meeting between Mugabe and Tsvangirai in Harae tomorrow that will be mediated by South African President, Thabo Mbeki. The outcome of negotiations is still uncertain and the draft could be rejected, especially since it is unclear whether the amnesty extends to those guilty of perpetrating recent atrocities.

The draft suggests the immediate dissolution of the notorious Joint Operations Command -leading military and security service figures who unleashed a campaign of violence against opposition supporters after the first round of voting in March. The JOC will be replaced by a National Security Council, overseen by the prime minister, his deputies and a cabinet minister.

Morgan Tsvangirai’s leadership of a transitional government in Zimbabwe is “non-negotiable“, his deputy Thokozani Khupe said in South Africa today. He was speaking after a meeting organized by civic groups and South Africa’s COSATU trade union federation. A coalition of Zimbabwean civic groups had earlier called for a transitional authority to be headed by a neutral figure.

While negotiations continue between Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change continue, one observer argues that miscalculation, loss of nerve and bad counsel led Tsvangirai to hand Mugabe victory on a plate. The MDC was already split going into the elections, after a breakaway faction, led by Arthur Mutambara and Welshman Ncube, based in western Zimbabwe, attracted many of the MDC’s professional supporters. Many of them had been alienated, argues Mugabe biographer Stephen Chan, by Tsvangirai’s performance.

 ”A hit-and-miss politician-capable of strokes of genius but also prone to periods of wayward and ineffectual leadership”, he is also “used to like teasing Zimbabwean intellectuals for thinking too much.” Tsvangirai showed his Machiavellian side in the late 1990s when the MDC split from the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), in which it had incubated, “just when that body was becoming the largest civil society group Zimbabwe had ever known.”

Chan concludes:

“Ironically, the real threat to [Tsvangirai's] long-term future may not come from Zanu-PF but from within his own MDC. It is here that personal and political tragedies intersect. Many within the party are disillusioned with his recent performance. It is by no means certain he will remain at the top. If there is a succession, this will involve as many factional fights within the MDC as are likely to occur in a post-Mugabe Zanu-PF.”

Caption: Intense Western pressure compelled Thabo Mbeki to tell Robert Mugabe that his days in office are numbered.

The nominal president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, has been told to cede power or face prosecution in the International Criminal Court. The most widely touted scenario is that current talks between Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change will produce a settlement in which Mugabe remains a titular head of state, but executive power is transferred to Tsvangirai as prime minister.

Reports suggest that the opposition MDC will hold 11 cabinet posts to nine for Zanu-PF in a power-sharing government of national unity. Significantly, there will be a purge of senior officials in the army, police and intelligence services, including the notorious Joint Operations Command that orchestrated the recent campaign of terror and intimidation.

The projected deal follows intense Western pressure on South African President Thabo Mbeki who has consistently sought to shield Mugabe and betrayed a bias towards Zanu-PF. A settlement would be of “epochal importance” to southern Africa, says South African analyst Lawrence Schlemmer. “The West could have just walked away from another African disaster. Instead, they are showing a huge commitment to democracy in this region.”

The transitional government will receive financial support and policy advice from the Fishmongers Group of western donor nations, established a year ago on Britain’s initiative, which “stands powerfully in the wings and in effect has a veto over the negotiations.”

Mbeki was pushing a Kenyan settlement of genuine power-sharing. But that is not feasible, commentators suggest, because Zimbabwe’s state institutions are implacably partisan and complicit in the violence and corruption that have brought the country to ruin.  Kenya’s army is genuinely independent and its courts have a semblance of independence, while Zimbabwe’s military is utterly partisan and the courts the “creatures of the ruling party.”

The accelerating economic crisis is also precipitating Mugabe’s end. Zimbabwe’s bank chief is removing “more zeros” from the country’s freefalling currency and raising the limit on cash withdrawals to address runaway inflation, officially at 2.2 million percent annually but generally reckoned to be closer to 12.5 million percent.

“This situation can be healed,” said a Western diplomatic source in Zimbabwe. “But not by this regime. Zanu-PF couldn’t run a sweet-shop.

The projected power-sharing settlement is by no means a done deal. “My only worry is with the military chiefs. That could be a sticking point,” says one observer. But the prospects of a military coup succeeding are unclear. Although the military’s leaders have profited from Mugabe’s rule, the army rank-and-file is in a parlous condition.