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Political Agreement, South African President Jacob Zuma to engage the party principals directly as his over-reliance on proxies had spawned procedural irregularities and misinformation.
Nowhere was this manifest than in the ill-fated Livingstone Troika meeting and its aftermaths, where a submission from one of the parties to the inclusive Government, MDC-T, ended up being touted as the facilitator’s report, and a Sadc document to the chagrin of Zanu-PF and the MDC.
Fortunately the Livingstone document is as dead as the man the town it was adopted is named after, and as with all bad situations, it’s providential that something useful was learnt from that procedural disaster.
The actions of some members of President Zuma’s facilitation team, principally his international relations advisor Lindiwe Zulu who had elevated herself to the level of facilitator and in so doing ended up confusing facilitation and participation, were detrimental to the letter and spirit of the GPA which is about fostering harmony.
To this end we hope the message got through to Lindiwe Zulu and those of like mind that before Zimbabwe and Sadc, they have no locus standi as there is only one facilitator whom the parties can engage, and that is President Zuma.
The Sadc resolution could not have come at a better time given the pre- ponderance of misinformation that was flying around about the GPA facilitation, some of which appeared meant to stir a diplomatic row between Zimbabwe and South Africa pursuant to abetting the illegal regime change agenda.
For the avoidance of doubt we would like to belabour the Sadc point for emphasis.
Facilitation means helping parties to a conflict talk to each other. Where they are able to do so, the facilitator has no role to play but where they reach disagreements; the facilitator comes in to break the impasse.
That is the be all and end all of facilitation which means a facilitator does not speak for the parties or any of the parties but helps them find each other and speak to each other, which is where Lindiwe Zulu was missing it as she had made herself both participant, facilitator and spokesperson all rolled into one.
To this end we urge the three parties to the inclusive Government to shun such merchants of confusion and henceforth engage only the Sadc-appointed facilitator.
We also urge them to heed the words of the Sadc chair who said all issues were resolved in Sandton.
And we agree. Infact, all GPA issues were agreed on long-back when the parties signed the agreement on September 15 2008.
The talks that have been going on for the past three years pertained to implementing the agreed positions, and in Sandton, Zanu-PF, MDC-T and the MDC agreed on what needs to be done which is why the poll roadmap is in place.
It’s high time the three parties put the national interest ahead of partisan sectarian interests.
It’s time to work as Team Zimba- bwe towards the envisaged fresh elections, after which we should have a government unencumbered by petty squabbles, a government with policy congruence.
Online Reporter