Move To Re-Engage S. Africa's Mbeki As Zimbabwe Mediator
The MDC says it wants Mbeki to intervene to re-start the power-sharing process, but ZANU-PF says there is no need for external mediatio
The Southern African Development Community's committee on politics and defense has formally endorsed a continued mediation role inthe Zimbabwe power-sharing process for former South African president Thabo Mbeki, SADC officials said Wednesday. But Mbeki did notimmediately indicate whether he was prepared to continue mediating. His spokesman said Mbeki would issue a statement within days. SADC Executive Secretary Tomaz Salamao told VOA he spokeon Wednesday with South African President Kgalema Motlanthe, who took office last week, and told him theregional body wants Mbeki to stay on as mediator. Salamao said he asked Mr. Motlanthe to communicate that message to Mbeki. Mbeki spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga told VOA that Mbekiwill issue a statement as to his possible future involvement as mediator within a few days. SADC sources say they would have liked to see Mbeki already on hisway to Harare to try to unblock the impasse over the composition of thecabinet. Salamao confirmed to VOA that the Movement for Democratic Change appealed to the regional grouping toinvolve itself in the dispute over which key cabinet posts should go to MDC politicians and which to members of President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF. President Mugabe and primeminister-in-waiting Morgan Tsvangirai failed to agree on the distribution ofmajor cabinet portfolios in a meeting on Tuesday, MDC sources said. But Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, ZANU-PF's chiefnegotiator in the power-sharing deal signed on Sept. 15, told reporters on Wednesday that there is no deadlock and that nooutside mediation is needed to resolve the cabinet question.