High Hopes In Zimbabwe For Reconciliation, Reconstruction Through Unity Deal
The agreement took nearly eight weeks to be hammered out counting from the July 21 signature of a memorandum of understanding setting o
Zimbabweans on Friday started to digest the impact and implications of the historic power-sharing agreementreached late Thursday by the long-time ruling ZANU-PF party and the Movementfor Democratic Change, now the majority party in parliament. Some, particularly civil society leaders excluded from the talks, expressed reservations about the viability of the agreement bringing together longtime political adversaries, but most Zimbabweans including the political parties engaging themselves to co-governance, said they hoped the pact would lead to reconciliation and socio-economic revival. The April-June period following March presidential and general elections was one of the most violent the country has known since the war leading to independence in 1980, as political violence surged and claimed scores of lives, mostly MDC supporters. Had the talks failed, Zimbabwe faced a political and economic abyss - a prospect which appears to have sufficiently motivated negotiators on both sides of the main division between the long-ruling ZANU-PF and the former opposition MDC. Soon Zimbabwe willhave an executive president, Robert Mugabe, and an executive prime minister, MDC founder Morgan Tsvangirai, a new cabinet which Mr. Mugabe will chair plus a council ofministers that will be headed by Mr. Tsvangirai. Rival MDC formation leader Arthur Mutambara will serve as deputy prime minister. Thecouncil of ministers will include all ministers excluding Mr. Mugabe and his two vice presidents, Joseph Msika and Joyce Mujuru. Under the agreement the combined MDC is to receive the most ministerial positions – 13 going to the Tsvangiraiformation of the former opposition party and three to the Mutambara grouping. Mr. Mugabe's ZANU-PF gets 15 ministerial portfolios. More details should emerge as ZANU-PF and the MDC implement the agreement, which will be released on Mondaywhen it is to be formally signed by the principals. The agreement took nearly eightweeks to be hammered out counting from the signature July 21 ofa memorandum of understanding on the framework for discussion. Over the intervening weeks the talks oftenseemed to have become deadlocked, and even this week it seemed that a power-sharing deal remained distant with Mr. Mugabe and Tsvangirai haggling over the distribution of executive powers. s. Implementing the power-sharing deal will require immediate constitutionalchanges with a nineteenth amendment likely to be passed into law, and a new constitution is to be drafted over the next 18 months to beapproved by Zimbabweans in a referendum. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moonissued a statement congratulating the parties to the accord and commendingPresident Mbeki for his “tireless efforts” as mediator. . .