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State and Government.
The Livingstone Troika Summit was marred by irregularities that were generally felt to have been a result of MDC-T misleading the Sadc appointed facilitator and South Africa President Jacob Zuma.
In a statement yesterday, Zanu-PF spokesperson, Cde Rugare Gumbo, said the outcome of the meeting was positive.

“The summit highlighted and embraced most of the major issues, which were of concern to the party.
“The party called for the immediate removal of the illegal economic sanctions by Western countries. This is covered in clause 31 of the communiqué.

“The party called for adherence to the GPA specifically, to the lifespan of the Inclusive Government, constitution making process, referendum and the subsequent holding of harmonised elections this year,” Cde Gumbo said.

He added that the summit had confirmed the party’s position on the need to move faster with the implementation of the GPA, which the party had called for.
Cde Gumbo said the party welcomed the decision by the summit not to endorse the Livingstone Troika communiqué.

“Contrary to what the MDC formations and the private media would like people to believe, the extraordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government held in South Africa, threw away the Livingstone Troika Communiqué into the dustbin and, at the same time refused to entertain issues outside the Global Political Agreement (GPA).
“The deliberate misinformation and distortion of the Sadc summit communiqué by the Western sponsored MDC formations and the NGOs is intended to confuse the people of Zimbabwe. Such tactics will not alter the true position of the summit.

“The party commends the sterling work, which was done by our delegation to the Sadc for clarifying the issues in the country to the world and forcefully articulating the party’s strategic direction,” Cde Gumbo said.
MDC-N leader, Professor Welshman Ncube, on Monday said the outcome of the summit should be welcomed by the three parties because it had already been agreed to by the negotiators.

“I believe the outcome is good because everything the summit decided was already agreed to by the parties in the roadmap.
“No one should reject the outcome because it is what we produced as parties. There is absolutely no dispute to the outcome,” Prof Ncube said.

He also said the summit had “noted” the Livingstone Troika meeting because it did not have to make a decision of either endorsing or rejecting it.
“The summit noted the report because it did not have to make a decision. One cannot note something when they would either adopt or reject. They either say the summit endorses or rejects without using the word note.

“This therefore means that the outcome of the Livingstone Troika meeting was not up for endorsement or rejection,” he said.
Prof Ncube said the Summit had accepted decisions of the Livingstone Troika meeting for instance, the need for the Organ Troika to appoint their representatives to participate in the Joint Monitoring and

Implementation Committee (Jomic).
“The summit accepted decisions of the troika meeting, for instance, having organ troika members in Jomic and, the need for parties to stop hate speech.

“On violence, where Zanu-PF was reported as the party responsible for all violence during the Livingstone meeting, the facilitator said that part had been overtaken by events.
“In the facilitator’s report, he noted that both MDC-T and Zanu-PF were responsible for violence compared to the (Livingstone) troika meeting, which had identified Zanu-PF as exclusively responsible for the violence in the country,” he said.

In a statement, MDC-T said: “It is gratifying to note that the Sadc Summit adopted the resolutions of the troika in Livingstone.
“We welcome the unequivocal adoption of the idea of a clear roadmap to free and fair elections.

“This involves the completion of all the steps necessary for the holding of free and fair elections including the finalisation of the constitutional reform process and the removal of all state-sponsored violence.
“We are happy that the summit emphasised on the need of clear timelines to be added to this roadmap, which must be ready for adoption by the summit in August 2011.

“We are also thrilled and exhilarated by the order given by the summit that all outstanding issues must be implemented by August 2011 to create an environment of peace, security and free political activity in Zimbabwe,” read the statement.