Zimpapers Logo

allegedly cornered itself beyond recovery by reaffirming the well-established and arguably unassailable position that the next harmonised general election must be held this year, is approaching unprecedented levels of noise as the diary of events tantalisingly gets ever closer to the much anticipated extraordinary Sadc summit on the political and security situation in Madagascar and Zimbabwe scheduled for this Friday in Windhoek, Namibia?
The answer to this question is blowing in the wind and there’s a lot of that wind in the Namibian desert where, thank God, there’s no shortage of the true anti-colonial and anti-regime change spirit of the African revolution.
Whatever is alleged in the thoughtless media of regime change seekers, the one truth which Sadc leaders at their Windhoek summit will not find difficult to unearth is that the fuss against the 2011 election is driven by shocking ignorance of the GPA whose full implementation was guaranteed in 2008 by Sadc and the African Union.
That ignorance, which has become the bane of the donor sponsored private media in Zimbabwe, has combined with contempt for the rule of law by illegal regime change seekers and made particularly worse by the electoral cowardice which has taken hold of the two MDC formations whose ministers in the so-called inclusive Government are now desperate to remain in office indefinitely by hook or crook for them to conclude corrupt deals to enrich themselves at the expense of the public.
The position that elections must be held in 2011 is not a unilateral Zanu-PF position but merely a recognition and respect by Zanu-PF of the binding GPA position in the interest of the rule of law.
This matter is so simple that it does not need any mumbo jumbo from anyone and thus can only be changed by amending the GPA and not by playing silly and dangerous political games.
It is as unbelievable as it is sickening that, with the support of increasingly intolerant EU and US diplomats that are desperately seeking regime change in Zimbabwe, some media illiterates and political misfits of our society – including foreign officials who should know better and whose time has come to shut up on Zimbabwe – have been lying through their dirty teeth with incredulous claims that Zanu-PF has taken a suicidal position by allegedly declaring unilaterally that elections must be held in 2011.
But will Sadc get its act together beyond Livingstone’s ghost and come to final terms with the political and security situation in our country guided by the GPA signed on September 15, 2008 and not guided by the patently thoughtless and increasingly inflammatory media noise sponsored by regime change donors whose antics have become a clear and present threat to peace and stability not only in Zimbabwe but also in the region?
While hopes are very high that this time round Sadc will do the right thing, there are nevertheless some serious doubts even from incurable optimists who are not inspired by how things have unfolded in the recent past.
This is mainly because Sadc has over the last 29 months since the formation of the inclusive Government on February 13, 2009 risked transgressing from being part of the solution to the Zimbabwean question as a guarantor of the GPA, signed by Zanu-PF and the two MDC formations on September 15, 2008 and under which the government was formed, to becoming part of the problem in a potentially very dangerous manner.
Here is how this risk has come about.
Instead of guaranteeing the GPA by directly engaging and supporting Zimbabwe’s Government as the only legitimate representative of the State to fully implement the GPA as agreed, Sadc has, through its South African facilitation team, astonishingly and rather inexplicably seemed to ignore the State and its Government by facilitating fresh and even more acrimonious negotiations between the same political parties that negotiated, agreed and signed the GPA on the basis of which the GNU was formed in the first place.
This awkward and unprecedented development has hitherto gone unnoticed and thus unexamined when its implications on peace and stability in Zimbabwe and the region itself are gravely serious in a very big way with the risk of setting a dangerous precedence for the region.
There are two unavoidable points about this situation and they stand out like the sun and the moon during the day and night respectively and they will be crying out for attention at the Windhoek extraordinary summit.
The first unavoidable point is that, in general terms, if Sadc is to retain its credibility, respect and impartiality built over a long and rather troubled time, the Windhoek summit will have to review not only the political and security situation in Zimbabwe, but also its own terms of engagement with that situation in order to critically examine whether the regional body is doing the right thing in the right way, and for the right reasons in the country.
This is essential because in matters of strategic policy, it is important to review not only the objectives of the policy but also the methodology for their attainment.
Is everything going well with the facilitation?
Is it okay that an agreement that was negotiated, agreed and signed continues to be negotiated in a manner that has turned the negotiators into a de facto parallel government?
Why is Sadc dealing with political parties and negotiating with them in a member state that has a legitimate government, which should be its point of contact and engagement?
Is Sadc not aware of the inherent danger and precedence arising from the fact that its facilitation process has created an unacceptable situation in which issues that should be handled by the Government of Zimbabwe through the Cabinet, Council of Ministers and Parliament are now being subjected to negotiations in hotels and other dingy places as if Zimbabwe does not have a Government?
Honestly, can that promote peace and stability in any country?
And, there’s a second unavoidable point for the extraordinary Windhoek summit, which is consequent upon the first point, and it is that Sadc’s much heralded roadmap to Zimbabwe’s elections signed by the GPA negotiators in Harare on April 22 and validated on May 6 in Cape Town.
The much-talked about but little understood Sadc election roadmap for Zimbabwe based on negotiations that should have ended on September 15, 2008 – which will be the main focus of the Windhoek summit – is timeless, impractical and ultimately useless not least because it violates not only the GPA, which has a clear election timeframe that sets 2011 as the election year but also the Constitution of Zimbabwe and the Sadc treaty itself which does not allow outsiders to run or decide the national affairs of member states under the cover of facilitation.
By definition, the timing of elections in a constitutional democracy is based on a timeframe.
There’s nothing called a “process based” or “process driven” election because elections like that happen only when the cows come home and that could be permanently indefinite.
But, it is the transformation of Sadc’s role as the guarantor of the GPA into fresh GPA negotiations under facilitation by South African officials like Lindiwe Zulu that has opened a can of viral worms that are now threatening to ruin not only the GPA but also Sadc itself.
Given this background, Sadc’s roadmap to Zimbabwe’s elections signed on April 22 is so misplaced that any serious review of its premises in accordance with the GPA would necessarily lead to its abandonment in the interest of peace and stability in Zimbabwe and the wider region.
Article VI of the GPA provides a time framed election roadmap whose clear import is that, contrary to the media propaganda that Zanu-PF is unilaterally insisting on the holding of general elections in Zimbabwe in 2011 in alleged direct conflict with Sadc, the fact is that the 2011 election timeframe is enshrined in the GPA itself which is now at risk of being violated by the same Sadc that should be guaranteeing its implementation.
As such, Zanu-PF’s position on the 2011 election is in fact the GPA position.
The two MDC formations are now reneging on their GPA obligations because they are afraid of facing the electorate at a time when their ministers in Government, including Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, have proven to be incompetent, corrupt and self-indulgent.
Those who are abusing the GPA to call for elections in 2012 or 2013, which would create an extended election campaign period of between 12 and 18 months, miss the simple point that such a prolonged election period beyond six months would only succeed in prolonging political uncertainty which will pervert economic recovery and increase the risk of political instability.
This is why there’s an argument that either we have an election within six months this year and attain stability without political uncertainty in accordance with the GPA, or we attain stability and remove political uncertainty now by holding the election in 60 months.
In the circumstances, it would be most unfortunate if Sadc’s summit in Windhoek does not get to the bottom of this matter by using the GPA as the only point of reference, and by insisting on its full implementation not by political parties but by the Government of Zimbabwe which is the only legitimate and lawful body for engagement with Sadc.