S. African Facilitators Said to Pledge Funding for Zimbabwe Constitution Rewrite
21 July 2011
Political analyst Brian Raftopolous said the Zuma administration has more
clout within SADC now and can move to isolate Harare diplomatically if the
ZANU-PF side of the government continues to hinder progress
Sithandekile Mhlanga and Violet Gonda | Washington
Facilitators working under South African President Jacob Zuma to mediate a
solution to the perennial crisis in the Zimbabwean government met Thursday
with the parliamentary committee in charge of revising the constitution,
promising to provide funds to help complete the process plagued by funding
shortfalls and political bickering.
Mr. Zuma’s facilitation team was to meet with the Joint Monitoring and
Implementation Committee, established to measure compliance by Zimbabwe’s
power-sharing political parties with the 2008 Global Political Agreement for
power sharing.
Edward Mkhosi, select committee co-chairman for the Movement for Democratic
Change formation of Welshman Ncube, said his panel updated the facilitators,
who were led by Zuma foreign policy adviser Lindiwe Zulu and African
National Congress official Marc Maharaj. He said his panel vowed to complete
the revision by the end of 2011.
Mkhosi told VOA reporter Sithandekile Mhlanga the facilitators promised to
present their findings to a Southern African Development Community summit in
August in Angola.
The two MDC formations in government – including that led by Prime Minister
Morgan Tsvangirai – have accused ZANU-PF of blocking progress toward
implementation of the Global Political Agreement including a broad range of
electoral media reforms.
Political analyst Brian Raftopolous said the Zuma administration has
increased its clout within SADC and can move to isolate Harare
diplomatically if the ZANU-PF side of the government continues to hinder
progress toward free and fair elections.
Raftopolous told reporter Violet Gonda that SADC must stand firm on the
positions it took at previous summits, in particular its resolution to
delegate three members of its staff to the Joint Monitoring and
Implementation Committee, which it has not yet done.