By Tobias Manyuchi
HARARE – Negotiators from Zimbabwe’s three ruling parties said on Thursday they have agreed on a roadmap to ensure the next polls are free and fair but remain divided on the role of the security forces in elections that could take place either later this year or early 2011.
Zimbabwe’s army generals are widely seen as wielding a de facto veto over the country’s troubled transformation process and likely to block transfer of power to the winners of elections should the victors not be President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF party.
Elton Mangoma, a representative of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T party in the inter-party talks, told ZimOnline that negotiators who met over the past two days agreed on electoral, legal and constitutional reforms that must precede the elections to choose a new government to replace the troubled coalition administration.
But the parties remain deadlocked on the role of the army whose generals have in previous elections openly declared they would not salute Tsvangirai should he win the presidency, utterances seen as a clear warning they would topple the former trade union leader.
“We disagreed on security reforms (and) deployment of soldiers to rural areas (during elections),” Mangoma said.
He said the parties could also not reach consensus on the use of the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) that requires Zimbabweans to notify the police before holding political meetings or marches. But the police have used the law selectively to ban meetings by Mugabe’s opponents, including civil society groups critical of the veteran President’s rule.
According to Mangoma, there was also disagreement on the composition of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s secretariat with the two MDC parties pushing for the removal of former soldiers and intelligence agents from the election management body.
The former opposition parties also want army commanders to stop their habit of deploying soldiers in rural areas in the run-up to elections. Human rights groups accuse soldiers of intimidating villagers to vote for Mugabe and ZANU PF.
ZANU-PF chief negotiator Patrick Chinamasa confirmed the parties had reached agreement on the election roadmap but declined to discuss the areas of deadlock.
“We met today and have just deliberated and concluded on the election road map,” Chinamasa said, adding that the draft roadmap will be forwarded to the negotiators’ principals and to representatives of South African President Jacob Zuma. Zuma is the Southern African Development Community (SADC)’s official mediator in the Zimbabwean inter-party dialogue.
According to Chinamasa the Zimbabwean negotiators are expecting to visit South Africa from May5-7 to meet Zuma’s representatives to discuss the draft election roadmap. A power-sharing agreement officially known as the global political agreement (GPA) that gave birth to Zimbabwe’s unity government requires the administration to write a new and democratic constitution before calling elections.
A multi-party parliamentary committee leading the writing of the new constitution expects to have a draft charter ready to be taken before Zimbabweans in a referendum by September.
But the MDC parties supported by their civil society allies say Zimbabwe should not hold elections this year even after a new constitution has been enacted because the charter and several proposed electoral reforms would need to be given time to take root to ensure any future vote is free and fair.
Mugabe, who at 87 years will be the oldest candidate in the race for president, insists the vote must take place this year while he has in the past suggested elections could still take place even without a new constitution.
Zimbabwe’s elections have been characterised by political violence and gross human rights abuses with the last vote in June 2008 ending inconclusively after the military-led a campaign of violence and murder that forced then opposition leader Tsvangirai to withdraw from a second round presidential ballot.
Tsvangirai had been tipped to win the second round election after beating Mugabe in the first round ballot but without the percentage of votes required to avoid the run-off poll. The former foes eventually bowed to pressure from southern African leaders to agree to form a government of national unity. — ZimOnline
