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Leaders make progress as crisis talks resume at weekend



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Published Date: 31 July 2008
TALKS between Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF party and the opposition MDC aimed at resolving the country's political crisis will resume on Sunday, Thabo Mbeki, the South African president, said last night.
Mr Mbeki said after an hour-long meeting with Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, that the talks, which adjourned on Tuesday to allow negotiators to consult with their respective leaders, were going well.

"It is work in progress. The negotiators are working hard and have committed themselves to the timeframe. They will resume on Sunday," Mr Mbeki told reporters after meeting Mr Mugabe, who said earlier he wanted the negotiations to succeed.

Mr Mugabe's party began power-sharing talks with the opposition in South Africa last week, but doubts have surfaced over progress after they were adjourned.

"We're still negotiating; we want to succeed. Sometimes compromise is difficult," Mr Mugabe said in his first public comments on the talks since a framework for discussion was signed on 21 July.





The full article contains 168 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 30 July 2008 10:50 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Related Topics: Zimbabwe
 
1

2dogs in D.C.,

31/07/2008 01:15:51
Compromise=My way, or the highway? Anyone want to buy a truckload of Zimbab dollars, cheep?
2

Gulliver,

Harare 31/07/2008 12:56:58
It's unfortunate that these talks are occurring with certain foreign quarters already having held certain positions prior to the talks. Europe openly declared that they would recognise a government headed by the leader of the opposition because he had won the March 29 polls. They together with the UK and US have dangled billions of dollars as some sort of "reward" if Mugabe is removed which I think is rather unfortunate as it makes negotiations difficult.

Those with their convictions as to who should SERVE the people of Zimbabwe in the office of the President have conveniently overlooked the fact that the leader of the opposition had not won by enough votes to take the presidency. They also overlooked the fact that Mugabe's party actually had more votes than the opposition re the popular vote in parliament according to the March 29 vote which they hold as the barometer of the people's wishes.

If the rule is that the one who wins the first round of voting then shouldn't George Weah be the president of Liberia instead of Johnson-Sirleaf? Double standards and hypocrisy!!!

I just hope the negotiators will focus on the interests of Zimbabweans and not submit to foreign interests in this matter.
3

57Nomad,

california 31/07/2008 23:31:01
#2 Gulliver

Gulliver, I believe that the observers to the election detected irregularities in the vote count and actions leading up to the vote, beating opposition members and other forms of violent intimidation. The fact that the opposition won in spite of those things gives many people the feeling that the subsequent machinations are simply window dressing for an obvious, in your face, theft of an entire nation.
4

Gulliver,

Harare 01/08/2008 11:22:11
# 57 Nomad,

There are so many things happening in Zimbabwe that the media unfortunately doesn't report on so I can understand why in the end you form opinions which may not be entirely accurate. The picture portrayed about Zimbabwe even by some local journalists is so biased that people who read about Zimbabwe from the Daily News (Zimbabwean) 9 years ago would have never imagined that this country would still be running even to this day despite the downturn in the economy.

It is not surprising that the opposition was ahead in the polls on March 29 for the presidential vote, in fact, given the whole background of an economy undersiege and downturn in standards of living WHAT IS SURPRISING IS THAT Mugabe and his party actually edged the opposition in the parliamentary vote on March 29. Mugabe's party went on to win the Senatorial vote in that same election. These are facts one cannot ignore when dissecting the Zimbabwean scenario in order to understand what is happening in the country.

True there was voter intimidation in the run up to the June 27 polls, true violence reared its ugly head, true- some in the armed forces (military, prison service) did not vote freely for a leader of their choice, but one has to consider the relative effects of these actions on the voting patterns displayed on June 27. To what extent was voter intimidation a factor in ensuring that Mugabe got an almost 100% increase in voters to 2 million?

Zimbabweans are highly literate and due to the harsh conditions prevailing in the country almost everyone is an "analyst" of some sort. You can pick anyone from the street to the rural areas and have a meaningful discussion with them about the economy, politics etc. Inorder to assess the impact of voter intimidation and deception tactics we cannot overlook this point. Given the background I would say at best voter intimidation might have got him an extra 100,000 voters which would explain an increase of 10%. Uniformed forces voting under
5

Gulliver,

Harare 01/08/2008 12:18:04
Cont..Uniformed forces voting under duress? Lets assume the uniformed forces are 150,000 and 90% of them were forced to vote for Mugabe. That would give us an additional 135k votes that he "stole", an additional 13.5%. That would leave us with an unexplained 76.5% unexplained increase in Mugabe votes.

Where did these 765,000 voters come from, and what was happening prior to and during the time of the run-off?

In brief:
- Initially the opposition had threatened that it would not participate in the run-off just as they had said they would not participate in the harmonized elections.
- The opposition leader went into self-imposed exile in neighbouring SA and Bots for almost a month whilst Mugabe was literally running himself to a standstill campaigning through out the country. Carrying his message to as many as 3 and sometimes 4 rallies in a day.
- If you analyse the level of campaigning in the INDEPENDENT MEDIA prior to the run-off you will notice that the opposition did not campaign with the same level of intensity as during the 1st round of voting, I picked up a local paper, The Financial Gazette just 3 weeks before the run-off. I counted 3 MDC adverts versus 11 ZANU PF adverts. Surely that is a factor, think about it from an objective point of view and you will see that the opposition was beaten using basic marketing principles.

- One also has to consider also the content of the adverts, what were they saying? Mugabe was promising 100% empowerment through legislation and policies that would ensure Zimbabweans would gain control over their God-given natural resources. Such resources that would enable them to workhard and be self-sustaining without reliance on foreigners who could use their aid in a neo-colonial agenda.

The opposition on the other hand was just promising change that would be underwritten by "donor" funding, promises from the UK and US government that they would put together a 10bn pound "economic recovery package" for Zimbabwe. Whilst
6

Gulliver,

Harare 01/08/2008 12:39:06
Zimbabweans simply saw more sense in asserting their right to control those resources that would give them greater benefit over the long-term than immediate gratification. 10 billion pounds versus an opportunity (even if slightly deferred) to participate in a multi-billion dollar platinum project. The choice was clear for some Zimbabweans.

Also, do not underrate the effect of the bitter liberation struggle that still lingers on in the country-side. They are still exhuming bones and discovering mass graves of people killed during the war. The memories of people being kept in "keeps" (concentration camps) and being used as guineapigs for chemical and biological warfare are still vivid amongst the rural populace, and thus the revolutionary spirit still reigns strong. This explains why, despite making significant inroads, the opposition cannot manage to dislodge ZANU PF in the rural areas especially those areas which experienced the greatest brutality of the settler regime.

In addition, take note that Mugabe's policies have genuinely empowered a significant number of people and not just his "cronies". These folks in the rural areas have been getting farming equipment, cattle (3300 last in Oct last year), basic goods, tonnes of farming inputs, subsidized fuel amongst other things which put him in favor with a significant number of people -addressing people's needs on the ground, and these things the media conveniently leaves out for what purpose I don't know. Maybe to create an illusion of a highly unpopular tyrant ruling with an iron fist? That doesn't help anyone, not even the opposition because the more they ignore the good stuff he does the less they comprehend how best to deal with the situation and the more they risk distancing themselves from the electorate.

 

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