SADC Salomão: GNU The Only Alternative

DRC – The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has called on political parties in Zimbabwe to respect and honour the South African brokered Global Political Agreement (GPA). This comes ahead of the 29th SADC Summit of Heads of State and Governments to be held in Kinshasa on Monday. Zimbabwe and the political situation in Madagascar will again dominate the discussions at the meeting. SADC leaders will also finalise who between Lesotho and Malawi will take-over from Libya as the chairperson of the African Union (AU). SADC is the guarantor of the GPA which was brokered by former President Thabo Mbeki. Concerns have already been raised over what appears to be the slow implementation of the agreement. Besides the establishment of a unity government, political parties are still bickering over other issues on the agreement such as the appointment of Reserve Bank Governor and the Attorney-General. Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister and leader of the Movement Democratic Change (MDC) Morgan Tsvangirai has accused President Robert Mugabe of delaying the full implementation of the GPA.

It now appears that SADC is running out of patience. SADC Executive Secretary Augusto Salomao says there is a need to urge political parties to move towards full implementation of the GPA saying there is no other alternative in Zimbabwe but to implement the agreement. On Monday, President Jacob Zuma is expected to present a progress report on Zimbabwe at the Summit. South Africa is expected to push for a special review on Zimbabwe. International Relations and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane also emphasised that there does not seem to be an alternative but to implement the GPA. She said there was also commitment from South Africa to have a special session aimed at specifically reviewing progress made in implementing the agreement. Meanwhile, South Africa’s one-year term at the helm of SADC is coming to an end and Zuma will hand-over the chairmanship of SADC to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila on Monday. However, according to Nkoana-Mashabane – South Africa will continue to play a special role in Zimbabwe.