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Ballot Update - Issue 1/February 2009
Zimbabwe Election Support Network
February 23, 2009

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Introduction

The post election update covers the period from November, 2008 to February, 2009. An analysis of the electoral, socio-economic and political environment obtaining in the country is made and their relationship with the electoral processes linked. The report centres mostly on political processes that took place during the reporting period. The operating environment for civic organisations towards the end of 2008 was volatile, marked with high levels of tension, fear, and punctuated by military style abductions, harassment and torture of civic and political activists.

Talks To Resolve the Political Impasse in Zimbabwe

After the signing of the global political agreement on 15 September 2008, the parties to the agreement held talks regarding the allocation of portfolios on September 18, but failed to reach an agreement. They then called in the negotiators on September 19, but again failed to reach an agreement as both parties wanted to hold all of the most important portfolios of finance and home affairs. On September 30, President Robert Mugabe and Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai met again but they were unable to reach an agreement on the allocation of Cabinet portfolios and "the matter was referred to the mediator, the three met once again in Harare on October 4 for talks on the distribution of portfolios, but could not reach an agreement. Both parties and acknowledged the failure to reach an agreement with the MDC-T charging on October 5 that all of the Cabinet portfolios were actually in question, not just the two Ministries of Finance and Home Affairs, as had been claimed by ZANU PF.

The negotiators met briefly on October 7 after the parties failed to reach an agreement, with the South African government confirming that Mr. Mbeki was still available to continue with mediation. An attempt by ZANU PF to unilaterally allocate ministries to all parties was met with resistance by the MDC T. The facilitator was then called in and the parties met for over seven hours on October 14 and the following day but no agreement was reached. On October 20, SADC met in Swaziland but Mr. Tsvangirai failed to attend after he was issued with a single entry visa on a temporary document. The meeting was later held in Harare and was again unsuccessful. On November 24, Mr. Tsvangirai called upon the facilitator to step down arguing that he was biased and had no appreciation of the urgency of problems in the country but another meeting was held in South Africa. On December 13, the draft constitutional amendment was published in the government gazette which marked a major step towards the formation of an inclusive government in Zimbabwe. On January 4, President Robert Mugabe relieved 12 ministers and deputy ministers who had lost their seats in Parliament from the cabinet. Another SADC meeting was on 27 January 2009 which resolved some outstanding issues on the negotiations and called upon the parties to the talks to ensure the immediate formation of the all-inclusive government. Accordingly on February 5, both houses of parliament passed the unity government bill unanimously after it was fast -tracked. The resolution of the political impasse in Zimbabwe was well timed in that it took place before the AU Summit which endorsed the global agreement.

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