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Zimbabwe deal sounds fair at first, but the fine print clearly favours Mugabe
Peter Fabricius, Cape Times (SA)
August 25, 2008

http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=19401

Kids have a pretty foolproof method of ensuring the cake is divided equally; one cuts and the other chooses. Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai tried that method last weekend. President Thabo Mbeki, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and other leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) offered him the prime ministership in a new "power-sharing" government in which Mugabe would remain president. Tsvangirai didn't think this new prime minister was being given any real executive powers. So he said to them: "Ok, why don't you, Mr Mugabe, become prime minister and I will become president?" Mugabe, Mbeki and the rest all declined. Not surprisingly, when you examine the deal on the table. On the face of it, it looks alright. It divides cabinet positions among the parties fairly equally, though Mugabe's Zanu PF gets a few more than Tsvangirai's MDC (MDC-T) even though MDC-T has one more seat in Parliament.

But when you add the few that would go to Arthur Mutambara's smaller MDC (MDC-M), the MDCs together would have a majority. One of the documents accompanying the deal says the executive authority of the "inclusive government" would reside in the president and the prime minister, and would give cabinet the principal responsibility for formulating and implementing policy. The prime minister would oversee the formulation of policies by the cabinet.

So far, so good. Then the catch: Tsvangirai would only be deputy chair of cabinet, while Mugabe would remain in the chair. That would effectively leave Mugabe in charge of government and negate MDC-T's proposal, to share power by leaving the president in charge of the state - the army, foreign relations etc - while putting the prime minister in charge of government. Apart from leaving Mugabe in charge of government, Mbeki seems deliberately to have given the Mutambara MDC - which he reputedly favours - the balance of power in cabinet. But with the coalition between the two MDCs apparently crumbling, this distribution of ministries could leave Zanu PF with an effective majority in cabinet too - though presumably MDC-M would not agree to anything nasty. With Mugabe chairing cabinet, it is not clear whether this potentially pivotal role by MDC-M would count for much.

For rejecting the deal, Tsvangirai has been accused - by MDC-M and presumably also the South African government and most other governments in SADC - of demanding power transfer to himself rather than power-sharing. However, Marinus Wiechers, former professor of constitutional law at Unisa and veteran of South Africa's own negotiations for a new constitution, believes that Tsvangirai was right to reject the Mbeki-SADC offer because it is not a real power-sharing deal. "It's just jostling for positions - the really operative side is not addressed."

He says that despite the attempt to dish out ministerships and deputy ministerships fairly equally, the clincher is that Mugabe retains the chair of cabinet, which could prove decisive (there is no suggestion in the deal that cabinet will decide issues by voting - the implication, at least, is that decisions would be made by consensus). Wiechers dubs the deal an "incestuous merging" of presidential and prime ministerial systems. Wiechers says there is no other conflict-resolution mechanism in the deal, which becomes, therefore, a "recipe for disaster" - in the form of inevitable deadlock. Wiechers suggests that SADC should take a leaf out of the international community's handling of the Kosovo crisis by creating a superior SADC body standing above all the Zimbabwean parties to arbitrate the deadlocks which he believes must inevitably arise from the power-sharing deal.

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