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So what really was agreed at the talks?
Jupiter Punungwe, The Zimbabwe Times
October 03, 2008

http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=5344

Some people have equated the recent Mbeki-mediated co-governance talks between the MDC and Zanu-PF to the Lancaster House of 1979.

As we know, the 1979 talks led to some meaningful political change in 1980.

Personally I hold a very dim view of the usefulness of the more recent talks to the ordinary Zimbabwean. If anything will come out of the recent talks it will be more by luck than by design.

In 1979 the Lancaster House talks almost collapsed. This is famously epitomized by a picture of grim faced Patriotic Front leaders who had staged a walk out. One can also rightly argue that the recent talks had their moments of drama and grim faced leaders huffing and puffing out of the negotiating venue.

However a key difference is the issues over which the drama happened at the two sets of talks. The Lancaster House talks centred on matters of principle. The walk out which resulted in the historically famous picture of Patriotic Front leaders was over the issue of land redistribution, not who was going to get what post.

At the end of the Lancaster House talks the direction which the country was going to take was very clear. Everybody knew there was going to be an election based on the one man one vote principle.

Everybody knew that a policy of equitable redistribution of resources including land was supposed to be followed by whoever won the election. None of leaders of the political movements of that era had been allocated any stone-cast roles in the incoming government. No cabinet posts were allocated in advance. The then Prime Minister Abel Muzorewa actually slipped into political oblivion. If the talks had been held under the same terms as those going on now he would probably have been guaranteed a political life through having a 'senior' post reserved for him.

In contrast, at the recent talks, issues of principle where conspicuous by their absence. Grim faced charges out of the Rainbow Towers were over the sharing of cabinet posts and power, not the settling of sticky points of principle. All the major points of Zanu-PF misrule were left un-negotiated with very vague mention of future agreements on the way forward. A heavy smokescreen of obfuscation left many people trying to guess what was really agreed.

The first thing you need before embarking on a journey is to know where you want to go. Zanu-PF and he MDC have been like a flight crew quarrelling about who is going to be captain, who is going to be co-pilot who is going to be part of the cabin crew. Yet they do not even know whether they want to fly to Plumtree or to Nyamapanda, in the first place. They just want to fly somewhere. If the two parties know what policies they want to implement as a GNU, they have been doing an extremely good job of not communicating those policies.

On the key point of economic management for example, it is not clear whether the MDC is going to have full say on the economic direction the country takes from now on. All that is mentioned is that the MDC are going to be given the ministry of finance and tasked with turning around the economy. I understood that to mean that the MDC were going to be given responsibility for sourcing funds from their western backers. Little of substance was mentioned on critical economic management principles such as unfettered free trade, accountability and a tough stance on corruption.

In fact indications are that old Zanu-PF policies are going to continue with little modification. Already the handout of free national resources (tractors) to cronies has started. Attempts to enforce ludicrous and production stifling price controls are continuing. Little attempt if any is being made to stop access to state coffers by Zanu-PF bigwigs whose wanton pillaging of state resources is the primary source of Zimbabwe's economic problems. Big names in Zanu-PF, who are no longer big names in national politics, because they no longer represent any constituencies, continue to dictate matters ahead of the elected representatives of the people.

In fact they are preposterously demanding that they be accommodated in the new government with more power than the elected representatives of the people from the MDC, or those from their own party they consider 'junior'. Somebody must remind them that the only 'senior' thing about politics in a democracy is the number of people who vote for you. If the people at first vote someone into power, who subsequently fail to serve the people's interests, the people have an unfettered right to vote someone else in. Historical votes are not a factor in democracy, only the current mandate counts.

The old dogs have absolutely no right to continue growling. They should tuck their tails between their legs and slink into oblivion gracefully. If they want a chance to come back as representatives of the people they should stop pushing their potbellies around the corridors of government offices, where they no longer belong, and go back to sweat and slave for the people at grassroots level. This message also includes Tsvangirai because although those from the MDC might hotly dispute it, the fact is that he is not legally elected to represent anyone.

It is astounding when people who spend decades in the bush fighting for one man one vote, act in a way which clearly shows that they have no clue what one man one vote is about. One man one vote is about testing the wishes of the people periodically and following those wishes. Seeking to qualify one man one vote with some system of perceived political seniority is a departure from democracy, and we the ordinary Zimbabweans should never, ever accept such qualification. A person's 'political seniority' goes away the moment they lose the mandate to represent the people.

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