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Biti: Deadlock caused by absence of good faith and common sense
Violet Gonda, SW Radio Africa
October 07, 2008

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news071008/biti071008.htm

The political crisis in Zimbabwe continues with no end in sight. Tendai Biti, the Secretary General for the Tsvangirai led MDC, said there is a complete failure to agree. He said that ZANU PF and MDC negotiators met again on Tuesday, but with no result.

Biti told SW Radio Africa: "The facilitators must be brought in and the facilitator must use his wisdom to try and break a situation which, in my view is not characterised by good faith and a situation that might embarrass Africa which celebrated on the 15th of September and might find itself in a situation where those celebrations were premature."

The MDC's chief negotiator said Zimbabwe is now in a tragic situation where 80% of the population are starving and surviving on berries, in a country with an inflation rate never before seen in any other part of the world. "So it's a disaster, an absolutely disaster," Biti lashed out.

ZANU PF says that there are only two contentious cabinet posts, but the MDC Secretary General insists there is no agreement on anything. "All the portfolios are at stake. So basically you have to start from afresh. It's like a jigsaw puzzle. You may have two pieces that you may not have sorted out but these two pieces affect the entire jigsaw," Biti added.

When asked why the MDC signed a deal before the negotiations had been concluded, Biti responded by saying: "Judging from where we were coming from the issue of allocation of cabinets should have been a foregone conclusion. Surely ZANU PF would have understood that they cannot, under whatever matrix, demand the finance ministries because they failed. The reason why we are where we are is because they failed. So they would have recognized that the MDC has to be given this task. Equally the MDC would have deferred to ZANU PF on the question of security ministries because they are still controlling. That is elementary."

The MDC leader said what is causing the deadlock is an "absence of good faith and the absence of common sense."

On Tuesday, South Africa's News 24 reported that MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa had expressed regret that the party had signed the power-sharing deal, without having agreed on the make-up of a unity government. According to the online paper Chamisa told a radio station in South Africa that he thought the party's "big mistake" was to have signed a deal before the negotiations had been concluded.

We asked Tendai Biti if he regretted the signing of the deal and he said: ""Absolutely not. We have served Zimbabweans to the best of our abilities and we will continue to serve."

He went on to say: "We have done everything we can to serve Zimbabweans honestly and faithfully. What is missing is a paradigm on the part of ZANU PF and we can't be blamed for that."

The Secretary General said if the deal collapses then the fault must fall squarely on ZANU PF.

He also denied reports that the MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai was forced into signing the deal by former South African President Thabo Mbeki. He said the signing of the deal came after intense negotiations by the three political parties.

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