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Statement by the MDC President on the state of the dialogue
Morgan Tsvangirai, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
October 08, 2008

Suffering of Zimbabweans

Today is exactly 24 days after the signing of the global political agreement between ZANU PF and ourselves. On the day we signed the agreement the people of Zimbabwe breathed a sigh of relief and their hopes for a final resolution of this crisis were raised. Unfortunately no progress has been made since then, to bring the Zimbabwean people to the beginning of the path of recovery. Instead the economic crisis has worsened with people spending all their days in endless cash queues. We now live in an environment characterised by hunger and starvation and we are days way from seeing people dropping dead on the streets. I believe suffering knows no political affiliation and both ZANU PF and MDC supporters are suffering under this economic crisis. The agricultural season is upon us yet the nation is not prepared to take full advantage of what promises to be a good season.

We have just witnessed the conclusion of a disastrous education year in the history of our country, with the national examination board crippled by the economic crisis to the extent of failing to implement the Grade 7 examination sitting for this year. The country's universities are failing to open for the next semester due to the economic crisis.

I stated at my last press conference that given a nation in such a state it was necessary to put a government in place in order for us t begin the task of ensuring that the problems facing our country are dealt with. i believe that as leaders we have a duty of ensuring that we reward Zimbabweans for their patience and commitment to peace by ensuring we succeed in working together. We have actively engaged our colleagues in ZANU PF with a view to ensuring that we have agreement on the outstanding issues. May l take this opportunity to brief the nation on the state of the dialogue.

State of the dialogue

We have been engaging with our colleagues in ZANU PF at both the negotiators and principals level.

In particular we have been deliberating on the allocation of ministries. There has been no progress made on this entire section as ministries can only be negotiated comprehensively and not individually. It is not true to say that we are left with two ministries to negotiate as any agreement reached on those two particular ministries would have an effect on the allocation of the rest of the ministries.In this regard we have declared a deadlock and therefore the process can not move forward except in the presence of the facilitator.

I would like to emphasise that in looking at the allocation of ministries we have been informed by our desire as MDC ,of ensuring that we have a fair power sharing arrangement that allows us to deal with the current economic crisis while at the same time ensuring that we guarantee the basic freedoms for our people as well as democratize our society.

We have not yet deliberated on the outstanding issue of the allocation of governors. This issue remains outstanding considering that as negotiating parties we agreed that the allocation of governors must be in the spirit of the result of the election on the 29th of March 2008.

There is still an outstanding issue of omissions made in the signed agreement at the signing ceremony on the 15th of September, that had been agreed and initialled by all parties when we signed the original agreement on the 11th of September 2008. We are assured that the facilitator will sort out this problem and provide an updated document to the general public.

Lack of paradigm

We are concerned by the lack of paradigm shift on the part of our colleagues in ZANU PF and have watched with dismay

-their continued hate language in the state media which is destroying the hope of our people as well as their confidence in this power sharing arrangement. -the continued trumped up charges brought against our Secretary General, members of parliament and various members of our party structures across the country. -the continued discrimination on the basis of political affiliation mainly taking place in the rural areas. -the continued interference with, and threatening of, our councils, by the illegal minister of local government. -the lack of sincerity and commitment to working together demonstrated by what should be a simple administrative issue like issuing my passport, which has been turned into a political weapon by our colleagues in ZANU PF.

Throughout this negotiation effort up to the signing of the global political agreement we have compromised on many ocassions with a view to ensuring that the political crisis in our country is resolved in the interest of our nation.We are committed to change and therefore do not have challenges accepting change in its many forms. ZANU PF is not sensitive to the plight of the people and therefore has not gone through a paradigm shift of accepting the change created by signing the global political agreement.

SADC and AU are the guarantors

The global political agreement we have is guaranteed by SADC and the African Union and therefore in the event of a dispute or deadlock as we have now, the matter should be taken to SADC and AU in order for them to assist us. We have communicated this position to the African Union and to SADC as well as to the facilitator and have confidence that our African brothers will do everytihng in their power to ensure that this issue is resolved with speed.

We as Zimbabweans owe it to our African counterparts to ensure that we spare no effort in resolving the outstanding issues. We look forward to working with SADC, AU, and the facilitator in order to find a solution.

I thank you

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