MDC waiting for Zanu-PF to implement agreed measures

By Tichaona Sibanda
6 December 2007

The MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai on Thursday said that it will only sign a resolution with Zanu-PF if the regime implements measures agreed to so far during the talks.

The ruling Zanu-PF party has between now and the 15th December to give an undertaking that it would introduce a new constitution before the next elections, agree to work on a new voter’s role and, most importantly, stop all acts of hostility and violence.

Professor Elphas Mukonoweshuro, the MDC secretary for International Affairs, spoke to Newsreel from Lisbon, Portugal on the eve of the EU-Africa summit. ‘We are taking this opportunity here in Lisbon to spread the word that as a political party, despite all the sincerity that we have demonstrated, Zanu-PF has not reciprocated in any manner. Violence continues and the freedom of assembly continues to be non-existent,’ Mukonoweshuro said.

Mukonoweshuro is leading a two-man delegation that includes Nqobizitha Mlilo, who is the party’s regional officer based in Johannesburg.

Dialogue between the two parties is expected to be concluded on 15th December. It is believed each party to the crisis talks will be handed a copy of the resolution, to be studied by their respective decision making bodies, before each will sign the resolution.

The MDC believes there is still time for the regime to reform, if they show commitment given that it has taken all parties six agonising months to come close to a resolution, three months longer than the Lancaster House talks that led to an agreement that brought the country’s Independence in 1980. The deadline for the talks has been missed on several occasions starting as early as October. The MDC has blamed Zanu-PF for its delaying tactics, accusing the regime of not taking the negotiations seriously.

Urging SADC and the AU to closely monitor the concluding period of the talks, Mukonoweshuro said his party would like to see a situation in which the implementation of the agreed measures was no longer an option for Zanu-PF, but an imperative.