Despite South African President Thabo Mbeki's
assessment that the stalled talks between Zimbabwe's political parties
taking place in Pretoria were going 'very well' there were signs
Tuesday that the current impasse could drag on.
In a
characteristically positive assessment of the situation, Mbeki, the
regional mediator in Zimbabwe, said the talks between President Robert
Mugabe's Zanu-PF and Morgan Tsvangirai's opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) had merely been 'adjourned for a few days' to
allow the negotiators time to consult with their parties.
'They are doing very well,' Mbeki assured a day after the talks on the
formation of a unity government were abruptly suspended, amid reports
of disagreement over who - Mugabe or Tsvangirai - should lead the new
formation.
Mbeki said the parties were still committed to
concluding the talks within the given two-week deadline and would
return to South Africa.
But a senior MDC official, speaking
anonymously because the talks are subject to a media blackout, ruled
out the party rejoining the talks until the spat had been resolved.
MDC officials say the talks came to a halt over the distribution of
posts in the proposed unity government, with the role being offered
Tsvangirai the main sticking point.
They say Zanu-PF offered
to make Tsvangirai a third vice-president under Mugabe - a proposal
they say the MDC rubbished. According to the MDC sources, the Zanu-PF
negotiators said they could make no revised offer until they had
consulted with Mugabe in Harare.
A Zanu-PF spokesman
confirmed that the party was discussing the developments. Nathan
Shamuyarira told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa: 'We are making
consultations with the view of making progress on the talks. We really
want the conclusions to come as early as possible.'
In the
meantime Tsvangirai was in South Africa Tuesday to get an update on the
talks from his negotiators, his spokesman George Sibotshiwe said.
The three-way talks between Zanu-PF and the two MDC factions - the
majority faction led by Tsvangirai and a smaller faction led by Arthur
Mutambara - had only begun five days ago.
The MDC, with
strong backing from Britain and the United States, has been pushing for
Tsvangirai to have the leading role in any new arrangement - either as
president or executive prime minister. In the latter scenario Mugabe
would remain on as president with reduced or ceremonial powers.
The MDC defeated Zanu-PF in March parliamentary elections, and
Tsvangirai took more votes than Mugabe in the first round of voting for
president on the same day.
But Zanu-PF has ruled out Mugabe occupying a diminished role, calling him the country's rightfully elected leader.
Mugabe was inaugurated as president for a further five years in June
after winning a presidential election run-off the West and a handful of
African countries derided as illegitimate.
Tsvangirai boycotted the poll after dozens of his supporters was killed in the preceding weeks by Mugabe loyalists.
The talks in South Africa, which followed the first face-to-face
meeting between Mbeki and Tsvangirai in a decade last week, had been
heralded as a breakthrough in Mbeki's famously 'quiet' mediation.
But the political violence that has claimed the lives of at least 116
MDC supporters since March and which spurred the African Union to call
for a unity government has not ceased.
The MDC's director of
information Luke Tamborinyoka said Tuesday that three party supporters
had been killed in recent days despite all parties at the table in
Pretoria agreeing to take 'all necessary measures to eliminate all
forms of political violence.'
