SADC Expected to Push for Adoption of Electoral Roadmap

The international community sought on Friday to put concerted pressure on SADC to push parties in the Global Political Agreement to adopt an election roadmap that will guarantee free and fair elections in Zimbabwe.

On Saturday Zimbabwe will be discussed on the sidelines of the SADC summit in Johannesburg. The crisis was supposed to have been tackled at the SADC summit in Windhoek, Namibia, but was postponed as President Jacob Zuma of South Africa could not attend. Zuma is the SADC appointed mediator in the Zimbabwe crisis.

The regional leaders are meeting in what analysts hope will be a no holds barred discussion and the summit has also attracted the attention of the world's leading states.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was scheduled to meet Zambian President Rupiah Banda for talks in Lusaka on Friday. Banda is the current chair of the SADC troika organ on politics and security.

Analysts believe Clinton's visit to the region ahead of this crucial SADC summit in Johannesburg is a US attempt to lean on the regional bloc to take a tougher line on Robert Mugabe.

Our sources in Johannesburg told us other Western nations have also tasked their envoys in Pretoria and the region to ratchet up pressure, as it is vital that SADC does not reverse the landmark decisions of the Livingstone Troika summit.

Zuma and his SADC troika colleagues (Zambian President Banda; SADC chair and Mozambican President Armando Guebuza and Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba) read the riot act to Mugabe in Livingstone in an unprecedented way, warning him they were 'disappointed' and getting increasingly 'impatient' with him.

Mugabe reacted angrily and lashed out at Zuma and other SADC leaders, saying their role was not to "dictate" to him what to do but only to 'facilitate' talks.

Saturday's meeting takes place against frantic efforts by Mugabe to down play the Troika's observations. A ZANU PF delegation is already in Johannesburg to try to influence the bloc to reverse the damning Livingstone communiqué and report.

Mugabe has also moved to avert a public spat with Zuma by lining up a pre-emptive meeting with the mediator on the eve of the summit. His spokesman George Charamba said the two leaders will clear the ground on the political situation in Zimbabwe at a Friday meeting.

SW Radio Africa is reliably informed that MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai and MDC President Welshman Ncube have held several telephone conversations with the South African leader this week.

Both leaders have reportedly told Zuma that elections in Zimbabwe will only be feasible when a new constitution is in place, plus the many other reforms that are required to enable the electorate to express themselves freely.

This position was reaffirmed on Friday by Tsvangirai's foreign affairs advisor, Jameson Timba, at a press conference in Johannesburg, Friday.

Timba told journalists that the MDC-T will not agree to an election without fundamental reforms on the ground.

He said of major concern to them was the resurgence of violence and the deployment of soldiers, war vets and militia in the countryside, instruments of coercion and intimidation that need to be dismantled before the poll.

Political analyst Munjonzi Mutandiri told us there is a likelihood SADC will push for the adoption of the election roadmap, but will leave the three parties to work on the election date.