News / National
Mugabe satisfied with Sadc Summit outcome
13 Jun 2011 at 06:55hrs | Views
President Robert Mugabe on Monday expressed satisfaction with the outcome of a regional summit which discussed Zimbabwe's electoral roadmap saying the meeting went "very well".
"It came out very well," Mugabe told reporters on his return from South Africa after regional leaders pressured Zimbabwe to make democratic reforms before holding elections.
The veteran leader added that facilitator South African Preident Jacob Zuma gave a "very good report" on the progress of the power sharing deal with long time-rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
"He [President Zuma] acknowledged the efforts that the global political agreement is making, in other words what our negotiators and the principals put together are making, and that there is progress now that there is work going on to establish the roadmap, that the highlights of the roadmap have been marked, what remains now are the timelines," Mugabe said
On Sunday, regional leaders from the 15-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) called on Mugabe and Tsvangirai to speed up implementation of the power-sharing deal that brought them together in an uneasy coalition government in 2009.
The leaders stopped short of the unusually harsh language used in March by the regional bloc's troika which called for an end to political violence and insisted that promised reforms be carried out.
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party also welcomed the outcome of the meeting in Johannesburg.
"We are pleased that the summit has noted and endorsed the Livingstone resolutions," secretary for international affairs James Timba told the privately-owned NewsDay newspaper after the summit.
"We are equally pleased that the summit has directed that the parties should immediately develop time limits of the agreed roadmap."
While the summit had been expected to agree a roadmap to lay out a new timetable for the constitution and elections, leaders pushed that decision back to their next summit in August.
"It came out very well," Mugabe told reporters on his return from South Africa after regional leaders pressured Zimbabwe to make democratic reforms before holding elections.
The veteran leader added that facilitator South African Preident Jacob Zuma gave a "very good report" on the progress of the power sharing deal with long time-rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
"He [President Zuma] acknowledged the efforts that the global political agreement is making, in other words what our negotiators and the principals put together are making, and that there is progress now that there is work going on to establish the roadmap, that the highlights of the roadmap have been marked, what remains now are the timelines," Mugabe said
On Sunday, regional leaders from the 15-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) called on Mugabe and Tsvangirai to speed up implementation of the power-sharing deal that brought them together in an uneasy coalition government in 2009.
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party also welcomed the outcome of the meeting in Johannesburg.
"We are pleased that the summit has noted and endorsed the Livingstone resolutions," secretary for international affairs James Timba told the privately-owned NewsDay newspaper after the summit.
"We are equally pleased that the summit has directed that the parties should immediately develop time limits of the agreed roadmap."
While the summit had been expected to agree a roadmap to lay out a new timetable for the constitution and elections, leaders pushed that decision back to their next summit in August.
Source - AFP
