5. IMPACT AND PROBLEMS OF THE GOVERNMENT OF NATIONAL UNITY
5.20. Final Power-Sharing Deal
Leaving the talks on 11 September 2009, Tsvangirai told the press that a deal had been reached.
Mbeki said that the deal would be signed in Harare on 15 September 2009 in the presence of other African leaders; he did not explain the terms of the deal, saying that they would not be revealed until the deal was signed. The Zimbabwean Permanent Representative to the United
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Nations (UN), Boniface Chidyausiku, described the agreement as a “triumph for African diplomacy.”
The SADC postponed a meeting of its defence committee indefinitely until President Mbeki could finalise a unity deal in Zimbabwe. Confirming that he would attend the meeting, President Mbeki told journalists that, if the deal fell through at the last minute, he would tell the SADC that he had done his best as mediator, and that the deal fell through because one or more of the parties were not serious about the negotiations.
At the end of the fourth day of negotiations President Mbeki announced that President Mugabe, Tsvangirai, and Mutambara had signed a power-sharing agreement “memorandum of understanding.” President Mbeki stated:
“An agreement has been reached on all items on the agenda ... all of them [Mugabe, Tsvangirai, and Mutambara] endorsed the document and signed it. The formal signing will be done on Monday 10 am. The document will be released then. The ceremony will be attended by SADC and other African regional and continental leaders. The leaders will spend the next few days constituting the inclusive government to be announced. The leaders will work very hard to mobilise support for the people to recover. We hope the world will assist so that this political agreement succeeds.”
The deal is also expected to result in a de fact amnesty for the military and ZANU-PF party leaders. Opposition sources said “Tsvangirai will become prime minister at the head of a council of ministers, the principal organ of government, drawn from his Movement for Democratic Change and the president's ZANU-PF party; and President Mugabe will remain president and continue to chair a cabinet that will be a largely consultative body, and the real power will lie with Tsvangirai.” The executive power would be shared by the president, the prime minister and the cabinet. Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara have still not decided how to divide the ministries. Jendayi E. Frazer, the American assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, said:
“We don’t know what’s on the table, and it’s hard to rally for an agreement when no one knows the details or even the broad outlines” (Zungu, 2003:112).
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Reportedly, the deal would include the following provisions:
Mugabe would lead the army and the NSC, Tsvangirai the government and the police.
A new constitution will be drafted within 18 months; following a referendum on the new constitution, early elections would be held within three months.
The MDC will have 16 ministers, the ZANU-PF 14.
An MDC official said on 13 September 2009 that the MDC wanted to control the key ministries of Home Affairs, Finance, and Justice; in return, the official said that the MDC was willing to concede the ministries of Defence and State Security to ZANU-PF.
On 15 September 2008, SADC leaders witnessed the signing of the power-sharing agreement, facilitated by President Mbeki. With a symbolic handshake and warm smiles at the Rainbow Towers hotel, in Harare, President Mugabe and Tsvangirai signed the deal to end the violent political crisis. Under the terms of the deal, Mugabe was to remain President, Tsvangirai would become Prime Minister, the MDC would control the police, ZANU-PF would control the Army, and Mutambara would become deputy Prime Minister.
5.21. Negotiations on Cabinet Composition
The parties planned to hold talks regarding the allocation of cabinet portfolios beginning on 16 September 2009, but these talks were delayed. Chinamasa said that the necessary constitutional amendments to provide a legal basis for some aspects of the agreement would be considered by Parliament after it began sitting on 14 October 2009. However, he also said that other aspects of the agreement would not require constitutional amendments. President Mugabe, in a speech to the ZANU-PF Central Committee that was broadcast live on 17 September, described the agreement as a “humiliation”, but said that the party could have avoided the situation if it had not
“blundered” when it failed to win a parliamentary majority. However, he asserted that ZANU-PF was still in “the driving seat” and would “not tolerate any nonsense” from the MDC. The Central Committee approved the agreement, while expressing concern that attacks against ZANU-PF supporters could have a negative effect on relations between the parties. On the same day,
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Tsvangirai said that he was confident that the deal would hold and that President Mugabe was committed to it.
The parties held talks regarding the allocation of portfolios on 18 September, but according to Nelson Chamisa, the MDC-T spokesman, no agreement was reached and “the matter was referred to the negotiators.” The negotiators met on 19 September 2009, but according to Nelson Nelson Chamisa they failed to reach an agreement. Chamisa said that ZANU-PF had a “take, take and take mentality” and wanted to hold all of the most important portfolios, while the MDC favoured a “give and take situation” in which the most important portfolios would be divided fairly. In particular, the MDC wanted to control the Finance portfolio, justifying this by pointing to the disastrous state of the economy, but ZANU-PF objected.