http://www.zimonline.co.za by Simplicious Chirinda Thursday 03 December 2009 HARARE - South African officials facilitating Zimbabwe's power-sharing talks on Wednesday presented to President Jacob Zuma a progress report on the negotiations aimed at resolving problems rocking Harare's 10-month-old coalition government. The South African leader, who last month took over as the Southern African Development Community (SADC) mediator on the Zimbabwean question from former president Thabo Mbeki is now expected to visit Harare to try to push the negotiation process forward. A spokesperson for the facilitation team, Lindiwe Zulu who is also Zuma's International Affairs Adviser, told ZimOnline yesterday that they had presented a report of their findings during a one-day visit to Harare to Zuma. "We have presented a report of the findings of our visit to Harare to President Zuma who will know how to proceed," said Zulu without disclosing what the report contained. "We don't know yet if he will travel to Harare as yet but we just had a mandate to play and that's what we have done." Zuma appointed the three-member team just over a week ago to push for a quick resolution of the power-sharing dispute threatening to derail the Harare administration. In addition to Zulu, other members of the team that on Monday met with President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, Deputy Premier Arthur Mutambara and the negotiators, are Zuma's political adviser Charles Nqakula and anti-apartheid struggle veteran Mac Maharaj. A summit of SADC's special organ on defence and politics held last month in Maputo, Mozambique asked Zimbabwe's political leaders to engage in dialogue to resolve all outstanding issues in the implementation of last year's power-sharing agreement or global political agreement (GPA). Welshman Ncube, who is representing the MDC faction led by Mutambara yesterday said the negotiations would resume today. "We are resuming negotiations tomorrow (Thursday), we are progressing very well and we will keep on negotiating," Ncube told ZimOnline. But after being asked if they are making progress on the outstanding issues, he said, "I think so." Some of the outstanding issues that have threatened to destabilise the coalition government include Mugabe's refusal to rescind his unilateral appointment of two of his top allies to head Zimbabwe's central bank and the attorney general's office. Mugabe has also refused to swear in Tsvangirai ally Roy Bennett as deputy agriculture minister while the Prime Minister's MDC-T party is also unhappy by what it says is selective application of the law to target its activists and officials. On the other hand ZANU PF, which insists that it has met all its obligations under the GPA, accuses the MDC-T of not living up to a promise to lead a campaign for lifting of Western sanctions against Mugabe and members of his inner circle. - ZimOnline Other posts:
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