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(TALKZIMBABWE) President Mugabe should appoint cabinet immediately

President Mugabe should appoint cabinet immediately
Dr Obediah Mazombwe – Opinion
Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:30:00 +0000

THERE are two very compelling reasons why President Mugabe needs to appoint a cabinet immediately.

First, the immediate appointment of a cabinet, even without MDC-T participation, need not scuttle the on-going talks, nor snuff out the great spirit embodied in the MoU signed by Zimbabwe’s three major parties.

Second, there is a dire need to put in place a responsible and accountable cabinet to immediately take charge of, and assume accountability for stopping, the haemorrhaging of the Zimbabwean national system. There now exists a real possibility of this nation bleeding itself into comatose, with no-one in sight accepting responsibility.

President Mugabe, addressing a luncheon following the official opening of the First Session of the Seventh Parliament of Zimbabwe, was very candid about his way forward, and in his assessment of his out-going cabinet:

“I need managers. I want workers – people who take people to work… This Cabinet that I had was the worst in history. They look at themselves. They are unreliable, but not all of them,” he said.

With utterances like this, the President must know that Zimbabweans will hold him accountable for the men and women he appoints into the new cabinet. Zimbabweans will also hold the other party leaders who will appoint their members into the Government of National Unity. The people have simply had enough of mediocre leadership.

Leaders must be held accountable for their appointees. I quite admire the flak that the American public, across the political divide, have given the Republican presidential nominee for his “poor judgment” in appointing Sarah Salin as his election running mate. We can learn a few things from these “imperialists”!

Zimbabwe has had the misfortune, in the last few months, of having its ministries headed by persons some of whom not only lost the elections, but in whom the original appointing authority no longer has any confidence. These men are clearly “lame ducks”, and it is questionable whether they still wield the necessary authority in their ministries, and more seriously, whether the state assets under their control are still safe.

We definitely need a cabinet constituted by men and women in whom the electorate has shown confidence by electing to parliament. Even amongst these, the appointing authorities need to be wary about ethnic, regional, and even gender balancing. Merit must be the key criterion.

Should the president be put in the unfortunate position of appointing a cabinet without MDC-T participation, then it may be necessary to adopt some mechanism that ensures that the door is left open for the MDC-T appointed members to take up their positions when they are ready to do so.

It is vital that the spirit of national cooperation, and reaching across the political divide, that is embodied in the Memorandum of Understanding, signed earlier this year, be kept alive.

However, it seems likely that the negotiators will find common ground and finally sign an agreement. The areas of difference seem to be getting narrower and more specific with each attempt to reach agreement.

Indeed it is heartening that key members of the MDC-T, in the form of Tendai Biti and Nelson Chamisa, have been quoted as saying that failure to successfully conclude the negotiations “is not an option”.

We can only hope that Mr Tsvangirai can be persuaded to be less negative about the negotiations. Statements attributed to him on the eve of the current session of negotiations can only be considered regrettable.

Following the split parliamentary March vote there is no basis for Mr Tsvangirai to claim that the people of Zimbabwe are behind him. Boasting that he cannot be “pushed around’, and will not accept “half measures”, on the eve of a SADC/AU sanctioned “power-sharing” talks seems not only contradictory, but outright nonsensical. Where are the man’s advisors?

In the circumstances, Zimbabweans need to be reminded that although Western governments have promised much assistance for Zimbabwe as long as power is transferred to a Tsvangirai-headed government, this will not be automatic upon his signing a deal.

The lifting of the American imposed sanctions, for instance, is going to be quite a process, which has to go through their own law-making bodies. It took the Americans until last month, when he attained the age of 90, to take off the revered African nationalist, Nelson Mandela, from the American list of “terror” individuals and organizations.

The western governments will not be in a hurry to defer to Tsvangirai’s signature and lift the sanctions they have imposed on Zimbabwe. Indeed the EU has indicated that they reserve the right to with-hold assistance if they think the MDC has signed the “wrong” agreement.

The best way forward for Zimbabwe will be for the new government, with or without the Tsvangirai faction, to urgently and seriously engage the Western governments for a mutually acceptable way forward in areas of conflicting interests.

President Mugabe has never been averse to engaging the British or the Europeans, nor is he the Anglo-phobic some people would want to make him out to be. A number of factors actually indicate the contrary.

Indeed some years ago he implored a newly appointed British diplomat to Zimbabwe to try and bridge the chasm that has developed between us and the United Kingdom, but this friendly gesture, like others before it, was to no avail.

Zimbabwe is not desirous, nor is it capable of sustaining a permanently hostile relationship with the British, or anybody else for that matter. We know the strengths and weaknesses of the west, we know what they want here, (it’s not Tsvangirai, the man!).

We know our own strengths and weaknesses; we also know what the west have which we want. Surely, under a Mugabe presidency, we can constructively engage the west without compromising our core national values and vital interests. Other strong emerging states have done it.

Labels: CABINET, MUGABE, NEGOTIATIONS

posted by MrK @ 9:10 PM