The short version is that everything is screwed up and the deal is collapsing.

There is, however some good news, which is that after Mbeki’s latest visit, the SADC has defacto taken him out of the process, because both sides have asked the SADC to intervene directly, as opposed to through Mbeki, in what Tsvangerai calls “Tsvangirai slams Mugabe’s dialogue of the deaf.”

This really should help things move along, because Mugabe no longer has a biased ally at the negotiating table, though actually holding the meeting may be problematic, because Tsvangerai cannot travel to the meeting until he is
given a passport by the government.

As a result of all this, we have warnings of new sanctions from the US and EU.

Both the MDC and Botswana have made calls for a new election, though one wonders how much of that is gamesmanship at the negotiating table.

Of course, nothing involve Zimbabwe would be complete without some truly bizarre machinations, in this case the accusation by the MDC that the deal that was formally signed was changed from what was negotiated, specifically:

• an increase to the number of non-constituent senators issued to the Mutambara faction;
• changes to a clause stating that a replacement for vice prime minister cannot be a non-constituent MP;
• changes to the agreement that parties would jointly consult each other on the appointment of ambassadors and other key government officials.

Basically, because Thabo Mbeki wanted a deal to secure his legacy, he forced the MDC to sign a deal that wasn’t fleshed out, so now Mugabe has unilaterally appointed his minions to head the military, police, and state media ministries.

This means that the ZANU-PF would retain control of the country, and their thuggish “war veterans” would continue to operate with impugnity.

Representatives of the MDC have stated the obvious, that they should have waited until the details on power sharing were hammered out. Of particular interest is the quotes that point the finger for this failure squarely at Mbeki:

Various media reports quote informed sources as saying: “Tsvangirai made it clear that he did not trust Mugabe and insisted that the key issue of the allocation of ministries should be put into black and white first and vowed he would not sign the deal if this condition was not met,” said a source who negotiated for Tsvangirai’s party. “Mugabe had promised that all the parties would have a key ministry and even suggested that he would retain Defence and Agriculture, while Tsvangirai would be allocated Home Affairs and Information. Mutambara was supposed to get Justice and Youth.”

But the sources said Mbeki lambasted Tsvangirai, after Mugabe had declared his commitment to making the deal a success. “Mbeki told him, ‘Heads of states are already here for the signing of this deal and you say you cannot sign’ – and Tsvangirai had no option,” said the source. Mbeki had held private talks with Tsvangirai the previous Tuesday as the power-sharing deal remained deadlocked.

It is now blindingly clear that Mbeki is, as I have repeatedly said, is the problem, not the solution.

Not surprisingly, Tsvangirai has threatened to withdraw from the power sharing deal as a result.

In an attempt to put out this fire by adding gasoline, Mbeki is headed back for more negotiations.

The right move would be to replace Mbeki with someone who isn’t in Mugabe’s pocket.

As a result we are seeing another refugee flood into South Africa, and threats of of new sanctions against Zimbabwe.

Mugabe’s thugs are returning to form, with riot police beating protesters.

It appears that the main driver of this is the fears of Mugabe’s generals that they would be subject to criminal prosecution if the opposition takes any control of the state security apparatus.

Tsvangerai is insisting on real executive power as prime minister, which makes sense, as he won the election, but this is a major sticking point, which is why the SADC summit ended without a deal.

So the SADC is pressuring Tsvangerai to cut a deal with Mugabe that does not involve real power for the MDC, with the threat that the splinter MDC-Mutambara would ally with the ZANU-PF in parliament otherwise, which indicates to me that the SADC, or some of the members of the SADC, don’t really care about the quality of governance in Zimbabwe, they just want the problem to go away.

There are now reports that Arthur Mutambara, whose party, the MDC-Mutambara, has 7 seats, and thus the margin of majority in the Zimbabwean parliament, may have cut a deal with Mubame, though his representatives are denying this, or claiming that there is a deal, but that it would not take effect unless Morgan Tsvangerai, or at least the MDC-Tsvangerai, was also a part of the agreement.

If this is a sellout by MDC-M of MDC-T, which I see as likely, then we know why Mugabe agreed to talks, because he needed time to stack the deck.

Both the European Union and the United States have expanded sanctions against Zimbabwe

As to the negotiations that have been going on for a few days, we have the ZANU-PF saying that the results of the runoff are ‘Non-Negotiable’, but that could be put down to normal gamesmanship in any negotiation.

As to what will happen in the negotiations, the The Grauniad^* and the Times of London have two diametrically opposed views of what is happening next, with the Guardian suggesting that the talks are a ploy, and that Mugabe is using them for time to prepare for even more extreme violence against the opposition, and the Times of London suggesting that South Africa is insisting that Robert Mugabe and his allies to surrender real power in Zimbabwe.

I think that the Times is wrong for a number of reasons. First, as the Guardian notes, this sort of negotiation has happened before, in the late 1980s with Joshua Nkomo’s ZAPU party, with no real power devolving to ZAPU, and second because it would be completely out of character for Thabo Mbeki to insist that Robert Mugabe do anything.

I expect it to get much worse before it gets better.

^*According to the Wiki, The Guardian, formerly the Manchester Guardian in the UK. It’s nicknamed the Grauniad because of its penchant for typographical errors, “The nickname The Grauniad for the paper originated with the satirical magazine Private Eye. It came about because of its reputation for frequent and sometimes unintentionally amusing typographical errors, hence the popular myth that the paper once misspelled its own name on the page one masthead as The Gaurdian, though many recall the more inventive The Grauniad.”