Relations between leaders of Zimbabwe’s coalition government, which had taken some semblance of sanity, have once again gone cold following the Livingstone and Sandton Sadc meetings discussing the country’s political problems and the way forward.
Clearly, the animosity that existed two years ago when the parties’ members killed each other, still exists, with equal intensity but restrained evidence.
It began with obscene attacks on the person of South African President Jacob Zuma by Zanu PF doctors of spin soon after the Livingston Troika summit pointed out that one of the parties in the inclusive government was responsible for most of the violence in the country and that the same party was putting spanners in the works towards free and fair elections.
The spin doctors, their handlers and masters at the top were infuriated by proposals by the Troika which, if effected, would bring about the much-dreaded free and fair elections.
So like rabid dogs, they barked days on end at everybody who dared unpack the Livingstone resolutions in the correct interpretation.
They claimed unfair treatment, opaque dealings by the facilitator President Zuma, who was accused of hiding the report from one party of the inclusive government, and called in shrill voices for the disbandment of Zuma’s facilitating team.
When people ignored their rantings, they did not stop kicking, roping in everybody, including the usual targets, the US and Britain, as part of the grand regime-change plot being brought through the Zuma backdoor.
When Sadc leaders rescheduled the Zimbabwe question to the Sandton meeting, another flurry of activity was registered throughout the region as Zanu PF unleashed its dogs of spin once again. They tried everything from soft and persuasive diplomacy to arrogant bare knuckles boxing, but at the end of the day, Sadc leaders stuck to Livingstone, “noted” or “endorsed”.
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The ensuing embarrassment and accompanying anger is what resulted in the unveiling of the true nature of the relationship of the people who have pretended to be working together cordially in what appeared to be an inclusive government.
Zanu PF insisted the Sadc outcome was in their favour and within days calls were being made for the arrest of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai who was accused of undermining the President by saying President Mugabe and his party had not told the truth about the outcome of the Sandton meeting.
Tsvangirai also made reference to what is part of the GPA’s contentious issues, military intervention in the electoral process, challenging the military to come clean and enter the political field as politicians. He had ruffled the hornet’s nest.
The generals’ undeclared spokesperson lashed out at Tsvangirai and reiterated the security chiefs’ known partisanship.
What Brigadier-General Douglas Nyikayaramba has served to inform the nation by his ranting is that the establishment is overly irked by the reality that Livingstone is what prevailed at Sandton.
What he is saying is that even if Tsvangirai won elections as would be the likely outcome of a plebiscite instructed by the Livingstone and Sandton conditions, the military would not let him into State House.
The anger displayed by the generals as shown by Nyikayaramba only goes to confirm the Livingstone ghost indeed exists in the print that made the Sandton resolutions.
