afrol News, 21 July - Zimbabwe's ruling party and two factions of opposition are set to sign a crucial deal today laying down a framework for fully-fledged talks towards resolving the country's political impasse.

A deal expected to be signed later this afternoon, came after South African President Thabo Mbeki made an agreement on Friday to work closely with United Nations and African Union in his role as mediator.

Ruling Zanu-PF Chief negotiator Mr Patrick Chinamasa confirmed that an agreement will be signed on Monday in which negotiations would be held under the mediation of President Mbeki.

"The signing will take place this afternoon," stated Mr Chinamasa confidently.

AU and international pressure for the parties to negotiate mounted after Mr Robert Mugabe won a one sided presidential run-off election, after the country's main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) boycotted widely condemned elections due to violence perpetrated on MDC supporters.

Analysts said the talks were only a first step in paving way for formal negotiations that are expected to be extremely tough, with both Mugabe and Tsvangirai demanding to be recognised as Zimbabwe's rightful presidents.

Mr Mbeki who was appointed by main regional bloc, Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), to mediate between Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai, has been negotiating with the two sides since 10 July and said the talks would produce some form of coalition.

Many observers and analysts see a coalition with Mr Mugabe as president and Mr Tsvangirai vice president as the only way to lead the nation out of its impasse and begin reversing its economic collapse.

Zanu-PF has said it is open to power-sharing but only if Mr Mugabe heads any unity government, while at the same time opposition said publicly that it is open to a government of national healing, but only with moderate ruling party members, not Mugabe.

The five-page agreement to be signed has no details of a possible power-sharing arrangement, which some analysts see as the only way out of Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis.

UN special representative Mr Haile Menkerios, and Mr Jean Ping, AU commission chairman, who met the parties over the weekend, had both expressed confidence that the pact would be signed.

Mr Menkerios said the draft, once signed, would clear the way for actual talks on the future of the country to take place.

SADC which mandated Mbeki to mediate the Zimbabwe crisis in March 2007, said it hoped the talks would yield a result before a meeting of the bloc's leaders in August.

"Our hope is to see Zimbabwe's problems resolved even before the summit next month in South Africa," the head of the Organisation's Politics, Defence and Security Organ, Mr Tanki Mothae said.

MDC said more than 120 of its activists have been killed by Mr Mugabe's regime and party militants since the first round of voting in March. The opposition won most parliament seats in that election for the first time since Mugabe took power at independence in 1980.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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