Zimbabwe’s Mugabe Should Face Sanctions, ANC Dissidents Say
2008-12-22 15:39:33.749 GMT
By Mike Cohen and Peter Hirschberg
Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) -- The Congress of the People, a party formed by dissident members of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress, said Zimbabwe’s neighbors should halt supplies of commodities to the country to force political change.
“It’s no good to mouth beautiful slogans, there must be implementation,” Mosiuoa Lekota, the former ANC chairman and defense minister who was appointed the new party’s leader on Dec.
16, said in an interview in Johannesburg today. “Simply refusing supplies of commodities” to Zimbabwe could spur political change.
Zimbabwe hasn’t formed a government three months after President Robert Mugabe and opposition leaders signed a power-sharing accord because of disagreements about the allocation of ministries. A presidential run-off in June was boycotted by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in June because of alleged attacks on its supporters, sparking the crisis.
The country, which borders South Africa, is in its 10th year of recession and its health, sewage and water systems have collapsed, causing a cholera outbreak that’s claimed more than 1,000 lives. The annual inflation rate has risen to more than 230 million percent.
South Africa’s government has continued the policy of “quiet diplomacy” toward Zimbabwe adopted by Thabo Mbeki, who while being ousted as South Africa’s president in September has remained as the mediator between Mugabe and the MDC. Kgalema Motlanthe, South Africa’s president, last week rejected calls by Western countries, Kenya and Botswana for Mugabe to step down.
‘African Solutions’
South Africa supplies Zimbabwe with motor fuel, power and food as well as other imports. Before resigning from government following Mbeki’s dismissal, Lekota didn’t voice opposition to the policy on Zimbabwe.
“It is important to have African solutions to African problems but there must be willpower on behalf of sister African countries,” he said.
Lekota, together with the former premier of Gauteng Province, Mbhazima Shilowa, left government after Mbeki’s exit because they said the party, Africa’s oldest political movement, had veered away from its earlier ideals and was too heavily influenced by its allies, the South African Communist Party and Congress of South African Trade Unions.
The electorate has grown increasingly disgruntled with the ANC and there is an “increasing possibility” that the party, which won almost 70 percent of the vote in the last election may be toppled in elections that must be held by mid-July, Lekota said in a separate interview with Bloomberg television.
“Great Brand”
“The current leadership simply abandoned its commitment to the provisions of the constitution,” he said. “The party has put in place in local government, provincial government, very many individuals who are more concerned with lining their own pockets than looking after the interest of the people. The levels of corruption are shocking.”
Plans to establish COPE were announced in October and the party says it has already signed up 428,000 members.
“The ANC remains a great brand,” said Alastair Newton, a political analyst at Nomura International in London. The breakaway by COPE “looks more like a split over personalities than a split over policies. I would be very surprised if the ANC were to lose the next election.”
If COPE were to take power it would retain the government’s prevailing macroeconomic policies, including inflation targeting, Lekota said. The party has yet to decide on a candidate for finance minister.
‘Crime’
“We accept as a given that we will continue with this economy as a free market economy with a significant role from the state,” Lekota said. The party opposes borrowing money and widening the budget deficit, he said.
Crime in the country, where the murder rate is eight times that of the U.S., needs to be tackled by investing in education and cutting joblessness, he said.
“The first thing is to seek to cut down on the high levels of unemployment,” he said.
South Africa’s unemployment rate of 23.2 percent is the highest out of 65 countries monitored by Bloomberg. |
