ANC still waiting for Zanu-PF ‘permission’ to meet Chamisa
THE SA government and the ANC are still officially waiting for Zanu-PF to grant them permission to meet the MDC Alliance led by Nelson Chamisa and civil society – their condition for returning.
But Zanu-PF shows no signs of budging and views that as intrusion.
Last year Pretoria officials contemplated applying economic pressure on the Zanu-PF government to persuade it to allow them to meet all sides. This would include withholding financial aid and help requested by Zimbabwe to provide Covid-19 materials such as personal protective equipment, until Harare agrees to allow SA’s envoys to meet whoever they want to.
Yet the idea of such sanctions was rejected, for fear it would harm ordinary Zimbabweans.
Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu, the head of the ANC national executive committee’s international relations sub-committee, who was on the ANC mission to meet Zanu-PF last year, told Daily Maverick this week that the ANC still aimed to continue the dialogue and would soon discuss this, now that the holidays were over.
“We can’t lose sight of this … We cannot afford to, from an ANC point of view, government point of view, regional point of view, because our economies are interlinked. Everything is interlinked. We can’t separate ourselves. We need to find solutions at all times.”
But whether Zanu-PF is open to the real solutions that are needed – a major reform of both the politics and the economy – is of course the big question. – Politics263 🔺
