No power sharing deal yet in Zimbabwe

[RB TexLa]

By Nelson Banya Reuters - Wednesday, August 13 10:24 am

HARARE (Reuters) - South African President Thabo Mbeki left Zimbabwe on Wednesday after failing to secure a power-sharing deal between its main rivals during marathon talks, adding to doubts over changes of an agreement.

Mbeki brokered three days of negotiations between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on ending a post-election crisis that has worsened Zimbabwe's spiral of decline.

Mbeki said negotiations had not broken down, but Mugabe had only reached a deal with the leader of a breakaway opposition faction and he was unsure even that had been signed.

Mbeki said Tsvangirai was still looking at his options.

Negotiations followed Mugabe's unopposed re-election in June in a poll from which Tsvangirai withdrew because of attacks on his supporters and which was condemned around the world.

Mbeki headed to Angola to meet President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, head of the political department of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which is worried about the impact of a possible meltdown in Zimbabwe.

Mbeki, the region's chief negotiator in Zimbabwe, is expected to brief a weekend SADC summit in Johannesburg on the situation in Zimbabwe, a once promising African country whose economy is in ruins.

Without a comprehensive breakthrough in negotiations, Mbeki may come under renewed pressure to take a tough line with Mugabe, a policy he says would only aggravate political tensions in Zimbabwe.

Mbeki was confident a solution to the crisis was possible. "I have no doubt that's what will happen," he said after talks ended on Tuesday night. "If it means staying in this country for six months, I will do that".

There was uncertainty over where talks had got to.

A senior official of Mugabe's ZANU-PF told Reuters a deal had already been signed with Arthur Mutambara's breakaway faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, but a spokesman for that group said it was untrue.

If such a deal sidelined Tsvangirai, it could make it even harder to end the crisis and ease the hardship of Zimbabweans suffering 2 million percent inflation and shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency.

Mugabe is expected to convene parliament next week and plans to form a national unity government with Mutambara.

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