Stage set for SADC Troika on Zim crisis

By Agencies  

Efforts to have a Southern African Development Community (SADC) Troika meeting on the Zimbabwean crisis has reached top level.

According to a source privy to the goings on, apparent attempts by the President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa administration to preempt the SADC process in Harare will not succeed.

SAPES Trust convener, Dr Ibbo Mandaza who claims to be in touch with SADC governments says the regional body’s Troika meeting on Zimbabwe is on this week.

“Zimbabweans should not be distracted by the apparent attempts to preempt the SADC process in Harare.

“To state the least: the SADC Troika meets this week; and Zimbabwe can forget the Chairmanship of SADC next year if they persist in their disdain of the regional body,” he says.

Mandaza maintains that there is no way Mnangagwa can run the country in the face of SADC observer team report and others that the election was rigged.

Apparently, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema recently met with his Angolan counterpart João Lourenço to deliberate on the SADC Electoral Observer Mission final report on the just ended disputed elections in Zimbabwe.

Hichilema is the chairperson of SADC Organ on Politics Defence Security and Cooperation while Lourenço is the regional body’s chair.

Although the Troika meeting is yet to be confirmed by the leading governments (Zambia and Angola) reports are that it is set to happen in Botswana.

Be that as it may, President Mnangagwa is expected to take over the Troika chairmanship late next year.

For some critics, fears are that if the Zimbabwean crisis is not deliberated by SADC this year, then that’s it, because next year Mnangagwa would be the chair.

-ZWN