No interparty dialogue on the cards

No talks between the ruling party and Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have been scheduled to resolve the country's political and economic crisis, an MDC spokesperson told IRIN on Tuesday. "As far as [MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai] is concerned, nothing is taking place," Tsvangirai's spokesman William Bango commented. He said that Tsvangirai had met ruling ZANU-PF party chairman John Nkomo over Christmas at the funeral of Ntombizodwa Sibanda, the wife of MDC vice-president Gibson Sibanda, "but I don't think, because of the occasion, anything came out of sitting together in one room". Although Nkomo had previously met twice with Tsvangirai on "how the impasse [on dialogue] could be broken", he was not part of the formal ZANU negotiating team which last year held talks with the MDC in the wake of the party's rejection of the controversial March 2002 presidential election, Bango said. Those talks, which broke down over the MDC's insistence on mounting a court challenge to President Robert Mugabe's poll victory, involved teams headed by MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube, and for the government, Minister of Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Patrick Chinamasa. With a new urgency toward dialogue seemingly stoked by a visit to Zimbabwe earlier this month by South African President Thabo Mbeki, news reports said Ncube and Chinamasa were due to meet on 23 December discuss an agenda for interparty talks. However, Ncube dismissed the speculation. "There are no plans for us to meet either formally or informally. In fact Mr Chinamasa has just gone on leave," he said in a statement. He added: "We appreciate the anxiety and the expectations that the people have over the current situation in our country especially after last week's visit by the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, in which hopes were raised after he had expressed optimism over the urgency of the resumption of the talks between the two parties." Bango said the last contact between the two men was in June, when they explored "using the constitution" as a mechanism for reaching a political settlement. Tsvangirai warned this month that the MDC would mount protest action in 2004 to press its demands for constitutional reforms to clear the way for free and fair elections. IRIN was unable to reach relevant government and ZANU-PF officials for comment.