EDITOR — The Southern African Development Community (Sadc) summit which starts tomorrow at Victoria Falls with the nonagenarian President Robert Mugabe taking over the rotational reins of the regional bloc invokes serious questions and is dispiriting to any sober minded person, to say the least.
The biggest question for me is, how is the 90-year-old president who is struggling to control his own party Zanu PF, going to be effective in solving regional issues?
With the governance crisis in Swaziland, a country led by King Mswati III, coincidentally, strange bedfellows with Mugabe, Malawi and Tanzania border conflict over Lake Malawi, intermittent security threats in the DRC among others. One wonders how Mugabe will stay on top of these issues, while his country is on the precipice of a crisis.
For Mugabe, who doesn’t have a good reputation of abiding by the regional organisation’s rulings, taking over the Sadc chairmanship is not only a contradiction but it brings into focus the bloc’s lack of seriousness in dealing with pressing security and governance matters.
I understand the chair is rotational, but I can’t help but question the rationale behind such an appointment.
One is forgiven for dismissing Sadc as a circus and as some have said, the organisation has become an old boys’ club where former liberation movements come together to protect each other’s governance shortcomings.
With Zimbabwe slowly moving towards an economic crisis after the Zanu PF government’s failure to turn around the economy and implement its much-touted campaign trump card and economic blueprint ZimAsset, I wonder what answers Mugabe will provide for the region’s economic challenges.
The Sadc theme during the Victoria Falls summit is “strategy for economic transformation: leveraging the region’s diverse resources for sustainable economic and social development through beneficiation and value addition”
I wonder if Mugabe, as new chair of Sadc will rise above the mantra of blaming others (sanctions), neo- colonialism etc and address national and regional issues which have affected growth in the region.
I am still not holding my breadth!
Pan Africanist,
Harare