Church Leaders Initiatives

On Monday 17 November 2008 and the following Tuesday we had very useful meetings with the three political party represenatives in Harare. Dr Goodwell Shana the Head of Church Denominations in Zimbabwe invited me to assist him in intervening in the present crisis. The first person we met was from the MDC-T in the person of Lovemore Moyo the chairman of the party. After him we met Tendai Biti the secretary general of the same party. The following day we met first with Welshman Ncube and Priscila Misihairambwi-Mushonga both from Arthur Mutambara MDC. At mid-day we met Nicholas Goche one of the negotiators from ZANU PF. His counterpart Patrick Chinamasa was on his way to Geneva.

It was good that we met the representatives of these three parties. After listening carefully to all the three groups one thing came out clearly. Though they were all concerned about the other parties machinations other than their own they all showed that individuals in their respective camps were already earmaking themselves for Cabinet posts. For example if the ministry of Health went to MDC-T the concern from the sitting Cabinet minister would be why then has that ministry gone to MDC-T. This is just an example of many instances where various individuals had already positioned themselves for particular posts. This kind of thinking has made life very difficulty for the principals who are lobbied left right and centre.

We felt just short of concluding that the problem hinged on personal ambitions. The nation was being compromised because individuals had already positoned themselves for different Cabinet posts. All the three parties suggested to us that the key person now to talk to was Morgan Tsvangirai. If we managed to convince Tsvangirai that the best move now was to facilitate the formation of a government they were convinced things would move forward. We have not yet made up our minds on this but we are considering that option as we wait for Tsvangirai to come back from an overseas trip so that we meet him and also hear his side of the story.

After the interviews with these guys we felt now we were more informed about this complex situation and we were in a better position to make informed prayers. Though we initially felt demoralised we thanked God that we had gone through this frustrating excercise. We saw that power and control was at the centre of the misunderstanding. There was also mistrust among them. We pray that our leaders put the nation first and not only think of themselves selfishly like that.