My brother phoned me last night to find out if there was dancing in the streets in Harare following the agreement signed yesterday between Zanu (PF) and the two MDC formations. I was taken aback to realise that I hadn’t given any thought to celebrating the deal. I am an avowed optimist, but celebrating now just seems premature.

Having had a chance to look through the agreement I’ll readily concede that it lays the ground for exciting and positive change. The trouble is that very few of us trust ANY of the signatories or political parties involved. Civil society has been excluded from the process and we have good reason to worry about the ability of the political formations to co-operate. I’m also concerned that they will collude to keep themselves safe from public scrutiny by leaving obnoxious legislation intact.

For any of this ‘inclusive governance’ to impact and be measured on the ground, we need to mobilise around the country to make sure that EVERYONE understands the letter of this agreement. People have experienced so much brutalisation at the hands of petty partisan enforcers and this has to stop.

Since politicians are notoriously self-serving, we need to keep them all honest from the start. If development aid starts to flow back into Zimbabwe we want to deal swiftly with corruption and make sure that the population at large benefits ahead of well-connected politicians and business people.

What measures do you think should be taken to ensure Zimbabweans around the country benefit from the agreement’s contents?

This entry was posted on September 16th, 2008 at 10:55 am by Brenda Burrell and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.