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President Jacob Zuma must heed concerns of the leaders of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) parties and ensure that South Africa’s planned meeting with the Zimbabwean Finance Minister, Tendai Biti, is leveraged to re-commit all parties to the principles of the Global Political Agreement (GPA).

South Africa’s Treasury has confirmed that Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan will be meeting with Biti to discuss Zimbabwe’s requests for financial assistance. Biti is reportedly seeking a R1.27 billion loan from South Africa.

I have written to Minister Gordhan to insist that any loans made to Zimbabwe are strictly conditional on its adherence to the terms of the GPA and specifically the principle that elections cannot be called before agreement is reached on a new constitution.

Another key provision of the GPA is that a draft constitution recommended by the constitutional parliamentary committee (Copac) shall be submitted to a referendum. The leaders of the two MDC parties, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Industry and Trade Minister Welshman Ncube, have reportedly written to President Jacob Zuma to express concern about the fact that Zanu PF is making unilateral amendments to the Copac draft of the constitution. This jeopardises the credibility of having a referendum on the negotiated draft and is likely to introduce further delays in finalising the negotiations and preparing for a democratic election.

As the Southern African Development Community (SADC) appointed facilitator of the negotiations, President Zuma must use every available opportunity to ensure that all key roleplayers remain committed to the agreed process of constitutional reform.

I will write to President Zuma to insist that he rejects any loan agreement with Zimbabwe unless all key parties, including Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF, continue to participate in the constitutional negotiations in good faith and confirm their commitment to subjecting a negotiated constitution to a national referendum.

We have an opportunity to exercise legitimate leverage to ensure that the political reforms in Zimbabwe remain on track. President Zuma must ensure that no party is allowed to derail the progress that has been made.