A Prime Minister Without A Passport

If the Zimbabwe crisis was not a tragedy, one could really laugh about the latest developments in the SADC mediated attempts to form a coalition government. Just a brief background. Morgan Tsvangirai (leader of MDC-T) had a Zimbabwean passport which, due to his huge travel schedule, got filled up. That means, there were no more empty pages for the immigration officials at various airports and border control posts to put their stamp when he entered or left the country. For that reason, he had to apply for a new Zimbabwean passport.
The passport matters in Zimbabwe are the responsibility of the Registrar-General's Office, which also deals with the running of elections, voters' roll etc. and falls under the Ministry of Home Affairs. That is why this ministry is one of the contentious issues in the current negotiations.

Morgan Tsvangirai's passport got full about 2 months ago and he submitted his application for a new passport immediately. He paid the required application fee and submitted all the necessary documents. Two months later, he still doesn't have a passport and the Registrar-General's Office (under instruction from the care-taker ZANU-PF government) has been giving him excuses for not issuing him a passport.

The excuses range from administrative difficulties, lack of resources to process a passport and to simply "no reason."
Without a passport, he can no leave Zimbabwe and the few times he has had to travel outside the country in the last two months, the Registrar-General's Office has issued him an Emergency Travel Document (ETD). This is a A4 piece of paper, with his photograph on it and which states which country he is going to travel to.

After the failed attempts last week by Thabo Mbeki to resolve the disagreement over who gets which cabinet posts in the Zimbabwean government, it was decided that a SADC troika meeting be held in Mbabane, Swaziland on Monday this week to try and resolve the issues. All principals of the three parties (ZANU-PF, MDC-T, MDC-M) would attend.

On Sunday afternoon the Mugabe government issued Tsvangirai an ETD which stated that he was travelling to Swaziland. Either it was mere stupidity or ignorance or deliberately done, the Registrar-General's Office "forgot" to include South Africa as a destination/transit for his travel. To get to Swaziland (which is landlocked) one needs to pass through South Africa. Without valid documents, one can't get into South Africa.

Morgan Tsvangirai then decided to boycott the trip, not because the ETD had an omission or error, but mainly because the Mugabe regime refuses to issue him a passport.
And he waited until the SADC leaders and Robert Mugabe were in Swaziland to announce it, in order to get maximum effect out of it. He could have made phone calls Sunday night and informed them.
This raises a number of issues on how the Zimbabwean crisis is being dealt with by Thabo Mbeki and SADC.

1. Apparently this issue of Tsvangirai's passport was raised a numbed of times in the recent Mbeki/Tsvangirai/Mutambara talks and Mbeki promised to deal with it. But no passport has been issued yet. Either Mbeki was dishonest or he failed to pressure Mugabe to issue the passport.
2. How does Mugabe think, he can work with a Prime Minister, who he doesn't trust enough to give him a passport? Unless Mugabe doesn't want the deal to work.
3. ZANU-PF has become so stupid and desperate that they have lost any common sense. Do they really think nobody will see through the trick of denying Tsvangirai a passport? Even a Grade 1 child can see through it.
4. Why does SADC believe Mugabe's lies about the reasons for the passport not being issued? One can get a passport in Zimbabwe within a week if one pays for it in US$ (or other foreign currency such as British pounds, South African Rands). The MDC-T can surely afford the payment in US$.

As Tendai Biti (Secretary General of MDC-T) said yesterday, the issue of the passport is just a sign of the deeper refusal of ZANU-PF to accept that they lost the March 29 election and should hand over power to the MDC formations.

Mugabe is still behaving like he has a mandate from the people of Zimbabwe. His "care-taker" ministers (many who lost their parliamentary seats in March) are still running government, making decisions, officiating at functions etc, ignoring the fact that their term ended some 6 months ago.

Robert Mugabe is being held hostage by his own party, not to allow the MDC to take control of governement and hence his childish tricks of refusing to share important government ministries.
Mugabe is refusing to appoint MDC provincial governors. He argues the constitution states that it is the President who appoints governors and the MDC can not intefere with that.
He refuses to accept that the spirit of the agreement demands that all key appointments be shared, no matter what the constitution says. This is important in order for trust and respect to develop between ZANU-PF and MDC.

The case of a "Prime Minister without a passport" just a symptom of the attitude of ZANU-PF to resolving the crisis. MDC made a huge compromise by signing the September 15 deal. As a matter of fact, a number of their alliance partners accuse the MDC of giving in too much to ZANU-PF. It is now high time that SADC and the AU finally tell Mugabe how to behave.
But given Mugabe's stubbornness and refusal to listen to any advice, that too is unlikely to work.
It is maybe time to do as the government of Botswana suggested i.e. conduct a free and fair re-run of the Presidential elections in Zimbabwe and let the people decide.