A renowned Sudanese human rights lawyer, Yasmin Sooka, has called on Zimbabwe to learn from other African countries that have successfully managed to handle their political crisis through an effective national dialogue process.
While addressing delegates at a Transitional Justice Dialogue Series recently, Sooka said:
The process (1990 political talks in South Africa) was inclusive and it draws on the lessons learnt from CODESA I and II.
The lessons learnt included the importance of having a simple structure with one negotiating and one decision-making body; the use of technical experts to enable ‘interest-based’ discussion; the establishment of a trusted ‘coordinating committee’ to function as guardians of the process, anticipate and pre-empt problems; and the seminal role of deadlock-breaking mechanisms that the parties had agreed on beforehand.
The civic society successfully advocated against the so-called ‘secret clauses’.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa a few weeks ago called for dialogue among all the presidential elections during the July 2018 poll.
While a majority of the candidates heeded the call, Mnangagwa’s main challenger, MDC president Nelson Chamisa, and some intellectuals rejected the call, calling the dialogue meaningless.
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