Harare/Johannesburg – Another round of talks between Zimbabwe’s leaders that had been billed as make or break for the country’s power-sharing agreement ended late Monday in stalemate.

“We came to this meeting hoping that we put the people’s plight to rest,” opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai told reporters after around 12 hours of closed-door talks in a city centre hotel with his archrival, President Robert Mugabe, another opposition leader and mediators.

“Unfortunately there hasn’t been progress,” Tsvangirai said.

Mugabe, 84, conceded that the talks “did not go very well.”

Brokered by a team from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the talks were aimed at ending a four-month impasse between Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change on the implementation of the September power-sharing accord.

South African President Kgalema Motlanthe led the team, which also included Thabo Mbeki, SADC’s official mediator in Zimbabwe, and Mozambiquean President Armando Guebuza.

Mugabe said that the SADC had proposed a unity government with Tsvangirai as prime minister, to be sworn in as quickly as possible to begin the task of rebuilding the country. The deal would see Mugabe remain as president.

“(Tsvangirai’s party) gave a proposal which was obviously in conflict with the SADC proposal, which we have opposed, and then (the dialogue) broke down,” the visibly annoyed Mugabe said.

While Mugabe had previously threatened to forge ahead with forming a government minus the MDC in the absence of a breakthrough, he softened his stance somewhat, saying: “We will continue to discuss here at home. We shall continue exchanging ideas.”

SADC executive secretary Tomaz Salamao said that a special summit of the 15-nation SADC would be held on January 26 to try to advance the mediation. The meeting would take place either in Johannesburg or Botswana’s capital Gaborone, he said.

A previous SADC special summit on Zimbabwe in November failed to make any headway.

The failure of Monday’s talks came as little surprise.

The MDC had made clear that it would not go into government with Mugabe until its demands had been met for a fairer distribution of ministries and other key positions between it and Zanu-PF. The party is also seeking the release of dozens of political prisoners, among other demands.

Zimbabwe’s ongoing cholera and food crises have lent urgency to attempts to get a credible government up and running.

More than 2,200 Zimbabweans are estimated to have died of cholera since August, amid the breakdown of sewage and water systems, and half the country’s 10 million to
12 million people require food aid.

The outbreak has spread across Zimbabwe’s borders into neighbouring South Africa, Mozambique and Zambia. In South Africa, the death toll rose sharply Monday, with
19 people reported to have succumbed to the disease in the north-eastern Mpumalanga province, a tourist hub.

More than 30 people in South Africa have succumbed to the disease in recent months. (dpa)