2. Recommendations 1) A run-off of the Presidential election in the current environment is neither practical nor desirable. The SADC mediator should therefore take urgent steps to bring the major parties together into a renewed mediation process to discuss the following: • Immediate demobilization of the ruling party structures orchestrating the violence in Zimbabwe. SADC observers should be sent into the country immediately to observe and assist this process. • Discussions around the creating of a transitional government composed of representatives of the MDC and ZANU PF to map out conditions for political stabilization, humanitarian assistance and interim measures to help stabilize the economy. • Such a transitional authority should then map out the process for the creation of a new constitution, and the conditions necessary for such a constitution to come into force. • Recognition by both the mediator and SADC that the central obstacle to a peaceful transition in Zimbabwe is Robert Mugabe and those elements in his security and political structures for whom a political alternative is unthinkable. 2) SADC and the AU should combine a strategy of assisting and supporting such a transitional process, with a clear message to the Mugabe regime that it can expect no further diplomatic support in the event of its continued recalcitrance in the political process. 3) Peace-building measures in civil society, building on on-going initiatives in the country, should be strengthened and supported by the presence of regional church and civic actors. Such an initiative could help to contain and roll back the zones of violence in the country. Finally there needs to be a general recognition that Zimbabwe is sinking fast into the conditions of a civil war, propelled largely by the increasing reliance on violence by the ruling party to stay in power, and the rapidly shrinking spaces for any form of peaceful political intervention. The SADC Facilitation and the 2008 Election3 1. The SADC Facilitation One of the major factors that framed the 2008 Harmonised Elections in Zimbabwe was the SADC mandated mediation process in 2007. The process emerged after the public beating, arrest and torture of opposition and civic leaders on 11th March 2007 and the brutal attacks on MDC structures that followed thereafter. 4 A combination of international pressure and growing concern in SADC led to an ExtraOrdinary SADC Heads of State summit in Tanzania at the end of March 2007, at which SA President, Thabo Mbeki was given the mandate to facilitate discussion between the two major political parties in Zimbabwe, ZANU PF and the MDC. The continued degeneration of the political situation and the spiralling economic crisis in the country, in the context of growing international criticisms of the 3 This section draws from Brian Raftopoulos, “Crisis, Mediation and Democratic Challenges in Zimbabwe.” Forthcoming, Zimbabwe Institute, Cape Town, 2008. 4 Solidarity Peace Trust, Destructive Engagement: Violence, Mediation and Politics in Zimbabwe. Johannesburg 2007. 8