Analysts expose Sadc faultlines in Moza post-election implosion

HUMAN Rights Watch said on Tuesday Mo zambican forces had killed about 10 chil dren and injured dozens amid battles to suppress weeks of post-election violence, as analysts pin-pointed numerous weak nesses affecting the Southern African Development Community (Sadc)’s ability to bring order in troubled hotspots. 

President Emmerson Mnangagwa took over as the 16-member bloc's chairman in August.

The analysts highlighted lack of political will to take decisive actions on Sadc’s most pressing issues, including disputed polls, and procrastination in operationalising a Standby Force, among the factors holding back impetus to deal with identified problems.

Mnangagwa had his first glimpses of the bloc’s problems last week, when only four regional leaders showed up for an extraordinary summit he convened in Harare.

The summit was itself marred by Sadc’s decision to congratulate Mozambique for its October polls, even as disturbances rocked cities.

In a paper titled “The Role of Sadc in Managing Political Crisis and Conflict”, Gavin Cawthra, a professor at the Graduate School of Public and Development Management at South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand, contends that the bloc had been rendered spineless due to the solidarity shared among incumbent leaders.

This solidarity and camaraderie, Cawthra argues, weakens Sadc from objectively addressing electoral conflicts.

“As a club of states, or presidents, Sadc tends to support incumbents in power and the presidents and states act in mutual support of each other.”

themselves to supranational governance as provided for by the treaty and implemented by the key institutions that also derive their mandate from the treaty.

“Among the many interventions that can be employed, Sadc needs the political consensus necessary among its member states and the technical capacity required among those charged with the responsibility for such a task for both an unequivocal commitment to deep integration and the full acceptance of the inevitable, but short-lived, political costs of such an undertaking.”

With Sadc yet to operationalise its Standby Force, military interventions in volatile hotspots have also been affected.

Mbofana said: “There is also a need to equip and professionalise the Sadc Standby Force to respond quickly to conflicts. The organisation should not wait to act at the last minute, especially with a poorly funded and equipped Standy Force.”

Tshwane University public affairs associate professor Ricky Mukonza noted that in its current state, the bloc is weak to tackle regional security challenges.

“Sadc is not suitable as a vehicle to address governance challenges in the region. This includes the perennial challenge of disputed elections,” he said.

“It is worse at this point where the legitimacy of the current Sadc chair is being questioned due to the very same problem of disputed elections.”

In 1980, regional leaders formed the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference in Zambia with the primary objective of reducing the region’s reliance on the then apartheid South Africa.

The bloc transformed to Sadc in 1992.