LOVEMORE MATOMBO . . . Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions president

HARARE – Zimbabwe’s main labour body on Sunday called for talks between President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU PF party and the opposition to be swift and short because the economy was in such a bad state it required urgent fixing.

The call by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) came as South African President Thabo Mbeki announced at the weekend plans to form a reference group of African Union (AU) and United Nations (UN) officials to help him facilitate dialogue between ZANU PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.

"Inter party talks should take less than two months because the economy is in bad shape (and political) violence is continuing," the ZCTU said in a statement.

The union that last week called for tightening of Western sanctions against Mugabe and top officials of his government so as to force them to embrace democracy rejected calls for a government of national unity between ZANU PF and the MDC.

The ZCTU said the two political rivals should instead agree to appoint a transitional authority that would be tasked to organise fresh elections.

"A government of national unity is a subversion of our national constitution and only a neutral transitional authority should be put in place with a mandate to take Zimbabwe to fresh, free and fair elections that will hopefully not be disputed by the parties."

The ZCTU spoke as AU Commission chairman Jean Ping arrived in Harare at the weekend and was expected to meet government officials and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in an attempt to get the feuding Zimbabwean parties to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for future talks.

The MDC last week refused to sign the MOU demanding that Mugabe first acts to end political violence against the opposition party’s supporters and that the AU appoints an envoy to work with Mbeki

Mbeki is the Southern African Development Community (SADC)’s chief mediator on Zimbabwe. But the MDC has accused the South African leader of bias in favour of Mugabe.

The opposition party said at the weekend it was committed to talks and had agreed “in principle” to sign the MOU but raised doubts on whether it would actually sign the document saying Mbeki had to address some concerns first before Tsvangirai could append his signature on the agreement.

"I think in principle the decision is to sign the document. We are committed to the dialogue process," Tsvangirai's spokesman, George Sibotshiwe told Reuters news agency.

"Our executive and council have already gone through the document and have raised their concerns with the facilitator . . . the onus is on the facilitator to ensure that those things are sorted out in order for the signing to happen within the required time," the opposition spokesman was quoted as having said.

In addition to wanting the UN and AU to monitor Mbeki’s mediation, the MDC had also demanded that Tsvangirai’s victory in the first round presidential election on March 29 be recognised, a demand unlikely to be accepted by Mugabe who insists he is legitimate leader after winning a second round of voting on June 27.

Mugabe was sole candidate in the June ballot after Tsvangirai pulled out saying a free and fair vote was impossible after at least 113 MDC supporters were killed and about 200 000 others displaced in political violence during the run-up to the poll.

Several African observers including those from the AU condemned the run-off election as undemocratic, while Western nations and a handful of African countries have said they will not recognise Mugabe’s government.

However, the AU has resisted calls by Western nations for sanctions against Harare. Instead, an AU summit in Egypt last month to urged Mugabe to open negotiations with the opposition for a government of national unity that many on the continent say is the best way to resolve Zimbabwe’s political and economic crisis.

Zimbabwe, once a regional breadbasket, is in the grip of a severe political and economic crisis which critics blame on repression and wrong polices by Mugabe such as his haphazard fast-track land reform exercise that displaced established white commercial farmers and replaced them with either incompetent or inadequately funded black farmers.