Elite Government of National Unity: A Perspective of Zimbabwe

This study addresses the effectiveness of negotiated settlements in solving national disputes, with particular focus in the SADC mediated GNU in Zimbabwe that operated in Zimbabwe from 2009 to 2013. The study mainly argues that any negotiation should be all involving and all-encompassing for it to be successful as the study found out that the 2009 negotiated settlement in Zimbabwe was an elite settlement, without the involvement of the general populace. The elite only meant to serve their own interests and ignored national interest such that when its tenure expired, the situation in the country went back to crisis situation, particularly economic crisis. Some of the respondents in the interviews conducted, noted that the elite agreed to have a unity government in order to serve self-interests, where the Zimbabwe African National Unity Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) party needed help in solving the crisis at hand while the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party wanted to have a feel of how running a government goes, at the same item reaping the benefits that came with it. It is therefore this thesis’ position that any national settlement should involve the affected masses and all settlements done in a transitionary manner should not include any political actor or individuals with political ambition but have politically neutral players at the fore-front.