Mbeki was forced to leave office as president by his ruling African National Congress (ANC) days after ensuring a precarious power-sharing agreement was signed by Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF and the two formations of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), one lead by Morgan Tsvangirai and the other by Arthur Mutambara .
Now the former president is back in Harare, in a bid to salvage the collapsed power-sharing agreement signed by the three parties at the insistence of Tsvangirai and the invitation of the SADC Secretariat. It would appear Mugabe is the source of the power-sharing stalemate once more.
Mbeki's latest mediation effort comes at a time when there are two fronts moving across the globe and less attention is being given to the Zimbabwe impasse. On the one hand is the American presidential race countdown, which has drawn global interest since it has pitted a black middle-aged man against a dotty white old man. On the other hand global markets are reeling from a man-made financial crisis, which Iran says was caused by lust for power.
