The South African-based Solidarity Peace Trust on Wednesday issued a report analyzing how Zimbabwe's 2008 Global Political Agreement, the basis of the unity government that has been in place in Harare since February 2009, has worked out since then, concluding that it has increased accountability by the former ruling ZANU-PF party.
Launching the report, entitled "The Hard Road to Reform," Solidarity Peace Trust Senior Researcher Brian Raftopoulos told journalists in Johannesburg that 26 months of power sharing have also given the two formations of the former opposition Movement for Democratic Change a chance to show that they can effectively govern.
But the report said the MDC and civic groups must step up lobbying of the Southern African Development Community and the African Union to press ZANU-PF to more fully comply with the terms of the GPA, correspondent Benedict Nhlapho reported.
The organization called for democratic forces in Zimbabwe to boycott elections in the event - unlikely, it said - that President Robert Mugabe chooses to ignore resolutions by SADC calling for further reforms before a new ballot, and calls snap elections.
Political analyst John Makumbe was quick to dismiss the report's conclusions, however. He said ZANU-PF has not become more accountable and has continued to plunder the nation and to use violence to intimidate its political and civil opponents.
Makumbe told VOA Studio 7 reporter Patience Rusere that it is naïve to think ZANU-PF has changed at all as the party has become even more corrupt since 2009.