Zuma assured support of the MDC grievances. He undertook to help address the latest stalemate concerning implementation of outstanding issues in the six-months-old unity pact, pledging to express his worries with SADC and his Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe pertaining to his intransigence.

"The prime minister is here to talk about what progress has been made in Zimbabwe and what issues are difficult to resolve," said Zuma to journalists. "There are very few, yet very weighty, issues that have not been resolved. But these issues should not be deadlocked to the end."

Tsvangirai also said that he had taken up the issue about his country’s developments because of Zuma's current position in the SADC bloc. "It’s been five months since the unity government, and I have updated president Zuma on the progress as the chairperson of the Southern African Development Community," he said.

The Zimbabwean premier wrote a letter two months ago to Zuma, asking him to use his position as current chairman of SADC to exert concerted pressure on Mugabe that he upholds the Global Political Agreement (GPA) by addressing the unresolved contentious issues.

The MDC accused Mugabe of employing diabolic tactics to cripple their party ahead of elections in 2011. It said he is using Attorney General Johannes Tomana, whom he chose without consulting the other principals of the current administration, to systematically arrest its legislatures on flimsy charges in a ploy to restore a Zanu-PF Parliamentary majority. The finance ministry also remains gridlocked by controversial Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, who was cherry-picked unilaterally by Mugabe too.

Little progress

Little progress has been made so far to defuse the country’s economic crisis despite Tsvangirai’s assurances that there were no problems. Farm invasions have persisted by Zanu-PF loyalists who are dismayed at the new dispensation. The MDC’s Roy Bennett who was arrested outside Harare in February after inauguration of ministers has yet to be sworn in as Deputy Agriculture Minister.

Earlier this week Finance Minister Tendai Biti received a bullet in a letter which the MDC considers as a death threat.

Hardcore Zanu PF elements allied to Mugabe, including security service chiefs, are believed to be staunchly against the transitional political settlement, which many hope could usher in a democracy, leading to their possible loss of power and indictment for their gross human rights violations, and are as such determined to derail the coalition government.