APA-Harare (Zimbabwe) Zimbabwe’s main political parties have failed to meet for talks to resolve the country’s power-sharing dispute amid revelations that some of the negotiators had snubbed the negotiations and travelled abroad, APA learns here Saturday.

The delay in convening a meeting of negotiators from ZANU PF of President Robert Mugabe and the rival factions of the former opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) saw the negotiators missing Saturday’s deadline set by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) by which they should have agreed on outstanding issues from last year’s power-sharing agreement.

A spokesman for the main MDC wing led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said negotiators from a breakaway MDC faction had decided to travel on government business at a time the talks were supposed to have commenced this week.

“The deadline set by the SADC troika for the resolution of outstanding issues has once again been missed because of the intransigence, mischief and insincerity exhibited by the political players who are not taking the plight of the people of Zimbabwe seriously,” the spokesman said.

He said officials from the rebel MDC faction led by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara were absent from the meeting of negotiators convened by Tsvangirai on Monday to deliberate on the sticking matters.

The SADC security Troika led by Mozambican President Armando Guebuza last month gave Zimbabwe’s feuding parties 30 days within which to fully implement terms of a power-sharing pact signed in September 2008.

An emergency summit of the Troika held in Maputo on October 29 gave the Zimbabwean parties 15 days to agree on outstanding issues from the Global Political Agreement, after which they should implement the agreed matters within the following 15 days.

South African President Jacob Zuma is supposed to jet into Harare next week to assess progress in the negotiations which were called to save Zimbabwe’s coalition government after Tsvangirai threatened to withdraw from the regime last month.