ANALYSIS: After eight years as mediator is Mbeki up to Zimbabwe task?

Johannesburg - After eight years as mediator in Zimbabwe, during which time the southern African country has gone from breadbasket to basket case, South African President Thabo Mbeki's credibility is on the line. The hardened rhetoric from the two sides to Zimbabwe's political impasse Tuesday showed the national unity government touted by many, including South Africa, as the best solution to the country's woes, is still a far-off prospect. President Robert Mugabe's spokesman, George Charamba, declared he didn't understand the meaning of the term 'unity government' while the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) declared a negotiated settlement was no longer possible. While Mugabe was still open to talks with the MDC, Charamba told reporters at the African Union summit in Egypt, he would do so from the position of rightfully-elected elected president. The MDC, on the other hand, refuses to recognize Mugabe's victory in last week's one-man poll and are demanding the starting point for the talks be Tsvangirai's victory in the first round of voting in March. These intransigent noises contrast with a report in a South African newspaper that Mbeki is 'on the verge of a Zimbabwe unity deal.' The deal, Business Day said, would see Mugabe and Tsvangirai work together to implement previously-agreed reforms that Mugabe reneged on earlier this year, including a new draft constitution. It was not clear which of the two politicians would be leader in any such arrangement. The report came amid mounting pressure on Mbeki from the African Union to produce a breakthrough, given calls by the MDC for the AU to intervene. Mbeki's appeasement of Mugabe through the five-week wait for the results of the March election and a state-backed campaign of terror against opposition supporters has incensed the MDC. By the time Mugabe was sworn in as president for another five years on Sunday, 86 MDC supporters had been bludgeoned, burnt or tortured to death and millions of Zimbabweans had been cut off from emergency aid in a swipe by Mugabe against 'pro-MDC' NGOs. Hardly a ringing endorsement for Mbeki, but the South African leader still believes, according to his biographer Mark Gevisser, that his close relationship with Mugabe makes him the best man for the job of mediator. 'He sees himself in many ways as Mugabe's son. He believes that gives him a very particular leverage,' says Gevisser. 'He generally believes he's the only who has the ability to get close to him and talk some sense into him.' But the risks for Mbeki, whose legacy after nine years as president has been badly dented by his head-in-the-sand attitude to his country's HIV/AIDS and crime epidemics, are high, says Gevisser. Mugabe would, as in the past, likely agree to negotiations but renege on any agreement at the last minute as part of the stalling tactics he has used to keep himself in power for 28 years. If Mbeki fails, analysts say, the status quo will likely prevail in Zimbabwe until the end of his presidency in April next year, when he is likely to be succeeded by African National Congress president Jacob Zuma. Zuma has been far more critical of Mugabe and owes his ascendancy to the ANC leadership in part to the trade union movement, from which the MDC stems.