Abstract

The global political agreement (GPA) and the council of Jerusalem (CJ) manifested in different times and geographical locations. The GPA is purely a political agreement signed by three political parties namely the movement for democratic change-Tsvangirai (MDC-T) led by Morgan Tsvangirai, the movement for democratic change-Mutambara (MDC-M) led by Arthur Mutambara and the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) led by Robert Mugabe. ZANU was formed in 1960 when it broke away from Zimbabwe African National People’s Union (ZAPU) led by Joshua Nkomo. Reverened Ndabaningi Sithole became the first president of ZANU until Robert Mugabe assumed leadership of the party in 1975 (Chung, 2007). Both MDC political formations are an offshoot of the movement for democratic change, which Meredith (2002) says was formed in September 1999, out of Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) and members of some thirty civic groups, to challenge ZANU PF’s monopoly to govern Zimbabwe. Its slogan was ‘Chinja Maitiro’-Change the way you are doing things’. The movement for democratic change splited when party members could not agree on whether or not to participate in the senatorial elections of 2005. However, political analysts and critics believe that the issue of senatorial elections was just a smoke screen to an underlying power struggle that had emerged among the party leaders. The split left Morgan Tsvangirai with a bigger party while Gibson Sibanda, who was Tsvangirai’s deputy, led, temporarily, the smaller party. This smaller party invited Arthur Mutambara, who, then, was outside the country, to come back to Zimbabwe and lead it. The two MDC parties had to suffix the names of their presidents on the names of their parties so as not to confuse the electorate, hence the names MDC-T and MDC-M. The GPA was meant to resolve political and economic problems which bedevilled the country before and after the 2008 general elections. These elections could not produce a decisive winner on the presidential post. A run-off vote marred by violence forced Tsvangirai to withdraw before elections. Mugabe the sole candidate was declared the winner but was not recognised by the international community (Raftopoulos, 2009). This stalemate led to the signing of the GPA. The CJ was a religious council set to resolve the problem of the inclusion of the Gentiles in the early church.  There was a conflict over the demands necessary for the admission of Gentiles. The paper explores the similarities and differences between the GPA and the CJ as regards to the principal issues to be resolved and the strategies adopted thereof. The paper also argues that the GPA and the CJ controversies are similar in that the Jews and the Gentiles had different ideologies about Christianity whereas the MDC formations and ZANU PF have different political ideologies. It further argues that the GPA as well as the CJ did not totally solve the conflicts which they had set to resolve as evidenced by the persistent mudslinging episodes witnessed within the operations of government of national unity, on one hand, and the relations within the early church, on the other hand.

Key words: Global political agreement, council of Jerusalem, early church, conflict management.