This week an urgent application was lodged with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal to have the Mugabe government declared illegal and to stop inviting him to the regional body's meetings.

Through the Southern African Litigation Centre in South Africa and Windhoek-based Legal Assistance Centre (LAC), the exiles filed papers at the tribunal in Windhoek.

With the exception of the government of the late Levi Mwanawasa of Zambia and Botswana's government, member states of SADC have continued to engage with the Mugabe regime and have pooh-poohed the reported horrors taking place in that besieged country.

President Thabo Mbeki continues with his softly-softly or so-called silent diplomacy approach to resolve the crisis and from all accounts, it appears that his mediation efforts to form a government of national unity have foundered once again.

The Namibian government has gone strangely silent on Zimbabwean issues.

In our opinion, Mugabe is way past his sell-by date.

His government has turned a once booming economy into a backwater of nepotism and cronyism where only the political elite and military brass who have allegiance to the President are favoured.

In a country where inflation, according to official figures, is an absurd 1,3 million per cent, and where the living conditions of ordinary Zimbabweans deteriorate day by day, there is every reason to assume that something has gone terribly wrong and that urgent efforts are needed to put this country back on track.

Equally disconcerting is the fact that the internal political opposition, led by Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has been posturing and seeking political gains through its delaying tactics at the recently convened talks in South Africa.

Not to be outdone by Mugabe's machinations, the MDC has taken up extreme positions in negotiations, hoping that the compromises reached at talks with the governing Zanu-PF will still be weighted in favour of the opposition.

Political brinkmanship and playing the field have been around for a very long time, and the MDC has demonstrated that it is not averse to this.

But where this does leave the majority of Zimbabweans and the growing number of people who are in exile elsewhere in Africa and in the diaspora? In Zimbabwe, people are going without food, drinking water and proper sanitation facilities.

Exiles are eking out a measly existence in other countries and are trying to piece together a way of life that is often marred by xenophobic attacks on them and their families.

Remittances sent to Zimbabweans back home are meagre and the political will to return to their country of birth is fading as the talks for a government of national unity hit snag after snag.

But bold moves require bold men and women in positions of power.

Evidently, this is eluding the major antagonists engaged in finding a political solution to the Zimbabwean crisis.

For them, one-upmanship seems to be driving their participation in the talks, rather than the plight of the people of that country.

This simply is not good enough.

On the one hand, while Mugabe's contributions to gaining independence from the UK and to getting rid of Ian Smith's apartheid regime are well recorded and respected, today his power plays and his refusal to exit are further destroying Zimbabwe.

On the other hand, Tsvangirai has a trade union background but he seems to have forgotten that power rests in his constituency.

Playing to the international community may help his international stature as a leader in waiting, but it does very little to feed those ordinary Zimbabweans who have supported him and his party.

Zimbabweans deserve better.

A political solution must be found sooner rather than later.

Mugabe has to go and Tsvangirai has to be bold and drop the posturing.

If SADC can finally get its act together to unite in pushing decisively for a settlement that is in the interests of the people of that country, it would undoubtedly finally help hasten the dawn of a new day for Zimbabwe and its people.

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