South African President Thabo Mbeki has told US President George Bush that Robert Mugabe will relinquish his leadership of Zimbabwe’s ruling party by December, the British Independent newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Such a move would pave the way for Mugabe’s exit as Zimbabwe’s president and new elections by June 2004, the daily said, without citing its sources.
It added that Mbeki’s assurance to Bush that Mugabe will stand aside is believed to be based on a personal promise extracted from the Zimbabwean leader.
The Independent also said Bush had pledged a reconstruction package for Zimbabwe worth up to $10-billion over an unspecified timeframe, if a new leader takes over.
The deal was discussed by the two leaders during a private meeting in Pretoria last week, the paper said in a report by its Southern Africa correspondent, Basildon Peta, who added that important differences remained.
Washington is anxious to make the money conditional on the emergence of a new leader chosen by the Zimbabwe people in an election rather than an anointed successor from the ranks of the ruling Zanu-PF party.
Mbeki by contrast, is not a supporter of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and is open to a successor emerging from the ruling party, the newspaper said.
Bush has called for Mugabe to step down, but Mbeki has publicly declined to toe the tough US line on Zimbabwe since a political and social maelstrom enveloped Zimbabwe following a presidential election last year condemned by the west as rigged. – Sapa