President Thabo Mbeki has denied telling his United States counterpart George Bush that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe would step down in December.
”There is no such thing. I don’t know where that comes from,” he told reporters in Pretoria on Thursday.
”There was no discussion at all about anybody stepping down.”
Weekend reports, quoting unnamed diplomatic sources, suggested Mbeki told Bush during his recent South African visit that Mugabe would be out of office by December.
South African President Thabo Mbeki had reportedly told Bush that Robert Mugabe will relinquish his leadership of Zimbabwe’s ruling party by December, the British Independent newspaper reported last week.
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.
Earier today Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) lawyers said a top official was arrested on charges of ”ridiculing” President Robert Mugabe in cartoons showing the Zimbabwean leader fleeing for his life from an angry crowd.
MDC lawyer Innocent Chagonda said Gift Chimanikire, the deputy general secretary of the MDC, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with ”ridiculing” Mugabe in cartoon advertisements placed in the independent media in that country.
Chimanikire was held at the Harare police station on Wednesday where he was questioned over the advertisement, and charged under the Public Order and Security Act.
The legislation gives Mugabe’s government powers close to a state of emergency to arrest suspects at will and detain them at length without appearing in court, ban public gatherings and makes it an offence to criticise the state.
”The police are alleging that he (Chimanikire) authorised the publication of adverts that insulted the president,” said Chagonda.
The charge carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail.
The advertisement was published just before the MDC’s five-day pro-democracy national strike in early June which paralysed the country. – Sapa