Zimbabwe’s leading opposition party on Wednesday effectively severed ties with the South African government, saying that officials from the neighbouring country could no longer be considered neutral mediators.
”South Africa should stop saying to the world they are neutral mediators,” said the Movement for Democratic Change’s secretary general, Welshman Ncube.
”We haven’t broken off talks, but we will not engage with [South African officials] in any capacity where they purport to be facilitators on the Zimbabwean crisis.”
The South African government has described last month’s elections in Zimbabwe — polls criticised at home and abroad as flawed — as credible. The elections gave President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front a large
parliamentary majority.
Ncube said South African government officials had ”intimidated” observers from the Southern African Development Community, which also endorsed the results, into giving a stamp of approval to the March 31 vote.
Zanu-PF’s overwhelming majority enables Mugabe to amend the Constitution and possibly even extend his presidential term beyond 2008, when it is supposed to end.
The opposition movement has said ruling party operatives denied food supplies to voters and stuffed ballots. In some constituencies, ruling party candidates obtained more votes than the total number originally announced as having been cast for both parties.
Zimbabwe’s economic and social crisis had deepened with a fresh surge of hyperinflation following the elections, estimated by local economists to be three times the official figure of 130%.
More than 80% of Zimbabwe’s 11,6-million people are unemployed.
Church leaders have warned of mass uprisings, but the MDC has so far made little attempt to organise protests. – Sapa-AP