South African President Thabo Mbeki was quoted on Tuesday as saying he believed Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe would peacefully renounce power at some point.
”I think so. Yes, sure,” Mbeki, appointed by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to mediate over Zimbabwe, said in a Financial Times interview when asked whether he thought such a move would ever happen.
”You see, President Mugabe and the leadership of [the ruling] Zanu-PF believe they are running a democratic country,” Mbeki told the paper in a two-hour interview at Mahlambandlopfu (”when the elephants bathe”), his residence in Pretoria..
”That’s why you have an elected opposition, that’s why it’s possible for the opposition to run municipal government [in Harare and Bulawayo],” he said.
The SADC appointed Mbeki to act as mediator between Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) when it held a summit in Tanzania last week after the Zimbabwean government’s violent March 11 crackdown on political opponents.
”You might question whether … elections are genuinely free and fair … But we have to get the Zimbabweans [to a position that they] do have elections that are genuinely free and fair,” said Mbeki.
On Friday, Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party endorsed the 83-year-old leader as its candidate for elections expected in 2008 — a move that could see him remain in office through to 2013.
The SADC, criticised in the West for turning a blind eye to Mugabe’s crackdown, hopes its appointment of Mbeki will lead to talks between Mugabe and the MDC.
The West accuses Mugabe, in power since Zimbabwe’s independence from Britain in 1980, of authoritarian rule and economic mismanagement.
Zimbabwe has the world’s highest inflation rate, soaring unemployment and regular food and fuel shortages.
Mugabe says he is being punished for seizing white-owned farms to give to landless blacks, accusing Western countries led by Britain of seeking to use the MDC to effect ”regime change” in Harare.
Bread-and-butter issues
Mbeki told the FT that ordinary South Africans are not interested in the leadership race. He said they wanted action on bread-and-butter issues. At an imbizo, ”no one ever says, ‘Who will be the next president of the ANC?’. They say, ‘President, our children are matriculating from school, they are sitting at home because there is no money to go to university and there are no jobs, so do something’. We have to respond and the ANC has to respond.”
On the economy, Mbeki told the paper that South Africa would be growing even faster if it were to reduce unemployment, estimated at between 20 and 40%.
”South Africa is not India or China or even Brazil . . . [But] we need to achieve these high rates of growth.”
He said that the ”the ports can’t cope”, and said there were weaknesses in railways, roads, water and electricity.
He also lashed out at Telkom, accusing it of profiteering. ”The charges are absolutely phenomenal.” [South African householders pay on average R500 ($69) a month for a basic broadband service.] – Reuters, Staff Reporter