The Zimbabwe opposition’s bid to build up pressure on President Robert Mugabe after disputed polls bore fruit on Wednesday as plans were unveiled for a weekend summit to discuss the escalating crisis.
As opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai toured the region, urging leaders to use their influence to prevent Zimbabwe from sliding into chaos, the president of neighbouring Zambia said he would gather his peers for talks on Saturday, aimed at breaking the deadlock that has persisted since the March 29 polls.
Eleven days on from polling, there has still been no word on the outcome of the presidential election, with officials maintaining the line that they are still busy collating and verifying the votes.
But the announcement by Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, the current chair of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC), is set to add to the pressure for the results to be finally unveiled.
”Given developments immediately following the elections, I have decided as chair of SADC to call for an extraordinary summit on Saturday April 12 to discuss ways and means of assisting the people of Zimbabwe,” said Mwanawasa in a statement.
The aim of the summit would be to try to break ”the current impasse as well as adopt a coordinated approach to the situation in that country”.
Mwanawasa has been one of the few regional leaders to publicly voice his concerns about the situation in Zimbabwe, comparing the plight of the country’s economy to the sinking of the Titanic.
Mugabe has often bridled at any kind of outside intervention in the affairs of Zimbabwe, which he has ruled interrupted since independence in 1980.
The prospect of such a get-together was warmly welcomed by Tsvangirai’s party, which has previously castigated the region for its ”deafening silence” over Zimbabwe.
”We hope the outcome of the meeting is going to be a strong message to Mugabe and also action that would help resolve the impasse in the country,” said Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) spokesperson Nelson Chamisa.
Earlier, after holding talks with new Botswana President Ian Khama, Tsvangirai said it was in the interests of the whole of the region to defuse the growing crisis in Zimbabwe.
”I will be going around the countries in the region to make the point that they do not need that political chaos and dislocation” on their doorstep, Tsvangirai said in an interview with South African Broadcasting Corporation public radio.
‘Villagers have been beaten’
In a press conference on Tuesday, the MDC hit out at what it called the ”deafening silence” of African governments over the continuing failure of the Zimbabwean authorities to announce the election result.
In his radio interview, Tsvangirai reiterated his claim he was the clear winner over Mugabe but said the country would remain in paralysis as long as the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) sat on the official results.
Although ”we all of us know the result, we say we should wait for ZEC to announce it and so we are trying to emphasise that President Mugabe must do the honourable thing and accept defeat so we can really move forward”, he said.
Tsvangirai also confirmed he wanted to establish a national-unity government but indicated there would be no role for Mugabe in an MDC-led administration.
The 84-year-old Mugabe has remained largely silent since he cast his vote, but his ruling party has pre-empted the result by calling for a total recount.
Although the aftermath of the election has so far been largely peaceful, the MDC said hard-line Mugabe supporters had begun intimidating and attacking opposition supporters.
”Villagers have been beaten, some of our agents and candidates have been tracked and some fled their homes. People are in distress,” said Chamisa.
”And the reason they are being given is that they voted the wrong way.”
There was no immediate way of confirming the MDC’s claims, although they follow reports that Mugabe loyalists have also invaded several dozen of the country’s last white-owned farms.
Meanwhile, a lawyer for the ZEC said on Wednesday it would be ”dangerous” for the High Court to order the release of presidential election results, as demanded by the MDC.
The MDC has gone to court to try to force out the result of the March 29 vote, saying Tsvangirai has won and should be declared president
George Chikumbirike, a lawyer for the ZEC, told Judge Tendai Uchena: ”It would be dangerous in my view to give an order because it might not be complied with … because of outside exigencies which the party [ZEC] will be unable to control.”
He did not elaborate but appeared to be referring to rising tension in Zimbabwe because of the post-election impasse.
Chikumbirike also declined to say how far the ZEC had gone in preparing to announce the result, saying this was privileged information that ”the commission has entitlement to release when it’s ready”. — AFP, Reuters