Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe faced mounting pressure on Thursday over presidential poll results as rival Morgan Tsvangirai ramped up his charm offensive ahead of a regional weekend summit on the crisis.
While Mugabe has lain low at home, Tsvangirai has launched a diplomatic drive in recent days, visiting neighbours and pleading for help in forcing out the result of March 29 elections he claims to have won outright.
In an interview on Wednesday, the opposition leader accused 84-year-old Mugabe of a “de-facto military coup”, saying he was deploying troops around the country to try to intimidate people ahead of a possible run-off election.
The Zimbabwe opposition’s bid to build up pressure on Mugabe after the disputed polls bore fruit on Wednesday as plans were unveiled for a weekend summit to discuss the escalating crisis.
While Tsvangirai toured the region, urging leaders 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.
Twelve 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.
Mugabe, who has presided over his country’s descent from regional model to economic basket case in the 28 years since independence, has often bridled at any kind of outside intervention.
The former British colony now has a six-figure inflation rate, unemployment is beyond 80% while average life expectancy stands at 37 years.
Stepping up his rhetoric ahead of the summit, Tsvangirai painted a grim picture of the situation in the country in an interview with Time magazine.
“The military leaders in the establishment are trying to subvert the will of the people.
“This is, in a sense, a de-facto military coup. They have rolled out military forces across the whole country, to prepare for a run-off and try to cow the population. It’s an attempt to try to create conditions for Mugabe to win,” he said.
Opposition hopes that the country’s High Court would order the electoral commission to announce the results before the summit were dashed when a judge said he would only decide whether to issue such a ruling on Monday.
If the commission announces that none of the candidates has won more than 50% of the votes, a run-off should be held under Zimbabwean law on April 19.
But Mugabe’s Zanu-PF has already called for total recount of the presidential vote and is contesting enough seats to overturn its loss in the parliamentary poll held alongside the presidential election.
Tsvangirai (56) was expected to travel on to Zambia and Mozambique after holding talks Wednesday with new Botswana President Ian Khama. — AFP