/ 11 April 2008

Tsvangirai turns to Mbeki for help

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who says he won Zimbabwe's election, has met South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki and pressed the key regional leader to use his influence to persuade President Robert Mugabe to step down, an opposition spokesperson said on Friday.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who says he won Zimbabwe’s election, has met South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki and pressed the key regional leader to use his influence to persuade President Robert Mugabe to step down, an opposition spokesperson said on Friday.

It has been 13 days since a vote that Zimbabwe’s 28-year ruler apparently lost, though official results have yet to be released.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says Tsvangirai won the March 29 vote outright, and accuses Mugabe of delaying the results so he can orchestrate a run-off and give ruling-party militants time to intimidate voters and ensure he wins it.

Tsvangirai and a small group of party advisers met Mbeki on Thursday to press their case, opposition spokesperson Nqobizitha Mlilo said.

”The meeting went well,” Mlilo said. ”We’re cautiously optimistic about the outcome.” He declined to provide further details.

Mbeki has been the chief regional mediator in Zimbabwe’s economic and political crisis. Other African leaders have repeatedly deferred to his strategy of ”quiet diplomacy” on dealing with Zimbabwe. But that strategy has recently been criticised by some his allies in South Africa and the West.

The current crisis also is involving the entire region. Both Mugabe and Tsvangirai plan to attend an emergency summit of Southern African leaders in Zambia on Saturday to present their conflicting views of the crisis paralysing the country, according to spokespersons.

Mlilo said Tsvangirai received a direct invitation to the meeting and that he would be a full participant in the summit, reiterating that the opposition leader’s election win now makes him a ”head of state”.

No run-off participation

The MDC leadership resolved on Thursday not to participate in any run-off presidential vote. Party leaders previously said they would not accept a second round but the party itself had not taken a formal stance.

”More than ever the strategy of boycotting the election will work this time because there are only two candidates involved,” Mlilo said. Mugabe ”can’t go into an election alone”.

Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga told CNN he believed opposition politicians would be ”cowards” if they did not contest a run-off.

On Friday, a state-controlled newspaper reported that Zimbabwe’s ruling party insists it is not keeping the long-delayed results from being released.

The ruling party and Mugabe ”are also eagerly waiting for the [election commission] to complete its ballot votes verification freely without any interference and without pressure not to release the results”, Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said in a statement cited in the Herald newspaper.

”It is not true that the president nor government is holding the Zimbabwe election results,” Ndlovu said.

The High Court will rule on Monday on an opposition request for their release, MDC and elections commission lawyers have said. The electoral commission said in a statement issued on Friday that it will not comment on the status of the results until the court rules.

”The question of results of the presidential election is now the subject of legal proceedings,” the commission said.

Support mission

Tsvangirai was travelling throughout the region to urge regional leaders to push Mugabe to resign. The latter has virtually conceded the race but appears to be campaigning for a run-off by intimidating foes and fanning racial tensions.

Tsvangirai met Botswana’s president on Wednesday and planned to travel to Zambia later on Friday ahead of the summit, Mlilo said. Namibia’s government said it has sent its foreign affairs minister to Zimbabwe to evaluate the situation and is in consultations with Zambia’s president over the delay in results.

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has stood out as the only Southern African leader to criticise Mugabe’s policies publicly, last year likening the country’s economy to ”a sinking Titanic”.

On Thursday, the influential Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference called for the appointment of a high-level mediator in Zimbabwe, according to the South African Press Association.

The MDC has accused the ruling party of deploying senior army and police officials across the country to ”oversee the reversal process”. Local officials said soldiers attacked some people in rural Gweru district last weekend.

Zimbabwe’s Commercial Farmers’ Union has accused ruling-party supporters of forcing dozens of white farmers off their land and ransacking their homes, warning that continued chaos could endanger the wheat crop vital to a nation that has grown deeply dependent on food aid during the worsening economic crisis. — Sapa-AP