An emergency summit of Southern African leaders on Zimbabwe’s post-election crisis opened on Saturday with a plea from its chairperson not to turn a blind eye, but President Robert Mugabe stayed away.
With no result declared two weeks after Zimbabwe’s presidential election, Zambia’s Levy Mwanawasa told leaders of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) that doing nothing was not an option.
”SADC cannot stand by and do nothing when one of its members is experiencing political and economic pain. It would be wrong to turn a blind eye,” the Zambian president said in his opening address in Lusaka.
Before retreating behind closed doors for talks with heads of state, including South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki, Mwanawasa insisted the summit was ”not intended to put President Mugabe in the dock”.
Mugabe — accused by the opposition of holding back the result of the March 29 election and leading a campaign of intimidation to hold on to power — turned down an invitation to attend but sent a delegation of four ministers.
However, Zimbabwe’s opposition leader and self-proclaimed presidential victor Morgan Tsvangirai was seated in the front row for Mwanawasa’s opening remarks and broke into a smile amid a gaggle of photographers.
‘No crisis’
If Tsvangirai had hopes that leaders might issue a hard-hitting statement and even put pressure on Mugabe to stand down, they were dealt a blow when Mbeki stopped over in Harare en route to the Zambian capital.
After his first face-to-face talks with Mugabe since the elections, Mbeki seemingly ignored pleas for outside pressure to be levied upon the veteran Zimbabwean strongman and suggested things be allowed to run their course.
”There is no crisis in Zimbabwe,” he told journalists. ”The body authorised to release the results is the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. Let’s wait for them to announce the results.”
Mbeki, who was the chief mediator between Zimbabwe’s governing Zanu-PF party and Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change in the build-up to the election, has since come under fire for refusing to condemn the delayed result.
Mugabe made no mention of the election, but denied he was snubbing the summit, saying: ”We are very good friends and very good brothers. Sometimes you attend, sometimes you have other things holding you back.”
The head of Mugabe’s delegation in Lusaka, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, said before the summit started that the meeting was unnecessary. ”There is no need to regionalise the Zimbabwean crisis,” he said, adding angrily that asking an opposition leader such as Tsvangirai to attend a heads-of-state summit was ”unheard of”.
Tsvangirai did not join the SADC leaders for the closed-door meetings. A final statement was expected at the end of their deliberations, but discussions were continuing late on Saturday after several hours.
Criticism
Southern African leaders have been heavily criticised over their traditional reluctance to speak out against Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe for 28 years and is the oldest leader in the region.
Nevertheless, many in SADC are fed up with the economic mess on their doorstep, with inflation in Zimbabwe now well into six figures, unemployment at more than 80% and average life expectancy down to 36 years of age.
About three million Zimbabweans have left their homeland to find work or food, most ending up in its giant neighbour South Africa.
Zanu-PF says neither Mugabe nor Tsvangirai won a clear victory in the election and insists the battle must go to a second round. But the opposition has ruled out Tsvangirai’s participation as it says a second ballot would be undemocratic due to Mugabe’s intimidatory tactics.
”The military has basically taken over,” MDC number two Tendai Biti, accompanying Tsvangirai in Lusaka, told journalists. ”There is a constitutional coup d’état that has taken place there and that’s why this meeting is very critical,” he said, calling on SADC to ”speak out clearly and decisively against his dictatorship and the status quo”.
The MDC has called for a general strike to be launched from Tuesday, the day after a court is due to rule on its bid to force the publication of the election result.
Mugabe’s Zanu-PF lost Parliament to the opposition for the first time in the legislative elections, also on March 29, but the ruling party is contesting enough seats to win back control.
‘Secret document’
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s state television reported on Saturday that it had unearthed a secret document written by the opposition detailing plans to rig the March 29 elections.
The document, allegedly written by the MDC’s Biti, ”had clear details on how to rig the elections”, the report said.
The document stated that a number of teachers employed by the electoral commission as election officials had ”agreed to overstate the vote” for a payment, Zimbabwe Television reported.
The strategy was meant to ”ensure they got a landslide victory to take over the country and implement a number of changes meant to please their international friends who sponsored the MDC campaign”, the report said.
Zimbabwe Television is a mouthpiece for Mugabe and Zanu-PF.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa dismissed the document as Zanu-PF-engineered propaganda aimed at justifying the delay in the publication of results and the ruling party’s push for another round of voting.
”The document has nothing to do with the MDC; it is a Zanu-PF generated document. These are old and tired Zanu-PF antics. It is very clear they want to justify the delay in the release of election results,” said Chamisa. ”This election was not run by the MDC, but by the Zanu-PF government.”
At least 15 Zimbabwe Electoral Commission officials have been arrested in recent days for alleged fraud. — Sapa-AFP