Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe arrived on Monday at an African Union summit where he will confront his critics after winning a one-candidate election condemned by monitors as unfair and violent.
Mugabe (84) flew to Egypt overnight soon after being sworn in for a new term, extending his unbroken rule since independence from Britain in 1980.
He was seen entering the summit conference hall in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh with the leaders of Egypt, Tanzania — the AU chairperson — and Uganda.
His decision to go ahead with the election after the withdrawal of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai provoked unprecedented African criticism of the former liberation hero. Tsvangirai withdrew because of violence in which he said nearly 90 of his followers were killed.
Monitors from both Zimbabwe’s neighbours in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Pan-African Parliament said the vote was undermined by violence and did not reflect the will of the people.
Indications ahead of the summit suggested the leaders will reject strong Western calls for hefty new sanctions on Zimbabwe and press instead for talks between Mugabe and Tsvangirai.
Some of the leaders favour a power-sharing deal modelled on the one the ended a bloody post-election crisis in Kenya earlier this year in which 1 500 people died.
Zimbabwe’s crisis has ruined a once prosperous country, saddling it with the world’s worst rate of hyper-inflation and sending millions of refugees into neighbouring countries.
Tsvangirai called on the leaders not to recognise Mugabe’s re-election.
”We want them [the AU] to say the 27 [June] election is illegitimate,” he told Dutch public television.
”We want them to say the 29th March election reflected the will of the people and that it should be the basis for negotiating this transition.”
Tsvangirai won the first round of elections on March 29 but fell short of the majority needed for outright victory.
Mbeki denies report
South Africa, meanwhile, denied a newspaper report that President Thabo Mbeki had lobbied the AU to recognise Mugabe, saying this was a ”complete fabrication.”
But Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said Zimbabwe was deeply divided and polarised despite the election and called for Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to enter negotiations for a transitional government to unite the country.
”Zanu-PF and the MDC must enter into negotiations which will lead to the formation of a transitional government that can extricate Zimbabwe from its current political challenges,” a foreign ministry statement said.
It said neither Zanu-PF nor the MDC were ”able individually to extricate Zimbabwe from the current impasse.”
Both Tsvangirai and Mugabe have said they are willing to enter negotiations although there is still a big question over who would lead a unity government.
Analysts believe Mugabe ignored international condemnation and went ahead with the vote so he could negotiate with Tsvangirai from a position of strength.
Ban Ki-moon slams poll
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday sharply criticised Zimbabwe’s violence-marred election, saying he considered the results giving Mugabe another term illegitimate.
Ban was in Tokyo on the first leg of an Asian tour in which the former South Korean diplomat was to discuss progress in the international drive to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons.
”The secretary general has said repeatedly that conditions were not in place for a free and fair election and observers have confirmed this from the deeply flawed process,” Ban spokesperson Marie Okabe said in statement.
”The outcome did not reflect the true and genuine will of the Zimbabwean people or produce a legitimate result,” the statement said.
Ban ”encourages efforts of the two sides to negotiate a political solution that would end violence and intimidation,” the statement said, offering the UN’s services. – Reuters, AFP