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Zimbabwean opposition seeks backing in S Africa

Zimbabwe’s top opposition leader was in South Africa yesterday, holding meetings in the regional powerhouse on the same day he issued a call for international help in getting Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to step down.

Morgan Tsvangirai left Zimbabwe on Sunday and was meeting “important people in South Africa,” Tendai Biti, secretary-general of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said yesterday. South African President Thabo Mbeki had mediated failed pre-election talks between Tsvangirai’s and Mugabe’s parties.

Zimbabwean electoral officials have yet to say whether Tsvangirai or Mugabe won the March 29 presidential elections and the two rivals have adopted sharply contrasting strategies in response. Mugabe has virtually conceded he did not win and is already campaigning for an expected runoff on a platform of intimidation and fanning racial tension. Tsvangirai says he won and has demanded Zimbabwean courts and the international community support him.

“We urge the International Monetary Fund, at its meeting this week, to withhold ... aid to Zimbabwe unless the defeated ex-president accepts the election results in full and hands over the reins of power,” Tsvangirai wrote in an opinion piece published yesterday in the British newspaper the Guardian. “This is also the time for firm diplomacy. Major powers here, such as South Africa, the US and Britain, must act to remove the white-knuckle grip of Mugabe’s suicidal reign and oblige him and his minions to retire.”

A court postponed until today an expected ruling on an opposition petition to force the release of the election results.


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