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Mbeki meets with Mugabe in bid to end electoral crisis

South African President Thabo Mbeki met Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Saturday to try to help end a political crisis after a violent election that extended Mugabe’s 28-year rule.

The main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said its leader Morgan Tsvangirai had declined to meet Mbeki, who has tried to mediate between the two sides.

Tsvangirai and his MDC have criticized Mbeki’s mediation efforts, accusing him of siding with Mugabe and have asked the African Union (AU) to send an envoy to help with the talks.

Mugabe, in power since 1980, says he supports Mbeki’s role in the mediation, but has remained defiant in the face of condemnation from Western governments and African neighbors after his disputed re-election on June 27.

“It is the view of the facilitators and the Zimbabwean leadership that we need to move with speed,” Mbeki told reporters after a brief meeting with Mugabe and Arthur Mutambara, who leads a breakaway faction of the MDC.

“We agreed that MDC Tsvangirai has to be part of the negotiations, so we are hoping that the process will take place with them,” he said.

Mugabe said on Friday the MDC must drop its claim to power and accept he was the rightful head of state. He said Zimbabwe’s crisis, which has ruined the economy and sent millions of refugees into neighboring states, must be settled internally.

A spokesman for Tsvangirai’s MDC, Nelson Chamisa, said the party was “mandated to negotiate under the resolutions of the Africa Union and the Southern Africa Development Community ... on the basis that there is accountability [and] transparency.”

“If we were meeting Mugabe as head of [the ruling party] ZANU-PF, no problem, but not as head of state because we would have endorsed him but you know that his position is in dispute,” Chamisa said.

“We will of course engage the AU and I am quite certain that they will make their own contribution to move the process forward,” Mbeki said.

Meanwhile, Britain called for tough action as well as talk in the face of Mugabe’s defiance and signs of disunity among his opposition.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband urged South Africa and the rest of the international community yesterday to “unite behind a tough, strong, clear [UN] Security Council resolution” calling for international sanctions against Mugabe.

Miliband spoke to reporters after visiting a downtown Johannesburg church that is a refuge for Zimbabweans fleeing their homeland’s political and economic crises.

Also See: Shell considers pulling out of Zimbabwe
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