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HARARE: Zimbabwe’s opposition urged the African Union (AU) to take
the lead in mediating an end to the country’s crisis as Robert
Mugabe, fresh from declaring himself president, faced his fellow
heads of state Monday.
The 84-year-old, Africa’s oldest leader, flew
to the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh overnight to attend an AU
summit amid mounting criticism from around the world over his
controversial one-man election.
Mugabe was hastily sworn in Sunday barely an
hour after the electoral commission pronounced he won more than 85
percent of the votes in a run-off poll boycotted by opposition
leader and first-round winner Morgan Tsvangirai.
While the criticism from Western governments has
been deafening, African leaders—many of whom themselves have
questionable records on democracy—have been more muted in their
response.
Mediation efforts have previously been led by
South African President Thabo Mbeki who was mandated by a 14-nation
regional bloc known as the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC),
but with Mbeki having consistently failed to criticize Mugabe,
Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party has
accused him of blatant bias and wants him sidelined.
Speaking to Agence France Presse from Sharm
el-Sheikh, Tsvangirai’s spokesman George Sibotshiwe said the
crisis now had ramifications for the continent as a whole and it was
too big a task for Mbeki on his own.
Asked if the opposition wanted the AU to take
the lead from SADC, Sibotshiwe said: “Yes, because it is a
continental crisis.”
“We want an AU envoy who is a permanent
mediator between the MDC and ZANU-PF [Mugabe’s party] to assist
President Mbeki.”
AU Commission spokesman El-Ghassim Wane said on
Sunday that Zimbabwe would certainly be discussed at the summit but
remained cagey on any possible sanctions, saying, “if there is a
decision to take it will be taken at the level of the union’s
summit.”
The MDC has previously called for Mbeki to be
axed altogether but Sibotshiwe acknowledged he still had a role to
play as he was appointed by SADC.
Tsvangirai pulled out of the ballot after nearly
90 MDC supporters were killed in attacks he blamed on pro-Mugabe
thugs.
-- AFP
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