Mugabe days are numbered, Mbeki promises Bush

SOUTH AFRICAN President Thabo Mbeki has told United States President George W Bush that Robert Mugabe will relinquish his leadership of Zimbabwe’s ruling party by December.

Such a move would pave the way for Mugabe’s exit as Zimbabwe’s president and new elections by June 2004.

Mr Mbeki’s assurance to Mr Bush that Mr Mugabe will stand aside is believed to be based on a personal promise extracted from the Zimbabwean leader. Mr Bush has pledged a reconstruction package for Zimbabwe worth up to $10 billion over an unspecified timeframe, if a new leader takes over in the African country.

The deal was discussed by the two leaders during a private meeting in Pretoria last week, the paper said in a report by its Southern Africa correspondent, Basildon Peta, who added that important differences remained.

Washington is anxious to make the money conditional on the emergence of a new leader chosen by the Zimbabwe people in an election rather than an anointed successor from the ranks of the ruling Zanu PF party.

Mr Mbeki by contrast, is not a supporter of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and is open to a successor emerging from the ruling party, the Independent said.

Mr Bush has called for Mr Mugabe to step down, but Mr Mbeki has publicly declined to toe the US line on Zimbabwe since a political and social maelstrom enveloped Zimbabwe after a presidential election last year, condemned by the west as rigged.