Zimbabwe to attend election crisis summit

Zimbabwe said today it was prepared to brief an emergency summit of southern African leaders on the situation in the country, but did not indicate whether President Robert Mugabe would attend.

Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said that although it was not normal for another country – in this case Zambia – to call such a summit, “Zimbabwe would appraise the regional bloc of political developments in the wake of the elections,” the state-controlled Herald newspaper reported.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change says its candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the March 29 vote outright, and accused Mugabe of delaying the results so he can orchestrate a runoff and give ruling party militants time to intimidate voters and ensure he wins a second election.

Mr Tsvangirai embarked on a trip around the region yesterday, beginning with Botswana, to ask Mugabe’s peers to push him to end the stand-off.

He met Botswana’s President Seretse Ian Khama and hoped to travel to four or five other countries before Saturday, opposition officials said.

His spokesman, Nelson Chamisa, said today that Mr Tsvangirai would ask them to “put pressure and counsel Mugabe to accept the verdict of the people.”

“The issues are to help Zimbabweans realise or resolve their crisis. We have done our bit and Mugabe was defeated,” Mr Chamisa said.

With no resolution in sight 11 days after the election, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa called an emergency summit of southern African leaders for Saturday to discuss the crisis, Zambia’s information minister said.

Mr Mwanawasa had originally planned to send a delegation of former heads of state to Zimbabwe but decided to hold an urgent summit instead because the situation had grown so serious, Zambian state radio reported.

African leaders previously had deferred to South African President Thabo Mbeki and his strategy of “quiet diplomacy” on dealing with Zimbabwe. Mr Mwanawasa has stood out as the only southern African leader to publicly criticise Mugabe’s policies, last year likening the country’s economy to “a sinking Titanic.”

MDC secretary-general Tendai Biti said regional leaders should push for Mugabe’s resignation at the summit.

“We don’t know why the world has to wait until dead bodies start littering the streets of Harare,” he said.

Mr Biti indicated the opposition would boycott any run-off.

“Morgan Tsvangirai won this election without the need for a run-off, and we will not accept any other result except one that confirms that we won this election,” he said.

The High Court will decide on Monday whether to grant an opposition request for the election results to be released, lawyers for the MDC and the election commission said.

Mugabe has virtually conceded he did not win the election and appeared to be campaigning for a run-off by intimidating his foes and fanning racial tensions.

Mr Biti accused the ruling party of deploying senior army and police officials across the country to “oversee the reversal process.”

Desmond Mufunde, a newly elected MDC councilman from the rural Gweru district, said soldiers attacked some people in his district last weekend.

“I still don’t know what was the reason and why,” he said. “We’re trying to establish what happened.”

Zimbabwe’s Commercial Farmers’ Union accused ruling party supporters of forcing dozens of white farmers off their land and ransacking some of their homes. Such seizures started in 2000 as Mugabe’s response to his first defeat at the polls - a loss in a referendum designed to entrench his presidential powers.

Farmers warned that continued chaos could endanger the wheat crop, vital to a nation that has grown deeply dependent on food aid during the worsening economic crisis.

“The planting for wheat will be in a few weeks time and if it is not in, we’ll go starving again,” said farm union spokesman Mike Clark.

Simba Makoni, a former finance minister who received less than 10% of the presidential vote, according to independent tallies, said he was baffled by the delay in releasing the results.