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Mugabe 'ready' to face peers
10/04/2008 12:24 - (SA)
Harare - Zimbabwe's government said on Thursday that Robert Mugabe was ready to face his fellow heads of state over the country's post-election crisis as the wait for results stretched into a 12th day.
The heads of state that make up the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) had all been invited to attend a summit in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, on Saturday in a bid to break the impasse between Mugabe's ruling party and the opposition amid growing tensions between both sides.
A source in Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa's office said on Thursday that invitations had been issued and Mugabe was fully expected to attend.
Zimbabwe's deputy information minister stopped short of confirming that Mugabe would attend, but said he was more than happy to brief his peers on the situation in the former British colony.
International pressure
The deputy minister Bright Matonga said: "If there is a SADC meeting confirmed by Zambia, President Mugabe will definitely be there.
"There is nothing unusual about his attendance. SADC has obviously come under a lot of international pressure over the Zimbabwe elections and needs to be briefed about what is happening here."
Southern Africa had been heavily criticised over its traditional reluctance to criticise Mugabe who had presided over his country's economic demise during his 28-year rule, which began with independence in April 1980.
Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was furious after a team of SADC observers gave the March 29 a clean bill of health before the results had been announced, but the party is now hoping Saturday's summit would be an opportunity for the region's leaders to call time on Mugabe's tenure.
"We hope that President Mugabe will be asked to stand down" at Saturday's summit, the party's secretary-general Tendai Biti told reporters on Wednesday.
ZEC 'needs' more time
While the results of a simultaneous parliamentary election were announced more than a week ago, the Zimbabwe electoral commission had given no word on the outcome of the presidential vote in which MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai took on his 84-year-old rival Mugabe.
Tsvangirai had already claimed to have won enough votes to avoid a second round run-off against Mugabe. The president's party however said a run-off would take place with Mugabe again as its candidate.
The electoral commission (ZEC) said it needed more time to collate and verify the votes, even though the body had already begun dismantling its operations centre in the capital, Harare.
The South African government acknowledged on Thursday that the continued vacuum was straining tensions and urged the ZEC to break its lengthy silence.
"The ZEC should explain the delay in the announcement of the results. This will calm the situation and ease the tension," deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad told a press briefing.
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