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MDC: Mugabe being unrealistic
04/07/2008 22:27 - (SA)
Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition on Friday dismissed Robert Mugabe's insistence that he be accepted as president ahead of any talks on the country's political crisis, calling it an "unrealistic precondition".
"Mugabe is joking," said opposition Movement for Democratic Change spokesperson Nelson Chamisa. "This is an unrealistic precondition and we are not going to accept it.
"MDC is not desperate for talks. It's the country, the people that are desperate for talks," he added.
Referring to Mugabe's party, Chamisa said "therefore it is Zanu-PF that stands to benefit more from any kind of negotiated settlement. They have been rejected by the people".
Mugabe earlier Friday ruled out the prospect of talks with his opponents on ending the political crisis unless they acknowledged his victory in last Friday's widely condemned one-man presidential election.
Speaking to thousands of supporters after flying home from an African Union summit, Mugabe said opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai should not "delude" himself into thinking the result of the June 27 poll could be expunged from the record books and should renounce his claims to the presidency.
"I am the president of the republic of Zimbabwe and that is the reality," he said at Harare airport where some 4 000 supporters had gathered to welcome him back from the summit in Egypt.
Tsvangirai boycotted the run-off, citing rising violence against his supporters which he blamed on Mugabe thugs.
The 84-year-old leader pushed ahead with the election anyway, defying worldwide and regional calls for him to postpone it.
Mugabe escaped serious censure from his peers at the AU summit, which instead ended with relatively bland calls for the formation of a national unity government.
- AFP
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Zimbabwe Special Report
