Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe was welcomed by his peers on Monday, strolling into an African Union summit where leaders were unlikely to criticise him.
Despite calls to denounce his election, African leaders cheer the president
EGYPT: Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe was welcomed by his peers on Monday, strolling into an African Union summit where leaders were unlikely to criticise him despite Western calls for them to condemn his widely discredited re-election.The US has vowed to bring the issue of Zimbabwe before the UN Security Council this week, and British prime minister Gordon Brown urged the AU to reject the result of Zimbabwe’s presidential runoff.
Mugabe was the sole candidate in Friday’s vote. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew, saying his supporters had become targets of brutal state-sponsored violence.
The summit should “make it absolutely clear that there has got to be change” in Zimbabwe, Brown said in London. “I think the message that is coming from the whole world is that the so-called elections will not be recognised.”
But instead of condemnations, the AU’s leaders were expected to gently urge Mugabe to engage in some sort of power-sharing agreement with the country’s opposition, along the lines of a deal that ended violence in Kenya earlier this year.
Africa should “do everything in its power to help the Zimbabwe parties to work together in the supreme interests in their country so as to overcome its current challenges,” African Union Commission chairman Jean Ping told delegates.
In his opening address to the gathering in this Egyptian Red Sea resort, the African Union’s head, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, congratulated the Zimbabwean people and AU mediators but not Mugabe himself. He called the elections “historic” but also said there were challenges.
A draft resolution written by AU foreign ministers and due to be approved by leaders at the summit does not criticise the runoff election or Mugabe. The draft, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, condemned violence in general terms and called for dialogue.
The summit is an opportunity for Mugabe to gain some symbolic international recognition a day after he was sworn in as president for a sixth term following Friday’s voting.
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