SW Radio Africa (London)
Lance Guma
7 April 2008
The head of the Botswana Peoples Party, Bernard Balikani has called on the Southern African Development Community and African Union leaders to intervene in Zimbabwe before the situation gets worse.
Speaking to the Botswana Press Agency Balikani said SADC and the AU must exert pressure on Mugabe's government to release the results of the March 29 presidential elections. He expressed concern that the delay in the release of results was a ploy by Zanu PF to manipulate the outcome even though they had been defeated.
Balikani described the policy of 'quite diplomacy' exercised by many African leaders as a failure and said they use the policy as a pretext to avoid criticising Mugabe. He also said the withholding of results by the ZEC was a clear demonstration that most bodies running elections in Africa were not independent. The Botswana opposition leader urged African leaders to intervene and avert the possibility of bloodshed in Zimbabwe. He stressed the need for an urgent political solution to be found.
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