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Zimbabwe: Tsvangirai Visits Mozambique
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
24 April 2008
Posted to the web 24 April 2008
Maputo
The leader of Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic change (MDC), Morgan Tsvangirai, visited Mozambique on Wednesday as part of his tour of African countries to obtain support to overcome the electoral crisis in Zimbabwe.
Tsvangirai met with President Armando Guebuza, with his predecessor Joaquim Chissano, and with the leader of the former rebel movement Renamo, Afonso Dhlakama.
After meeting Tsvangirai, Chissano told reporters that the Zimbabwean opposition figure had requested intervention by the Forum of former African heads of state (set up by Chissano in 2005) to solve the impasse over the missing election results. Almost a month has passed since the 29 March elections in Zimbabwe, and still the presidential results have not been published.
But Chissano thought the Forum could not intervene, because there was already "facilitation" under way by South African president Thabo Mbeki, backed by SADC (Southern African Development Community).
"I told the MDC leader that the matter of Zimbabwe is currently being handled at SADC level, and the most we can do is put ourselves at the disposal of the regional leaders to play any activity in the moulds that they may determine", said Chissano. He did not see any way in which the Forum could play an independent role.
After meeting Guebuza for about half an hour, Tsvangirai told reporters he had presented the Mozambican leader "with three main points. First, the violence and the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe which are getting worse".
More than 400 people had been detained in the government crackdown against the opposition since the elections. "The trend is worrying ", said Tsvangirai.
The second question, and the most important in the MDC's view, was the failure of the Zimbabwe electoral commission to release the results of the the presidential elections. The MDC believes that Tsvangirai won the election outright, with over 50 per cent of the vote. However, an independent reckoning, from the results sheets posted at the polling stations, indicates that Tsvangirai fell slightly short of 50 per cent, and this would necessitate a second round between the MDC leader and the incumbent, 84 year old Robert Mugabe.
And thirdly, said Tsvangirai, he had told Guebuza "of our wish that SADC should work still further with organisations such as the African Union to propose a defintive solution for Zimbabwe".
Commenting on the overall situation, Tsvangirai said "the problems in Zimbabwe are not the elections in themselves, but the refusal of the ZANU-PF government to recognise that the people have voted against it. The will of the people should be upheld, and for this it is not necessary to go back to the ballot box".
This was a clear rejection of a second round in the presidential election, although last week Tsvangirai had said he would participate in a second round, as long as conditions for a free and fair election were guaranteed. He has now changed his mind, telling the Mozambican reporters "there is no need for a second round, because the MDC won on 29 March".
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Sam/pf (511)
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| Copyright © 2008 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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