allAfrica.com: Africa: AU Summit Begins Under Shadow of Zimbabwe (Page 1 of 1)

The current chairperson of the African Union, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, on Monday appealed to the international community to work with SADC (Southern African Development Community) in the search for a solution to the crisis in Zimbabwe.

Kikwete was speaking at the opening of the 11th heads of state summit of the African Union (AU) in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh.

On Friday, the Zimbabwean regime pushed ahead with the second round of the presidential election, despite protests that, in an atmosphere of violence and intimidation, it was impossible to hold free and fair elections.

The SADC troika dealing with political, defence and security cooperation (consisting of Tanzania, Angola and Swaziland) had urged postponement, as had the United Nations Security Council, in a unanimous vote. It was thus impossible for Mugabe to argue that the pressure was only coming from his traditional foes in the European Union and the United States.

The leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic change (MDC), Morgan Tsvangirai, pulled out of the second round, arguing that the violence made it impossible to continue campaigning and he did not wish to put his supporters' lives further at risk.

Nonetheless, the regime pushed ahead, and Mugabe was duly declared re-elected with a farcical 85.5 per cent of the vote. Whereas the Zimbabwe electoral Commission (ZEC) had delayed for five weeks before announcing the result of the first round, which Tsvangirai won, this time they could declare a result in less than 48 hours.

Almost immediately Mugabe was sworn in: unlike previous occasions, no foreign heads of state or government were present, For Mugabe was in a hurry - later on Sunday he flew to Egypt to present his fellow African leaders with a fait accompli.

Also speaking at the opening session of the summit was UN Deputy Secretary General Asha-Rose Migiro who urged the leaders to seek a negotiated solution. She expressed regret that the election had been allowed to go ahead, and warned that Zimbabwe was now "the single greatest challenge to regional stability in southern Africa".

Migiro told the summit "This is a moment of truth for regional leader. The Secretary-General urges your excellencies to mobilise support for a negotiated solution".

One of Mugabe's problems is that African election observers saw and condemned the violence. The regime tried to control what the outside world could see by refusing to accept observers from such bodies as the European Union, or the Carter Centre, or even from SADC's own Parliamentary Forum. It also kept out major news channels such as the BBC and CNN.

But it could not very well reject observers from SADC member states, or from the Pan-African Parliament (PAP). Both condemned the run-off election.

The PAP statement declared that the election campaign was "marred by high levels of intimidation, violence, displacement of people, abductions and loss of life". The Mission had seen "traces of intimidation and violence in all provinces it visited. Houses burnt down, people assaulted and sustaining serious injuries".

It noted that there were "Restrictions on the fundamental civil and political rights such as freedom of assembly and freedom of movement", and an "overwhelming lack of access to the public media by the opposition". Instead "the state-controlled media was used as a vehicle to discredit the opposition candidate".

The parliamentarians were "disturbed by the numerous arrests that the MDC Presidential candidate was subjected to. Such a move is inconsistent with a free-flowing electoral process".

Worse still was the "Politicisation of security forces", which "led to lack of impartiality and loss of confidence in the voting process". The PAP mission noted there had been no change in the security forces' "overt support for the ruling party", together with a "reluctance to arrest alleged Zanu-PF aligned individuals perpetrating the violence". The mission was "dismayed" to "uniformed police officers on duty wearing the ruling party regalia".

At some polling stations the mission witnessed open intimidation when "certain male-dominated groups intercepted voters and gave them pieces of paper on which they were required to write the serial number of their ballots".

The PAP mission's inescapable conclusion was that "the current atmosphere prevailing in the country did not give rise to conduct of free, fair and credible elections", and that "Conditions should be put in place for the holding of free, fair and credible elections as soon as possible in line with the African Union declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections"

The SADC observer mission, headed by Angolan Sports Minister Jose Barrica, declared "The process leading to the presidential run-off election did not conform to SADC principles and guidelines governing democratic elections The election did not represent the will of the people of Zimbabwe," The SADC observer report added that its mission took place under "unprecedented levels of violence and political intolerance, followed by extreme statements from the country's principal political figures."

The AU summit is supposed to be discussing how to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that pertain to water and sanitation. These are that, by 2015, the number of people without permanent access to clean drinking water and to decent sanitation will have been cut by half from the 1990 figure. But the crisis in Zimbabwe seems likely to overshadow the official agenda.

The statistics are bleak. In sub-Saharan Africa, the number of people without access to clean drinking water rose by 23 per cent between 1990 and 2004, and the number without decent sanitation rose by 30 per cent.

Climate change, the world food crisis, and the implications these have for agriculture in Africa, are among the other matters on the Summit's agenda.

Migiro told the opening session that the UN is determined to coordinate actions and funding to help Africa achieve the MDGs. "Supporting Africa is not just a moral imperative", she said. "It's also a critical aspect for global security".

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