Harare — President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe will be sworn in for another six years on Sunday, after a controversial election deemed flawed by the West and many other independent groups in Africa and abroad, but considered acceptable by some African governments.
Zimbabwe's state-owned media said about twenty African leaders had been invited to the inauguration ceremony at State House in the capital, Harare. But allAfrica learned that only a limited number of them were expected to attend, prompting observers to speculate that disapproval by a section of the continental leadership is more widespread than acknowledged.
Time may also have been a factor. The Harare government announced the swearing-in on Friday.
Reports late Saturday indicated that Presidents Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, Sam Nujoma of Namibia and Bakili Muluzi of Malawi would be present and perhaps, Mozambique's Joaquim Chissano.
But two influential African leaders, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria will not be there.
Instead the Nigerian and South African leaders are expected to fly into Harare on Monday, the day after the investiture, to talk to both Mugabe, 78, and Zimbabwe's defeated presidential opposition challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai, 50.
Tsvangirai has described the election as "daylight robbery", saying Mugabe rigged the poll.
The task facing the Nigerian and South African presidents is significant. Both men are seen as leaders for the African continent by the G8 wealthy nations and are under considerable pressure to find a solution. They are expected to propose the formation of a national unity government to Mugabe and to ask him to invite Tsvangirai to join it.
Through this personal intervention, Mbeki hopes to convince the Zimbabwean opponents to agree and thus help to defuse the political tension.
After their Harare negotiations, Obasanjo and Mbeki are expected to leave for London, where they have a scheduled Commonwealth meeting with the Australian prime minister, John Howard, on Tuesday. Nigeria, South Africa and Australia have been mandated to report to the organisation's secretary-general, Don McKinnon, about the conduct of the poll and propose recommendations. After this, the Commonwealth should decide what action - if any - it should take against Zimbabwe.
The Commonwealth observer team issued a stinging report of the Zimbabwe election, detailing intimidation, violence and a catalogue of abuses before and during the election. Commonwealth observers said both sides had been involved, but blamed Mugabe's Zanu-PF party activists for the lion's share of the violations against the opposition MDC.
Most Western governments denounced the poll results, concluding that the election was flawed and did not reflect the will of the people of Zimbabwe. The European Union and the United States have indicated that they may impose more sanctions on Mugabe and his loyal lieutenants, who have already been penalized by the EU and the US with targeted sanctions.
The European Union has announced that its representatives will boycott the swearing-in ceremony on Sunday.
Whether or not the presidential election was free and fair has been a hot topic, and the cause of considerable controversy, since the outcome of the ballot was announced on Wednesday, giving Mugabe a comfortable victory. This prompted immediate condemnation and rejection of the results by Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, who claimed the government had disenfranchised opposition supporters.
South African and Nigerian governments, and the majority of other African observers, later declared the poll "legitimate", though - pointedly - not free and fair. South Africa's deputy president, Jacob Zuma, was dispatched to Harare on Thursday, where he warmly congratulated Mugabe on his electoral victory, causing raised eyebrows, annoyance and some surprise in the West when he wrongly said South African observers had judged the poll "free and fair".
Later, it was reported that Mbeki had endorsed the poll. Supportive comments were attributed to Mbeki on the internet website of South Africa's governing African National Congress; but the party subsequently said there had been a mistake, and the statement attributed to Mbeki actually came from the party.
But Mbeki's keenly-awaited first public comment came on Friday night and hardened the South African position, with its implied criticism of Zimbabwe.
At the end of an ANC party meeting, Mbeki is reported to have said: "The world has got a right and a duty to express itself on things that are going on there, including wrong things - to say these things are wrong, we do not like them, they should stop, and so on. It's correct that the world must be concerned and express itself quite openly, quite frankly, quite forcefully."
Mbeki added: "Whatever happens to Zimbabwe in future must be a matter that centrally gets decided by the Zimbabweans."
The view of the South African leader is important because it carries political weight in and outside Africa and considerable leverage within the region. Mugabe's southern neighbour supplies both fuel and power, helping Zimbabwe's shattered economy.
The Zimbabwean leader is well aware of the high post-election stakes, but Mugabe is known to be his own man. Political analysts say he will not be dictated to, either by countries such as the former colonial power, Britain - which he accuses of neo-imperialism - or by his fellow Africans.
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Mugabe, say observers, is not inclined to share power and is unlikely to respond favourably to the proposal that he include the MDC in a government of national unity. Tsvangirai is adamant that his party would not be satisfied with just a handful of cabinet seats.
Tsvangirai has already been strongly critical of the South African role in his country, calling on Pretoria to be an honest broker in the Zimbabwe crisis.
After hearing that the Organisation of African Unity, and the regional Southern African Development Community, SADC, had given their blessing to the election, Tsvangirai said on Friday that continental leaders were damaging their reputations by endorsing Mugabe's victory. "In my view, what the African brothers are doing is to undermine their integrity and their credibility in the face of the world," the MDC leader told Reuters news agency.
He said: "We will not be party to any Caesarian operation by South Africa. We are not going to have short-cuts - and force issues on Zimbabweans."
Tsvangirai has insisted on one condition, that Mugabe commits himself to fresh elections, because the MDC considers him an 'illegitimate' president of Zimbabwe.
