Cape Town — South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki has told a news conference at the United Nations that "things… have gone wrong in Zimbabwe," while at home his Cabinet has called for the "speedy release" of Zimbabwe's presidential election results.
Mbeki's comment was made after he chaired a summit of the United Nations Security Council and the African Union at UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday.
According to a transcript published by South Africa's foreign ministry on Thursday, Mbeki vigorously denied telling journalists in Harare last Saturday that "there is no crisis in Zimbabwe." He said his remark about there being no crisis applied specifically to the issue of election results as matters stood then.
"The question [asked by a reporter in Harare] was about the elections – it was not about the socio-economic conditions in Zimbabwe or anything like that," Mbeki said in New York.
He added: "I know, as much as you do, when something is wrong…. I think it would be good if people just credited us with a little bit of intelligence… We are perfectly capable of recognising when something is wrong…"
Mbeki also denied that he was loyal to President Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zanu PF party because they were comrades in the struggle for liberation in southern Africa.
"This argument that there is some loyalty in the region because we have all emerged from liberation struggles like the Zimbabweans implies that when something goes wrong in South Africa, Namibia or Zimbabwe we will not be able to see it because of this comradeship," he said.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
"I do not know where this comes from… The very fact that we have this mediation process on the political challenges begins from the premise that there is much that is wrong in Zimbabwe… Why would we mediate something that is right?"
Mbeki bluntly rejected the use of the term "quiet diplomacy" to describe his mediation in Zimbabwe on behalf of southern African heads of state: "What is loud diplomacy? That is not diplomacy."
He also revealed that his mediation team was responding to last weekend's decisions of the heads of state by approaching the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to ensure that all parties took part in verifying election results to ensure they "don't get cooked up by somebody."
While Mbeki was in New York, the South African Cabinet held its weekly meeting. It said in a statement on Thursday that "like the rest of the world, [South Africa] is concerned about the delay in the release of results and the anxiety that this is generating…
"The government will do all it can to interact impartially with all the relevant players in Zimbabwe to ensure that the election process is concluded speedily and in a manner that enjoys the confidence and reflects the will of the people of Zimbabwe."
