Only Mugabe defeat will satisfy west: Mwanawasa

Only Mugabe defeat will satisfy west: Mwanawasa

ACCUSATIONS: Mwanawasa says western countries 'complicating' situation in Zimbabwe

• Mugabe confers Order of the Greatest Zimbabwe award on Kaunda

• Mthulisi Mathuthu: Pan-Africanism stripped bare

• Kaunda defends Mugabe

ZAMBIAN President Levy Mwanawasa said Friday that only defeat for Robert Mugabe's ruling party would convince western countries to certify next month's Zimbabwean elections as free and fair.

Mwanawasa, chairman of the 14-member Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), said European nations, Canada, the United States and Australia should leave Zimbabweans to work at their problems without foreign interference.

"They are complicating the problems in Zimbabwe by recognising that elections are only free and fair when the ruling party loses," Mwanawasa told reporters at his office.

Mwanawasa said the SADC would send election observers to Zimbabwe ahead of joint parliamentary and presidential polls set for March 29, which he hoped would be free and fair.

"We are sick and tired of having elections later disputed. We hope losing parties will accept when they have lost," Mwanawasa said ahead of a meeting of the SADC council of ministers in Zambia next week.

Mwanawasa has previously likened the situation in Zimbabwe to a "sinking Titanic".

SADC has come in for harsh criticism for being too soft on the government of Zimbabwe, crippled by an economic crisis characterised by world-record inflation and a lack of basic goods.

Zimbabwean opposition leaders declared "dead" Thursday its SADC-mediated dialogue on political reform with Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF, and said elections would be flawed. - AFP
JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
editor@newzimbabwe.com