Free Republic

South African government observers yesterday gave President Robert Mugabe's victory in Zimbabwe's election a clean bill of health, endorsing his Zanu-PF party's grip on power which will enable him radically to alter the country's constitution.The decision of Mr Mugabe's most important regional ally to endorse the results of Thursday's parliamentary election - in which Zanu-PF won an overwhelming majority of seats - came despite widespread complaints of electoral fraud and the opposition's total rejection of the outcome. The group's leader, labour minister Membathisi Mdladlana, who weeks earlier predicted that it would be free and fair, declared that the landslide win...

ZIMBABWE’S main opposition party said yesterday that it will boycott all elections until the government reforms unfair electoral laws, ends political violence and repeals repressive media and security laws.The decision by the Movement for Democratic Change comes well ahead of key parliamentary elections in March. The country’s president, Robert Mugabe, is seeking to consolidate his hold on power after narrowly winning re- election in a 2002 vote that observers said was marred by intimidation and vote-rigging. In June the government promised electoral reforms that it said would bring Zimbabwe in line with regional standards, but the opposition dismissed them as...

Zimbabwe's opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, said last night that he had been involved in secret talks on a power-sharing government with senior figures from Robert Mugabe's regime. Mr Tsvangirai said a mediator had offered a deal under which Mr Mugabe, who was re-elected last year in elections widely condemned as rigged, would resign and be given immunity from prosecution. Senior Western diplomats said that the offer appeared to be a trap to co-opt the opposition. Mr Tsvangirai said the offer was made, via the intermediary, by two of the ruling party's most powerful figures - the speaker of the Parliament,...