afrol News, 19 June - According to South African press reports, President Thabo Mbeki in a last effort to mediate in increasingly violent Zimbabwe has tried to convince his Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe to call off next Friday's run-off presidential elections, rather opting for a unity government.

The usually well informed South African daily 'Business Day' today quotes sources close to the country's presidency, revealing details from yesterday's meeting between President Mbeki and Mugabe. The South African leader today has met with both Zimbabwean President Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, the two candidates in the upcoming presidential run-off.

According to those sources, President Mbeki had attempted to persuade President Mugabe "to cancel next Friday's presidential election run-off and start talks to negotiate a solution to the country's political stalemate." Mr Mbeki earlier in the day had tried to get support from Mr Tsvangirai for that idea.

It was understood that the influential Southern African Development Community (SADC) was supporting the idea. The regional body today warned against holding elections in Zimbabwe given the current violent political climate in the country. "There is every sign that these elections will never be free nor fair," Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe told the press after a SADC ministerial meeting.

South African President Mbeki has been appointed mediator on behalf of SADC to solve the political stalemate in Zimbabwe. By now, South Africa is believed the only country still having some political influence on President Mugabe.

However, according to 'Business Day', neither Mr Tsvangirai nor President Mugabe gave into President Mbeki's and SADC's assumed call to call of elections. President Mugabe, who has sworn to never let Mr Tsvangirai's party grab power in the country, is seen as being strongly against a national unity government.

Also other African leaders have questioned the upcoming Zimbabwe elections, doubting they could be free and fair. Rwandan President Paul Kagame categorically asked "For me the question that it raises is why do you even call for elections." Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga even asked for an international military intervention in Zimbabwe to stop the violence.

Meanwhile, as political violence increases in Zimbabwe, the call to cancel the upcoming polls is also finding support domestically. Zimbabwean lawyers for human rights, noting "an unprecedented increase in politically motivated violence, arson, torture, abductions and subsequent murders and killings" since the first election round, are supporting the view that elections should be called off in favour of a unity government.

Political violence indeed is on the rise. Today, the bodies of four opposition activists have been found near Harare, some of them badly burnt. The corpses included the body of Harare's recently elected opposition mayor's wife. An opposition spokesman accused supporters of President Mugabe of being behind the deaths.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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