As Zimbabweans waited anxiously for the results of their general election yesterday, South Africa reacted with studied neutrality to a statement by the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, criticising Mr Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF for declaring that it would exclude the opposition from government regardless of the election results.
Mr Cook had earlier warned of serious but unspecified consequences if Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was excluded from government even if it captured a majority of seats. He expressed the hope that African states, especially South Africa, would put pressure on President Mugabe to heed the result.
"The votes are still being counted in Zimbabwe and we can't say anything," said the presidential spokesman in Pretoria, Mr Parks Mankahlana, in response to Mr Cook's statement. "That would be prejudging the outcome."
Earlier, Mr Tony Yegeni, chief whip of South Africa's ruling African National Congress and leader of the observer mission of South African parliamentarians in Zimbabwe, seemed at the least to conditionally endorse the election as fair and fair. "With the tranquillity and massive turnout in the past two days, it's clear that the people's will has been expressed despite the [earlier] problems of violence and intimidation", he said.
His assessment ran contrary to that offered by the head of the European Union monitoring team. "The term `free and fair' is not applicable in these elections," Mr Pierre Schori told a news conference in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare. "The level of violence and intimidation in the pre-election phase makes the term not applicable."
The violence and the "lack of transparency" in the operation's government- appointed election administrative body meant that the whole process was seriously flawed, Mr Schori added.
South Africa's prudently neutral response to Mr Cook's plea was consistent with the stance adopted by President Thabo Mbeki throughout the run-up to the election. Pursuing what was dubbed "quiet diplomacy" he steadfastly refused to condemn President Mugabe for conniving at the invasion of white-owned farms by men describing themselves as "war veterans" and for failing to instruct the police to enforce court injunctions ordering the trespassers to leave the occupied farms.
Mr Mbeki was sharply criticised by opposition leaders for travelling to Zimbabwe to open a trade fair the height of the controversy over the land invasions. He was accused of giving succour to Mr Mugabe and Zanu-PF, particularly after he was televised and photographed holding Mr Mugabe's hand in a traditional show of African friendship.
The nearest the ANC came to criticising Zanu-PF was last month when its parliamentarians introduced a motion in parliament declaring that violence and intimidation had "seriously compromised" the election. But when ANC leaders realised that it contradicted a statement by President Mbeki in the United States, who had disagreed with an assessment by the National Democratic Institute that the election process could not be described as free and fair at that stage, ANC parliamentarians backtracked on their motion, changing the wording to downplay the impact of violence.
During a debate in parliament President Mbeki himself appeared to downplay the violence in Zimbabwe, arguing that the Zimbabwean independence election of 1980 and South Africa's watershed election of 1994 had been conducted amid greater violence and yet had been judged to be free and fair.
The MDC in Zimbabwe interpreted the ANC's "quiet diplomacy" as a pro-Mugabe stance, particularly after a cordial meeting with much hugging and embracing between the ANC's national leadership and a ZanuPF delegation. The MDC leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai publicly accused the ANC delegation of travelling from "luxury hotel to luxury hotel" and then declaring that they had not witnessed any violence. It reminded him of visitors to apartheid South Africa who, after visiting spacious white suburbs and residing in first-class hotels, concluded that the black majority were not oppressed.