GERMANY: South African ruling party leader Jacob Zuma said yesterday Africa must send a mission to Zimbabwe to end a delay in issuing election results, which he called unacceptable.
In his toughest comments yet on the three-week delay in announcing results of a presidential vote, Mr Zuma, on a visit to Berlin, said: "It's not acceptable. It's not helping the Zimbabwean people who have gone out to ... elect the kind of party and presidential candidate they want, exercising their constitutional right."
Mr Zuma has made several forthright comments on the election delay, distancing himself from South African president Thabo Mbeki, the designated regional mediator in Zimbabwe, who has long insisted on a discreet approach he calls "quiet diplomacy".
The South African president, who lost the leadership of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to Mr Zuma last December, has been criticised at home and abroad for playing down the gravity of Zimbabwe's electoral deadlock.
- (Reuters)