SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt—African leaders, divided over how to react to the widely condemned re-election of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, on Tuesday debated a resolution urging talks to form a national unity government, senior summit delegates said.
An African Union summit in this Egyptian resort has been dominated by the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe, whose once prosperous economy has been ruined and is racked by the world's highest rate of hyper-inflation.
Mugabe, who was addressing the final session of the meeting, attended the summit after being sworn in on Sunday following a one-candidate election that African monitors said was plagued by violence against the opposition and not free and fair.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew from the poll because of the violence, which he said had killed 86 of his supporters in the Movement for Democratic Change.
Summit delegates said earlier the leaders were divided between those who wanted a strong statement about Zimbabwe and others who were reluctant to publicly censure the veteran leader, who extended his 28-year rule in the vote Friday.
Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma, a member of the West and East African group most critical of Mugabe told BBC radio: "The people of Zimbabwe have been denied their democratic rights. We should, in no uncertain terms, condemn what has happened."
Koroma said the southern African group must engage Mugabe and Tsvangirai, who withdrew from the ballot because of attacks on his supporters, in talks leading to a transitional government and fresh elections.
But prospects that the summit would give new momentum to moves to end the crisis seemed to be receding even before its scheduled end on Tuesday night.
Mugabe's spokesman rejected ideas being floated for a Kenyan-style power-sharing deal and MDC Secretary-Tendai Biti, who was jailed for two weeks before the vote, said there was no chance of negotiations after Mugabe ignored a flood of appeals from inside and outside Africa to call off the election.
