African Leaders in Zimbabwe Crisis Summit

Zimbabwe today sought to play down the significance of an emergency summit meeting at which regional leaders will discuss the country's political crisis.

There has been no indication of whether the president, Robert Mugabe, will attend, but Zimbabwean officials said they were prepared to brief southern African leaders about political developments since the March 29 election.

Zimbabwe has yet to release the official results of the presidential vote, leaving the country in political limbo.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says its candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the first round outright with 50.3% of the vote, making a runoff vote unnecessary.

The MDC fears the ruling Zanu-PF party is mobilizing so-called war veterans to intimidate its opponents ahead of a planned second round as Mugabe tries to cling on to power.

Zambia's decision to call a summit meeting of the Southern African Development Council (SADC) in Lusaka for Saturday comes after a lobbying effort from Tsvangirai to persuade Zimbabwe's neighbors to use their influence and keep the crisis from spilling into violence.

The Zambian president, Levy Mwanawasa, said he had called the SADC meeting because of "deepening problems" in Harare.

Mwanawasa had originally planned to send a delegation of former heads of state to Zimbabwe, but decided to hold an urgent summit because the situation had become so serious, Zambian state radio reported.

African leaders had previously looked to the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, and his strategy of "quiet diplomacy", but the decision to hold a summit indicates growing impatience with that approach.

As recently as the weekend, Mbeki said during a conference in Britain that Zimbabwe's situation was "manageable" and needed no outside intervention.

Mwanawasa has been more outspoken than other southern African leaders, and last year compared Zimbabwe's economy to "a sinking Titanic".

The MDC secretary general, Tendai Biti, said regional leaders should push for Mugabe's resignation at the summit, indicating that the opposition would boycott any runoff.

"Morgan Tsvangirai won this election without the need for a runoff, and we will not accept any other result except one that confirms that we won this election," he said.

On Monday, Zimbabwe's high court is schedule to decide whether to grant an opposition request for the election results to be released, lawyers for the MDC and the election commission said.

Mugabe has virtually conceded that he lost the election, but has been urged by hardliners to hold a runoff and hang on to power through a campaign of intimidation.

Biti accused Zanu-PF of deploying senior army and police officials across the country to "oversee the reversal process".