Summit on Zimbabwe to set course toward elections

Southern African leaders will try again Sunday to thrash out a plan to guide Zimbabwe toward elections, after a day of talks failed to settle the issue, a spokesman said. Mugabe, 87, has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, but inconclusive elections three years ago forced him into a unity government with Morgan Tsvangirai, his main rival, who is now prime minister. Their uneasy alliance had been intended as a transitional government to oversee the drafting of a more democratic constitution. That was intended to pave the way to new elections that regional leaders hope would avoid a repeat of the violent 2008 vote. But the process is running a year late, which has prompted a faction within Mugabe's ZANU-PF party to push for quick elections this year. The 15-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC), which wants the country to adopt a new constitution before holding polls, opened a summit on Zimbabwe on Saturday. But there was no word on progress at the end of the day. "We will resume tomorrow (Sunday) in the afternoon," SADC Executive Secretary Tomaz Salomao told journalists. "We don't have yet the communique because the summit has not been concluded." The leaders are due to review a progress report by South African President Jacob Zuma, assigned by the SADC to deal with the problem. Zuma reportedly met Mugabe for three hours on the eve of the summit. The leaders will also review a recent SADC mission to Britain, the United States and the European Union headquarters in Brussels aimed at persuading Western leaders to lift sanctions on Mugabe and his inner circle. Mugabe bristles at any outside pressure, and any decision the SADC reaches may not in any case sway hardliners within his party, especially military leaders who have publicly called for quicker polls. The elections debate has cast light on the battle within ZANU-PF over Mugabe's eventual succession. Part of the urgency comes from mounting concern in his party over Mugabe's age and health, said Takavafira Zhou, political scientist at Masvingo State University. "The rallying point in ZANU-PF is Mugabe, who is old, and there is a fear that if the elections are delayed and he dies or for some reason the elections are held without him, ZANU-PF is gone," said Zhou. "With those who want elections, we are talking of a minority of a minority, but it appears that minority is a powerful one," said Eldred Masunungure, an analyst from the University of Zimbabwe. South African mediators last month publicly raised concerns about Mugabe's health and the succession debate, following reports that he had had surgery for prostate cancer in Singapore early this year. Mugabe has denied the reports, and no one within the party is willing to publicly consider a future without him. But two top Mugabe allies, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and central bank governor Gideon Gono, have both cast doubt on the wisdom of quick polls. Election officials say a new version of the wildly outdated voters roll -- an estimated one-third of the people on it are dead -- will never be ready this year. The finance ministry says it has no money for elections. Tsvangirai wants the SADC to support elections no earlier than 2012 and is calling for reform of the security forces, accused by Amnesty International of complicity in a new wave of violence against his supporters this year.