Africa and West at odds over disputed Zimbabwe election

South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma on Sunday congratulated Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe on his re-election, in sharp contrast to Western governments that questioned the credibility of a rushed, disputed vote.

African monitors broadly approved the conduct of the election but Mugabe’s main rival, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai, has said he will challenge the results in court with evidence of massive vote-rigging, irregularities and intimidation.

The sharply divergent views of Wednesday’s vote surfaced after Zimbabwe’s election officials declared a landslide win for Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party, giving Africa’s oldest president five more years at the helm of a nation he has ruled for 33.

The stand-off raises some fears the southern African nation risks repeating the turmoil that followed another contested vote in 2008. Election violence then forced Zimbabwe’s neighbours to broker a shaky unity government between ZANU-PF and the MDC.

But Sunday’s “profound congratulations” extended to Mugabe by Zuma, leader of Africa’s economic powerhouse, reflected a willingness by the continent’s diplomatic bodies to swallow the re-election of Mugabe, 89, for the sake of regional stability.

Mugabe, one of the grand old men of southern Africa’s liberation fight that ended white minority rule, is admired as a defiant nationalist by some Africans, though others share the West’s view of him as a ruthless despot who wrecked Zimbabwe.