South Africa supports Mbeki role in Zimbabwe talks

HARARE (Reuters) - South Africa's new government called on former President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday to continue as the region's mediator in Zimbabwe's political crisis despite his ousting as president.

But a senior official with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party said Mbeki's involvement was not needed now to break an impasse threatening to derail a power-sharing deal and the recovery of the African nation's shattered economy.

Mbeki, a trouble-shooter in a series of African crises during nine years as president, brokered the September 15 deal between Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai that is to establish a unity government.

Mbeki's role was thrown into doubt after his ruling ANC forced him to resign. Pressure for him to become involved again has grown as Mugabe's party and the MDC argue over the allocation of cabinet posts.

"Mr. Mbeki's facilitation efforts in Zimbabwe have proven his dispassionate vision for a lasting political solution to the challenges facing Zimbabwe," new South African President Kgalema Motlanthe said in a statement.

"Accordingly, our government has full confidence in Mr. Mbeki's ability to build on the historic successes already made in the power sharing negotiations under his mediation."

Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change initially criticised Mbeki as being too soft on Mugabe, but it now supports him continuing his 18-month mediation under a mandate from the 15-nation Southern African Development Community.

DOUBTS

ZANU-PF, which lost control of parliament in a March election and entered the talks reluctantly, said it did not see any immediate need for mediation over the dispute on cabinet posts.

"I don't think that the issue of allocation of ministries is a matter that can be referred to the facilitator (Mbeki)," Patrick Chinamasa, chief ZANU-PF negotiator at the talks, was quoted as saying in the state-run Chronicle newspaper.

"We cannot, at the slightest difference in opinion, call outsiders to mediate. If there is thinking on such kind of an approach, it has to stop in the interest of harmonisation of relations," Chinamasa said.

Mugabe, who has ruled since independence from Britain in 1980, has expressed confidence that the cabinet would be named this week. But MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and his officials say a deal is not imminent.

The opposition accuses Mugabe's party of trying to assign the opposition a junior role in government.

Without a breakthrough, Zimbabwe's economy could worsen still further. The once-prosperous nation is crumbling under inflation of about 11 million percent -- the highest in the world -- and chronic food shortages.

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes estimated that three million Zimbabweans were already relying on aid and that the figure could rise to five million, or about half the population, the BBC reported on Thursday.

(Additional reporting by Paul Simao in Johannesburg; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)

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