By MacDonald Dzirutwe
HARARE (Reuters) - South African President Thabo Mbeki metZimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Saturday to try to helpend a political crisis.
The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)party said its leader Morgan Tsvangirai had declined to meetMbeki, who has tried to mediate between the two sides afterMugabe's disputed re-election on June 27.
Mbeki told reporters after a brief meeting with Mugabe andArthur Mutambara, who leads a breakaway faction of the MDC,that negotiations had to move with speed.
"It is the view of the facilitators and the Zimbabweanleadership that we need to move with speed," Mbeki said. Weagreed that MDC Tsvangirai has to be part of the negotiations,so we are hoping that the process will take place with them."
A spokesman for Tsvangirai's MDC, Nelson Chamisa, said theparty was "mandated to negotiate under the resolutions of theAfrica Union and the Southern Africa Development Community ...on the basis that there is accountability (and) transparency".
"If we were meeting Mugabe as head of ZANU-PF no problembut not as head of state because we would have endorsed him butyou know that his position is in dispute."
VOTE RIGGING
Mbeki's trip follows a June 27 runoff presidentialelection, in which Mugabe was the only candidate afterTsvangirai pulled out citing state sponsored violence.
Tsvangirai and his MDC have criticised Mbeki's mediationefforts, accusing him of siding with Mugabe and have asked theAfrican Union (AU) to sent an envoy to help with the talks.Mugabe says he supports Mbeki's role in the mediation.
"We will of course engage the AU and I am quite certainthat they will make their own contribution to move the processforward," said Mbeki.
Mugabe said on Friday the MDC must drop its claim to powerand accept that he was the rightful head of state.
A film secretly taken by a Zimbabwe prison guard andsmuggled out of the country shows rigging that took place forthe June 27 presidential run-off vote, the Guardian newspaperin Britain said on Saturday.
The film taken by Shepherd Yuda using a camera supplied bythe newspaper showed prison staff being told by a war veteranhow to fill in their ballot papers for Robert Mugabe.
(Editing by Phumza Macanda and Ralph Boulton)
