April 13, 2008 (LPAC)--The April 12 Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) summit that was called by SADC Chair and Zambian President at the behest of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, did not give the British--or the Zimbabwe opposition they are sponsoring--what they wanted.

The summit communique did not state that there was an electoral impasse in Zimbabwe, in agreement with what had been stated before the summit by South African President Thabo Mbeki. The summit only called for the results of the March 29 election to be released expeditiously, and that the run-off election be held "in a secure environment."

After returning from the summit, Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba said of the allegations by the MDC that Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe was trying to rig the outcome of recent elections: "It is not true." He said, "Neither the government, the ruling party or the opposition" had tampered with the outcome. Pohamba also said, that "SADC heads of state had been satisfied with explanations provided about the arrest of several ZEC (Zimbabwe Electoral Commission) officials over allegations by Mugabe's Zanu-PF party that they had deliberately underestimated his tally.

While the summit was taking place, the ZEC announced that it would conduct a recount next Saturday of all ballots cast in the parliamentary, presidential and local elections in 23 constituencies--22 demanded by the government, one singled out by the opposition MDC, for irregularities. The Zimbabwe government has charged that the MDC paid off people working as election officials, to inflate the figures of MDC candidate Morgan Tsvangirai. The MDC is against holding the recount, and Tsvangirai says he won't compete in a run-off election which he would lose, now that his corruption of election officials has been smoked out.

As a result of not getting SADC backing for a unity government, the British are intensifying their condemnation of Mugabe. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that he and his reputed allies in the West "are running out of patience" with Mugabe. Brown-asset Tsvangirai is reportedly being counseled to seek asylum in a neighboring country, and not return to Zimbabwe for reasons of personal safety, playing into British plans to produce a rerun of the Kenya post-electoral crisis, in Zimbabwe. The British are now focussing on charging that the-to-be-announced election results will be fraudulent, and that there is an electoral crisis that can only be resolved by British-instigated mediation to install a power-sharing government, which would be plagued by conflict and instability, as Kenya's has been since Kofi Annan's "mediation effort" there.