FORMER United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan slammed the African Union yesterday for not confirming the victory of the opposition in Zimbabwe in the March elections. “I am disappointed in the African Union,” Annan said at a conference at the German foreign ministry in Berlin.“The African Union should have endorsed the results and said to Mugabe: you are not a legally-elected president.”Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s party suffered a historic defeat in legislative elections in March. The veteran leader was re-elected in June in a one-man presidential run-off boycotted by Morgan Tsvangirai, head of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party.Annan, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001 along with the UN, has offered to mediate to resolve the standoff as he did earlier this year in Kenya after an election that the opposition charged was rigged by President Mwai Kibaki.Tsvangirai said last week he would have liked more pressure from the African Union and the Southern African Development Community to solve the power struggle in Zimbabwe.“There was a time when African leaders thought they can manage the problem, because they were protecting Robert Mugabe,” he said.“Now we have reached a stage where Mugabe is part of the problem.”–Reuters.
