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LONDON - Britain led international cries of alarm over Zimbabwe's violent electoral crisis on Sunday after the main opposition leader all but handed victory to President Robert Mugabe by quitting the run-off race.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Zimbabwe, in economic freefall under Mugabe's current regime, would lack "legitimate" leadership if London's arch-foe stayed in charge, and accused him of using violence to cling to power.
"A government which violates the constitution in Zimbabwe... cannot be held as the legitimate representative of the Zimbabwean people," Miliband said, referring to Mugabe's slowness to hold a run-off after the March 29 election.
Washington joined other powers in sounding the alarm over the reports of brutal violence shaking the country as the bitter electoral race dragged on towards the second-round run-off vote that had been scheduled for June 27.
"The government of Zimbabwe and its thugs must stop the violence now," White House spokesman Carlton Carroll said in a statement, following reports that Mugabe loyalists had beaten, burned and killed opposition supporters.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition party, quit the run-off on Sunday, saying increasing violence before Friday's planned vote had made a free and fair election impossible.
South African President Thabo Mbeki -- the regionally appointed mediator for Zimbabwe -- wants Mugabe and Tsvangirai to negotiate following the opposition's withdrawal, a spokesman for Mbeki told AFP, confirming media reports.
"I would hope that that leadership would still be open to a process which would result in them coming to some agreement about what happens to their country," Mbeki said, according to the SAPA news agency.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Tsvangirai's decision was "understandable."
"The withdrawal... is understandable, given the unacceptable systematic campaign of violence, obstruction and intimidation led by the Zimbabwean authorities," Solana said in a statement.
"The elections have become a travesty of democracy."
Tsvangirai failed to clinch an outright majority in March according to official results. The opposition says more than 80 of its supporters have since been killed in a campaign of intimidation ahead of the vote and thousands injured.
Miliband described the violence as "state-sponsored on a very large scale with one very clear motivation" -- to keep Mugabe in power.
"If you include many of the other factions that didn't support Robert Mugabe, it was evident that the opposition were heading for a victory," he said, speaking on Sky News television.
"That explains the level of violence both before the election and in preparation for rigging the poll that the government in Zimbabwe were willing to undertake."
The current chair of the 14-nation regional bloc that appointed Mbeki to mediate, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), suggested the vote could be postponed until a later date, without offering further details.
"There is no need to be ashamed in announcing that the presidential run-off should be called off until further notice," Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa told reporters after Tsvangirai's announcement Sunday.
Britain, the former colonial power, would be supporting "very strongly" a drive at the United Nations Security Council on Monday for a full discussion on the situation, Miliband said.
- AFP /ls
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