Mugabe Foe Meets South African Leaders

The Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai traveled to South Africa yesterday to shore up international support for his claim that he has defeated Robert Mugabe in the presidential election. No details were released about Tsvangirai's meeting with Jacob Zuma, the African National Congress leader and assumed next president, but the Mail and Guardian reports that Zuma is less inclined to prop up Mugabe than the current president, Thabo Mbeki.

In an op-ed for London's Guardian yesterday, Tsvangirai wrote that "major powers"—he named the US, Britain and South Africa—"must act to remove the white-knuckle grip of Mugabe's suicidal reign." Until now South Africa has tried to work with Mugabe, and last week Mbeki called Zimbabwe's post-election chaos "manageable." (More Morgan Tsvangirai stories.)