July 02, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 27, 1429

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, July 1: An African Union summit was debating a resolution on Tuesday calling for a power-sharing arrangement aimed at ending Zimbabwe's political crisis, AU sources said.

“In the name of the SADC (Southern African Development Community), Angola put forward a resolution on setting up a government of national unity in Zimbabwe,” an African diplomat present at the closed-door session said.

The SADC has been heading mediation efforts to end the crisis which has seen Washington push for UN sanctions against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

“The feeling of several heads of state is that the sharing should be done with Morgan Tsvangirai as prime minister, but that's not explicitly stated in the draft resolution,” the diplomat said.

Mugabe won a widely discredited runoff election on Friday that was marred by violence which led opposition leader Tsvangirai, who won the first round, to pull out ahead of the contest.

The draft resolution consists of three main points — dialogue between Mugabe's Zanu-PF and Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change; a national unity government and support for SADC's mediation efforts, said the diplomat.

But the text does not specify whether the opposition would be given the role of president or prime minister with executive powers.

Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba earlier said: “I don't know what power-sharing is.” ”There are two political parties in Zimbabwe that are prepared to discuss -- we are talking about a ruling party that has offered dialogue to the opposition,” said Charamba.

But “we are not promising (Tsvangirai) anything beyond what will emerge from the discussions.” He also dismissed Western criticism of Mugabe's violence marred-election.

“They can go and hang a thousand times, they have no basis, they have no claim on Zimbabwe politics at all,” Charamba said.

The 53-member African Union was holding closed-door talks on the final day of a summit amid intensifying pressure for the continent's leaders to act to resolve the crisis which some fear could destabilise southern Africa.

Mugabe, 84, was attending the summit in Egypt after he was sworn in for a sixth term, having been declared the winner of Friday's election runoff with more than 85 per cent of the vote in a one-man race.

The opposition number two, MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti said in a statement that Mugabe's holding of a one-man election killed off any prospect of a negotiated political settlement and denied that talks were taking place.

“While the MDC has pursued dialogue in a bid to establish a government of national healing before June 4, the sham election on June 27, 2008, totally and completely exterminated any prospect of a negotiated settlement.” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pledged to work to broker a solution, repeating his view that the one-man election that gave Mugabe another term lacked legitimacy.

Some African leaders have demanded tough action against Mugabe. Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga called for his suspension from the AU until he allows a free and fair election.

Washington announced on Monday that it was preparing to present a draft sanctions resolution to the UN Security Council and urged African leaders to listen to their own election observers.

“The vote fell short of the African Union's standards of democratic elections,” the AU observers said in a statement issued in Harare on Monday.

US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the sanctions should impress upon Harare's neighbours the need for urgent action at the regional level.—AFP