African officials wary of Zimbabwe sanctions call

By Daniel Wallis and Cynthia Johnston

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) - Sanctions on Zimbabwe will not work and the world should focus instead on promoting the type of grand coalition that settled Kenya's election dispute, African officials said on Saturday.

Zimbabwe held a single-candidate presidential election run-off on Friday with only President Robert Mugabe on the ballot after opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of the race, citing violence against his supporters.

The election was condemned internationally and regional leaders had appealed for it to be delayed, but the vote went ahead and Zimbabwe government sources predicted a "landslide victory", saying Mugabe was expected to be sworn-in on Sunday.

Many Western leaders urged the African Union to take action against Zimbabwe at a summit in Egypt on Monday that was expected to focus on the crisis.

U.S. President George W. Bush called the election a sham and said he would ask for new U.S. sanctions and U.N. action, including an arms embargo, against what he called Zimbabwe's "illegitimate" government.

But African ministers, seen as having more sway with Mugabe than Western leaders, expressed doubts that sanctions would have any impact.

"History has shown us that they don't work because the leadership just dig in and dig in and feel persecuted," Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula told reporters at a meeting of African foreign ministers ahead of the summit, which Mugabe plans to attend.

"I think we need to engage Zimbabwe. The route of sanctions may not be the helpful one ... the first and most important thing is for the people of Zimbabwe and their leadership to sit down and talk to each other, instead of talking at each other."

Libya's state minister for African affairs, Ali Treiki, whose country spent years under international sanctions, told Reuters he believed sanctions would "never help".

"Let us envisage that a government of coalition should be formed from both the government and opposition to run the country," he said. "I think the example we did in Kenya is a very good example."

NO IMMEDIATE SOLUTION

AU mediation helped form a power-sharing government in Kenya to resolve a post-election crisis earlier this year that killed about 1,500 people and uprooted 300,000 more.

The death toll in Zimbabwe is smaller -- Tsvangirai says nearly 90 of his supporters have been killed -- but the turmoil has worsened an economy already in melt down. Four out of five Zimbabweans are unemployed.

Africa's top diplomat said there was no immediate solution, but was sure the AU could sort it out in a "credible way".

"Please give us time to solve it with our heads of state," AU Commission chairman Jean Ping told reporters on Friday at the meeting in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el Sheikh.