Counting is under way in Zimbabwe after a one-man presidential election, dubbed a sham by the country's opposition and many in the international community.With Robert Mugabe, the incumbent president, certain to win, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said on Saturday he was only being kept in power by force and with help from Thabo Mbeki, the South African president .
The MDC, whose leader Morgan Tsvangirai boycotted Friday's poll after a wave of deadly attacks against his supporters, suffered a major blow overnight when South Africa blocked a move at the UN to declare the election illegitimate.
The United States and its European allies had pushed for a resolution that would have stated the results "could have no credibility or legitimacy" but South Africa argued the Security Council was not in the business of certifying elections.
The council instead merely issued an oral statement expressing "deep regret" that the election went ahead after widespread calls for it to be shelved.
George Bush, the US president, on Saturday reiterated that the Zimbabwean run-off vote was a sham and said he had directed that sanctions be drawn up against the "illegitimate" government of Zimbabwe .
"Given the Mugabe regime's blatant disregard for the Zimbabwean people's democratic will and human rights, I am instructing the secretaries of state and treasury to develop sanctions against this illegitimate government of Zimbabwe and those who support it," Bush said in a statement.
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, said the US might introduce a UN resolution calling for sanctions against Zimbabwe.
Sanctions opposed
But African foreign ministers meeting in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh said on Saturday that getting Mugabe and Zimbabwe's opposition to talk will have better results than punitive measures.
Moses Watangula, the Kenyan foreign minister, said the route of sanctions may not be helpful for the southern African country.
Ralph Black, the MDC's representative in the United States, told Al Jazeera that a government of national unity may diffuse the current crisis.
"They must agree to form a government of national unity," he said.
"The two parties must come together to select and share power, but we believe Mugabe must not be part of a unity government - this is because the destruction of Zimbabwe's democratic institutions lies squarely at his feet."
Briggs Bomba, a Zimbabwe activist for Africa Action, a non-profit organisation, also told Al Jazeera the strategy the MDC is using has not been effective.
"What the MDC could have done was to mobilise mass popular support inside the country," he said.
"If Zanu-PF supporters, government officials, and the police, saw massive support for the MDC, and saw the people rally in large numbers in support for a change of political direction in the country, they themselves will be forced to re-think their roles as enforcing the policies of Robert Mugabe."
Poll pullout
Tsvangirai won the first round of the election on March 29, falling just short of the 50 per cent threshold needed to avoid a run-off.
But he decided to pull out of the run-off last weekend after the MDC claimed nearly 90 of its supporters had been killed in attacks by pro-Mugabe thugs and some 200,000 voters disenfranchised after being driven from their homes.
Amid widespread reports that the electorate was being coerced into voting for Mugabe, Tsvangirai advised followers on Friday against futile gestures of defiance in what he derided as an "exercise in mass intimidation".
Turnout was "massive" in the election, the official newspaper The Herald reported on Saturday, but provided no figures.
