Zimbabwean civic leaders are urging South African President Thabo Mbeki to include civil society representatives in the country's halting process of conflict resolution.
Non-governmental organizations are proposing to hold what they describe as a national stakeholders conference to air views on the way out of the deep crisis that has developed since the country's March 29 round of presidential and general elections.
Those elections gave the opposition Movement for Democratic Change a majority in the lower house of parliament, unseating President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party after three decades in power. Mr. Mugabe trailed opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the presidential poll. But the vote ushered in a wave of allegedly state-sponsored political violence against opposition members that has steadily expanded and grown more brutal and deadly.
Midlands Regional Chairman Peter Muchengeti of the National Association of Non-Governmental Organizations said civic groups want to see a transitional authority paving the way for new elections under African Union and United Nations supervision.
Muchengeti told reporter Patience Rusere of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that the crisis is too complex to leave its solution to the politicians.
