Mbeki to attend SADC poverty summit in Mauritius

Yesterday SADC backed Mbeki's mediation role in Zimbabwe

President Thabo Mbeki is expected to arrive in Mauritius today to attend a SADC summit on poverty in the island's capital Port Louis.

This comes barely a week after SADC leaders held an extraordinary summit in Zambia's capital, Lusaka, to discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe. However, it's unlikely that the issue of Zimbabwe will feature at this weekend's summit. Yesterday, SADC backed Mbeki's mediation role in Zimbabwe.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's election officials are today expected to begin a partial recount of votes from the March 29 elections. This is despite opposition protests and widespread fear that the country's political stalemate could erupt in violence. The recount in 23 of 210 constituencies could overturn the results of the parliamentary election, which revealed the ruling Zanu-PF losing its majority to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

However Zimbabwe's opposition MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has again questioned the legitimacy of today's recount of parliamentary votes. Yesterday, party leaders met with former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan in Kenya, in a bid to persuade him to mediate in its country's political crisis.- Additional reporting by Reuters