Harare- Leaders of South Africa's governing party on Wednesday met President Robert Mugabe and expressed support for a dialogue to end the political crisis in neighbouring Zimbabwe, state television reported.
African National Congress (ANC) Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe and secretary-general Gwede Mantashe met with Mugabe at the ruling Zanu-PF headquarters in the capital Harare, Zimbabwe television said.
Details of the meeting were not disclosed.
Asked if dialogue was the solution to the Zimbabwean crisis, Motlanthe said: "Yes, precisely. When all is said and done, the unity of our people is most paramount and it is a precondition for development," according to the report.
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"The African Union has endorsed that dialogue should continue."
The ANC team also met with the country's two vice presidents - Joyce Mujuru and Joseph Msika.
The visit by the ANC leaders came four days after South African President Thabo Mbeki, the region's chief regional negotiator in the Zimbabwean crisis, met with Mugabe.
Zimbabwe opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, who boycotted the June 27 presidential re-run election, snubbed that meeting with Mbeki.
The ANC party had last month issued its harshest criticism to date of Zimbabwe's government, saying it was "riding roughshod over the hard-won democratic rights of the people".
"We are deeply dismayed by the actions of the government of Zimbabwe which is riding roughshod over the hard-won democratic rights of the people of that country," the party said in a June 24 statement, three days before the controversial presidential rerun poll.
"As democrats, the ANC cannot be indifferent to the flagrant violation of every principle of democratic governance," it said.
The ANC has traditionally been a stalwart supporter of Mugabe and Zimbabwe was often used as a base by the then South African guerrilla movement during the war against the whites-only apartheid regime in Pretoria.
But Mbeki has consistently refused to criticise Mugabe.
However Mbeki's successor as party leader, Jacob Zuma, has taken a tougher line towards Mugabe and made a point of describing the situation in Zimbabwe as a crisis.
Meanwhile, ZANU-PF politburo, the highest decision-making body of the party, which also met on Wednesday to review the outcome of the widely-condemned one-man presidential run-off, expressed satisfaction with its outcome, the state television said. - Sapa-AFP
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