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Zimbabwe: Elections

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Blaker, deserves some of the commendations that I have received today, because he has been at least as dedicated a supporter of change in Zimbabwe. I hope that there will be a further opportunity one day to exchange compliments when our policy has succeeded. Obviously, here in this House and elsewhere, we have expressed our frustrations with the lack of results from President Mbeki’s mediation, but this is probably not the moment to go further than that. He has once more inserted himself into the dialogue in Zimbabwe, and he is part of various proposals that are being made. We have to see how that goes. We are very determined to see fuller involvement by the AU and the UN to make sure that a fuller set of players is engaged in trying to bring change in the country.