Madam Speaker, one would have expected the President to have been part of the meeting of the SADC security troika, which took place in Swaziland recently to discuss, among other things, the serious political and security crisis in Zimbabwe.
Given the central role that the hon President plays as a mediator, would the President care to share with us the reason or reasons why he didn't attend such a critically important meeting? Also, given the results of the election in Zimbabwe on 29 March 2008, when the MDC defeated ZANU-PF by a clear majority in the vote for parliamentary seats and became the majority party in parliament, and with Morgan Tsvangirai's victory over Mr Robert Mugabe in the presidential election, on what basis, Mr President, does the South African government continue to refer to Mr Morgan Tsvangirai as the leader of the opposition and Mr Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF regime as the governing party of Zimbabwe, when they have already been defeated in the first election? [Applause.]