World Nov. 25, 2008 - 02:35AM JST ( 1 )

JOHANNESBURG —

South African President Kgalema Motlanthe warned Monday that Zimbabwe’s political deadlock could bring the troubled nation to collapse as he announced new talks to save a stalled unity accord.

Motlanthe said Zimbabwe’s political rivals would meet Tuesday in South Africa in the latest bid to rescue the power-sharing deal that was signed two months ago but never put into effect.

“Unless the root cause of the political absence of a legitimate government is solved, the situation will get worse and will implode or collapse altogether,” Motlanthe said.

South Africa’s ruling party leader Jacob Zuma warned that the two sides needed to urgently reach an agreement to tackle a cholera outbreak that has killed nearly 300 people, including four who had come here to seek treatment.

“Let us find a way to implement the agreement for the sake of Zimbabweans. We cannot stay with the agreement without implementing it. It is now an urgent matter, because people are dying,” he said.

Zuma said he would also dispatch a delegation from his African National Congress (ANC) to press both President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) into a deal.

“We are not dealing with a theoretical situation. We are a dealing with a situation that is affecting the lives of people,” he said.

Motlanthe and Zuma spoke after meeting with former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who were denied visas for a humanitarian mission they had planned for last weekend.

Annan, Carter and rights activist Graca Machel—the wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela—had planned to visit Zimbabwe to find ways of easing the humanitarian crisis but were rebuffed by Mugabe’s regime.

“The entire basic structure… is broken down. These are all indications that the crisis in Zimbabwe is much greater, much worse than we ever could have imagined,” Carter told reporters.

The United Nations says more than 6,000 people have caught cholera in Zimbabwe, highlighting the devastating breakdown in the national infrastructure that has crippled basic sanitation services.

Motlanthe said that South Africa had tried to push Mugabe to accept the visit by Annan and Carter.

“We did make attempts to speak to President Mugabe. The response from the Zimbabwe side was that he was out of town and that as soon as he returned to Harare he would come back to us. He did not come back to us,” Motlanthe said.

In addition to the cholera crisis, Zimbabwe faces a massive food shortage, with nearly half of the population expected to need food aid in January.

Although the country suffers one of the world’s worst AIDS epidemics, Zimbabwe’s hospitals lack basic drugs and equipment, leaving doctors unable treat even minor ailments.

Hopes had soared in September that the power-sharing deal would end the political feuding and mark a first step toward addressing the humanitarian challenges.

Instead the delays in forming a unity government have left the country’s leadership in limbo.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the first round presidential election in March, but pulled out of a run-off amid widespread political attacks, which he said were orchestrated by Mugabe’s party.

Wire reports