While African observers and governments applauded last week's landslide win by President Robert Mugabe's party as free and fair, the West dismissed it as a sham.

Mugabe has repeatedly accused Britain of leading a Western campaign for regime change in Zimbabwe because of his policy of seizing white-owned farms for allocation to blacks.

"People are so divided on Zimbabwe," said David Monyae, lecturer in international relations at South Africa's University of the Witwatersrand, saying the dispute is often seen as Mugabe fighting the West rather than facing domestic problems.

He said Mugabe's rhetoric against British Prime Minister Tony Blair has struck a chord with many Africans who still see colonialism as the root cause of the continent's problems.

Ross Herbert of the South African Institute of International Affairs said Zimbabwe posed a difficult problem for Africa, especially for South Africa, its southern neighbour and the continent's most powerful country.

South African President Thabo Mbeki has been dogged by accusations of ignoring abuses and repression in Zimbabwe while campaigning for good governance elsewhere in Africa.

"The region has gotten a bit confused because of the race factor in Zimbabwe," Herbert told Reuters.

"People are afraid to say it doesn't make a difference what the race of the perpetrator or the victim is, we should still support free and fair democracy regardless," he said.

In the run-up to last Thursday's elections, Mbeki dismissed widely expressed fears that Mugabe would rig the vote as he was accused of doing in 2000 and 2002.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC), whose observer mission was led by Mbeki's minerals minister, gave the poll high marks, although it voiced concerns over issues such as media access for the opposition.

Pretoria's own monitoring team was unequivocal in its endorsement.

In contrast, the European Union described the election as "phony" even before Zimbabweans voted, and pledged to campaign for reinforcement of sanctions against Mugabe.

President George W. Bush's administration pronounced the vote as neither free nor fair, and Blair's foreign minister Jack Straw said on Tuesday he was disappointed that other African nations had given the poll a clean bill of health.

"Many Africans feel there is need for change in Zimbabwe but not change as demanded by Bush and Blair," Monyae said.

Mugabe's image in the eyes of many Africans as a liberation hero who successfully battled white minority rule in Zimbabwe makes the opposition's task that much harder.

Morgan Tsvangirai's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is seen in much of Africa as playing to a foreign audience, while the party undermined its own campaign by only deciding at the last minute to contest the polls.

Africa's attitude to Mugabe is partly a throw-back to the days of the pan-African Organisation of African Unity, which kept a strict policy of non-interference in the domestic affairs of its members.

The new African Union is more interventionist but its pro-democracy campaign clearly has a long way to go.

Monyae said there were still many dictators across Africa who were reluctant to point out Mugabe's flaws.

"You cannot be a dictator and a born-again democrat at the same time," he said.

Mugabe gets a hero's welcome when he appears in public in South Africa but Herbert says this did not mean South Africans approve of the political situation in Zimbabwe.

"I would think that, certainly for South Africa, if the things that happen in Zimbabwe happened here, people would be up in arms," Herbert said.

But he said many Africans resented what they see as the West's double standards of democracy.

"For instance why do we worry about a third term for African leaders but not for British leaders?" he asked.

It's easy for Africans to understand Mugabe's argument that Zimbabwe's problems are rooted in the colonial legacy of disproportionate ownership of the best land by whites - a stance which may help explain why some in Africa steer clear of outright criticism of Mugabe's government.

"You cannot talk of human and democratic rights and say the land issue should not be revisited," said Adebowale Adeyemi, lecturer in international affairs at Lagos State University.

- Nampa-Reuters

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