and report to him on the 2002 elections. The scathing report issued by them was suppressed by Mbeki, leaving the Motsuenyane report as the final South African verdict on the fraudulent election. The process was repeated for the 2005 elections which did not meet the basic electoral requirements to be considered free and fair. Just prior to those elections, with the connivance of the South African Government, SADC’s “Principles and Guidelines on Elections” were hastily put into place in the knowledge and hope that Mugabe would pay lip service to these guidelines. Mugabe duly played the game, introducing largely cosmetic changes to the electoral procedures. Mbeki disingenuously accepted these changes at face value, and despite the fact that the new Electoral Commission comprised a chairperson who was prepared to do the bidding of ZANU PF and a majority of Mugabe appointees and that there had been no significant change to actual pre-election conditions, then stated just before the election: “Things like an independent electoral commission, things like access to the public media, things like the absence of violence and intimidation - those matters have been addressed … .I have no reason to think that anybody in Zimbabwe will act in a way that will militate against elections being free and fair." Mbeki’s response to all these fraudulent elections in Zimbabwe was out of kilter with most international observers. The EU roundly condemned the violation of basic electoral standards and imposed travel restrictions on senior ZANU PF officials. The Commonwealth responded by suspending Zimbabwe. Mbeki did everything possible to try to protect Mugabe. Despite having been a part of the three-country committee that recommended suspension, in March 2002 Mbeki criticized the Commonwealth’s decision to suspend Zimbabwe. To relieve pressure on Mugabe, Mbeki announced he would be undertaking efforts to facilitate meetings between ZANU-PF and MDC to resolve the Zimbabwe issue. The following month South Africa played a key role in blocking a condemnatory resolution on Zimbabwe at the annual meeting of the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights (UNHRC) – an action repeated in successive years where Mbeki’s administration repeatedly introduced motions of “no action” on the situation in Zimbabwe at the UNCHR, effectively stifling debate on the issue. In the same month Mbeki’s administration followed up its 2003 “no action” motion by calling for Zimbabwe’s reinstatement into the Commonwealth. South Africa then cancelled the Commonwealth review meeting on the issue, which would have meant that Zimbabwe’s suspension would have lapsed. In the event, fearing eventual renewed suspension, Mugabe unilaterally withdrew Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth. The Mbeki Administration’s stance at the UNCHR was echoed in other bodies of the United Nations. At the 59th Session of the General Assembly’s Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural) in 2004, South Africa proposed a no-action vote on the crisis in Zimbabwe. The South African representative criticized what he considered a doublestandard whereby country-specific human rights based resolutions were “only drafted to address crises in developing countries” and claimed that this “constituted an affront to the integrity of the African political leadership”.