Africa is full of "Mugabes"

Robert Mugabe may be facing further isolation by the West after his one-man election victory, but he is far from the only long-serving African leader with a questionable rights record.

As the 84-year-old meets his peers at an African Union summit, some are reluctant to take him to task about pre-poll violence and intimidation since similar circumstances have played out in their countries.

Mugabe has himself minimised the violence surrounding Zimbabwe's vote by pointing out that thousands have been killed in other African elections and polls were held anyway.

Summit host Hosni Mubarak has ruled Egypt for 27 years and routinely been re-elected unopposed with vote totals of more than 95 percent.

Mubarak has enjoyed close relations with the United States despite regular arrest of main opposition Muslim Brotherhood members.

In Libya, Muammar Gadaffi has been in power for nearly 39 years and in 1977 unveiled the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, in which his only formal function was as revolutionary guide.

While he has faced heavy criticism over his human rights record, he has mended fences with the West in recent years after renouncing any ambition to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Gadaffi falls just short of qualifying as Africa's longest-serving ruler, a distinction belonging to Gabon's Omar Bongo, who came to power in 1967. The 72-year-old won the country's most recent presidential election with 79 percent of the vote.

Mugabe "is president" of Zimbabwe, Bongo insisted on Monday at the start of the AU summit.

The crisis in the Sudanese region of Darfur has recently shone a spotlight on that country, where President Omar al-Bashir came to power in an Islamist-backed, bloodless coup in 1989 that overthrew a democratically elected government.

His regime is accused by rights groups of torture and arbitrary detentions, and backing Arab militias against ethnic minority Africans in Darfur where the United Nations (UN) says 300 000 people have died since conflict broke out in February 2003.

From Mugabe's own region, Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has ruled since 1979, and the first elections since the end of the country's 27-year civil war are scheduled for September.

In April, the UN announced it was closing its human rights office in Angola after authorities withdrew their co-operation.

Despite Angola's oil wealth, some two-thirds of the population still live on less than $2 (about R15,76) a day.

Equatorial Guinea faces a similar paradox, with the country ranking as sub-Saharan Africa's third crude oil producer but with most of the population living in dire poverty.

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema seized power in a 1979 coup and his party has won every election since a multiparty system was introduced in 1991. He won 99 out of the 100 seats in May elections.

Also in western Africa, Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore has been in power for nearly 21 years and revised the constitution in 1997 to eliminate presidential term limits. Compaore was re-elected in 2005 with more than 80 percent of the vote.

Guinea President Lansana Conte, who has suppressed his opponents and remained in power since 1984 following a military coup, changed the constitution seven years ago to erase limits on the number of terms he could serve.

Earlier in 2008, Cameroon President Paul Biya amended the constitution to allow himself to run for a third term in 2011.

He has been in power since 1982, and the opposition accuses his government and ruling party of plunging the country into corruption and poverty.

Some have called for Mugabe to negotiate with Zimbabwe's opposition to form a Kenyan-style national unity government.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, in parliament since 1963 and president since 2002, was accused of rigging his re-election in December, triggering a wave of violence that ended only with the formation of a unity government.

In Eritrea, another Horn of Africa nation, Issaias Afeworki has been president since 1993. He has banned the opposition and cracked down on the media, justifying his heavy-handed rule by saying there is a need to maintain unity after a devastating border war with Ethiopia.

Across the frontier, observers say Ethiopia's Meles Zenawi has become increasingly authoritarian by strong-arming both the opposition and the media. He remains a US ally, given Ethiopia's military action against Islamists in Somalia.

Swaziland, not far from Zimbabwe's border, meanwhile, is the continent's last absolute monarchy, ruled by King Mswati III since 1986.

AFP, Johannesburg, July 1