Blair fury at decision to postpone action on Zimbabwe

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Police in Zimbabwe break up opposition briefing

Leading article: What is the point of the Commonwealth if this is the best it can do?

A furious Tony Blair yesterday condemned a Commonwealth decision to postpone action against Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe.

After five days of heated debate, leaders agreed a procedure to suspend Zimbabwe, but only if next weekend's presidential elections are deemed by Commonwealth observers to have been rigged.

In a startling departure from the 54-nation organisation's tradition of consensus, Mr Blair – who has lobbied forcefully for Mr Mugabe's regime to be suspended without delay – poured scorn on a statement issued on the penultimate day of the biennial Commonwealth summit at Coolum, Queensland.

The statement expressed "deep concern" at the violence and intimidation that have marred the election campaign, but declined to blame Mr Mugabe or his Zanu-PF party. Leaders "called on all parties to refrain from such violence and urged all concerned to work together to create an atmosphere in which there could be a free and fair election".

Mr Blair said he would never have drafted the statement in such terms. "There is no point in using diplomatic language," he said in a television interview. "We should have provided a far stronger statement and backed it up with action."

The compromise plan was brokered by the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, to heal divisions that had split the Commonwealth along racial lines. A three-nation task force – Australia, Nigeria and South Africa – was empowered to take punitive action after considering a report by the Commonwealth's 60 election monitors.

There was no immediate response from Zimbabwe.