Johannesburg - South Africa's Foreign Ministry on Monday rejected reports that it was lobbying the African Union (AU) to maintain the status quo in Zimbabwe, including recognizing Robert Mugabe as president.

Reacting to reports in South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper the foreign ministry said reports that Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma had lobbied the AU to endorse a Mugabe victory on the basis that South Africa was near a deal on a powersharing government in Zimbabwe were "a complete fabrication."

"(Mugabe's) Zanu-PF and the (opposition) MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) must enter into negotiations which will lead to the formation of a transitional government," the statement added.

The MDC has claimed that South African President Thabo Mbeki, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) mediator in Zimbabwe, was planning to endorse Mugabe's victory in uncontested elections and press AU leaders meeting in Egypt Monday to do likewise.

Mugabe, who was sworn in hastily as president for another five years Sunday following Friday's election that MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai boycotted, is attending the Sharm el-Sheikh summit.

Zimbabwean diplomatic sources told South African radio he would try to persuade his African peers that the election, which SADC and the United Nations had asked him to call off, was legitimate.

Mugabe took 85.5 per cent of the vote in Friday's election, compared with 43.2 per cent in the first round of the presidential elections in March that Tsvangirai won.

The MDC has called on the AU not to recognize the outcome of what it called a "joke election" that Tsvangirai boycotted over a spate of state-sponsored militia attacks on his supporters. (dpa)