Africa leaders have told the G8 group of nations meeting in Japan that they oppose sanctions being imposed on Zimbabwe following controversial polls, BBC reports.
"I said that sanctions... wouldn't change the regime," Senegal's leader Abdoulaye Wade told the AFP news agency.
South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki reportedly told G8 leaders that UN sanctions could lead to civil war.
The US and UK are pushing for the UN Security Council to tighten targeted sanctions this week.
On Monday, Tanzania's President Jakaya Kikwete, who also heads the African Union, said African leaders favoured some sort of power-sharing government.
"We are saying no party can govern alone in Zimbabwe and therefore the parties have to work together, come out to work together in a government and then look at the future of their country together," he said at the G8 summit of the world's leading industrialised countries in Japan.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says 5,000 of its members are missing and more than 100 of its supporters have been murdered since a first round of elections in March.
President Robert Mugabe went on to win a run-off as the MDC pulled out of the June run-off, citing state-sponsored violence.
In a closed door meeting with G8 leaders, the UK Guardian newspaper reports that Mr Mbeki warned that Zimbabwe could descend into civil war if tougher sanctions were imposed.
"Some African leaders mentioned that we should bear in mind that Mugabe will retire in a few years. Putting pressure on Zimbabwe, including sanctions, might lead to internal conflict. We should be discreet and careful," a spokesman for Japan told the paper.
The UK and US want to tighten targeted sanctions against Mr Mugabe and his close allies, as well as impose an arms embargo.
