Carter to Pass Up Reagan Ceremony : Library dedication: The Georgian’s duties overseeing elections in Zambia derail plans for a meeting of five presidents.

Former President Jimmy Carter has decided to skip the dedication ceremonies of the Ronald Reagan presidential library near Simi Valley on Nov. 4, upsetting Reagan’s plans for a historic meeting of five living presidents.

Carter will be in Zambia to oversee the African nation’s first democratic elections, which are scheduled on Oct. 31, said Deanna Congileo, a spokesman at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta.

“The ballot counting could take a few days,” Congileo said. The former president, she said, “has made a commitment to oversee the process all the way through to make sure they are free and fair elections. And we can’t say how long that will take.”

Carter recently sent a letter notifying Reagan that he would no longer be able to accept Reagan’s invitation to join him, President Bush and former Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Gerald Ford and other dignitaries at the ceremony, Reagan associates said.

“I would not like to give up hope that he will change his mind,” said Charles H. Jelloian, director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. “If not, we are going to have a wonderful event without him. Four presidents is terrific.”

Bush and the former presidents are scheduled to speak at the 4,000-guest event that had been billed as the first such meeting of five living presidents. The presidents are also planning to have lunch with leaders of other nations anticipated to come in honor of Reagan and his legacy, as represented by the presidential library.

Carter’s decision also appears to slight Reagan, who attended the dedication of Carter’s library in Atlanta in 1986, praising the man whom he buried in a political landslide six years earlier. If he were to come to Simi Valley, Carter would be the only Democratic president in the group.

When Reagan’s library is opened Nov. 4, it will become the ninth in the presidential library system run by the National Archives and Records Administration.

Using private donations, Reagan’s associates have nearly completed the $60-million complex on a hilltop above Simi Valley that holds 55 million pages of White House documents and a museum that chronicles Reagan’s life and presidency from his point of view.

Congileo said she did not know if Carter had ever received an official invitation to the library dedication.

“He has a previous commitment to monitor the elections in Zambia,” Congileo said. She said the commitment was made “a few months ago.”

“He will be among an elections-monitoring team that includes participants from the Carter Center and the National Democratic Institute in Washington, D.C.,” Congileo said.