Poll a fake, cry opposition
Chamisa party calls the Zimbabwe election a sham and vows to contest it
Zimbabwe’s opposition at the weekend rejected what it said were the “fake” results of the landmark election in which President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been declared the winner.
Zimbabwe woke to the news that Mnangagwa, a former ally of Robert Mugabe, had won the historic first polls since the autocrat’s ousting last year, with 50.8% of the vote, according to the electoral commission.
The narrow margin is just enough to avoid a run-off against opposition leader Nelson Chamisa that would have been called if Mnangagwa had won less than 50% of the vote.
Chamisa dismissed what he called the election’s “unverified fake results”.
“ZEC must release proper & verified results endorsed by parties,” he wrote on Twitter, referring to the Zimbabwe Election Commission.
Mnangagwa, who was chosen as Mugabe’s successor in the ruling Zanu-PF party after he was removed in a brief military intervention in November, hailed his victory as a “new beginning” for Zimbabwe.
Opposition allegations of foul play had already sparked a deadly crackdown on protesters in the capital Harare on Wednesday when troops opened fire, killing six.
Analysts EXX Africa said they expected the situation to calm over the next few weeks, with big protests unlikely “due to the heavy-handed security crackdown in the capital and other cities”.
“Despite the mixed response on the elections process from international observers, there is little actual evidence to demonstrate the opposition’s claims of mass vote tampering,” they said in a briefing note.
Since independence from Britain in 1980, Zimbabwe has known only two presidents – Mugabe, who ruled with an iron fist for 37 years, and his erstwhile right-hand man Mnangagwa, who was appointed after Mugabe was forced out by the military in November last year.
The new president had promised a free and fair vote that would turn the page on years of repression under Mugabe, end Zimbabwe’s international isolation and attract foreign investment to revive the shattered economy. But Chamisa has repeatedly alleged that the vote was rigged, charging that the ZEC – synonymous with fraud under Mugabe – had again helped Zanu-PF to steal an election.
An MDC spokesperson said the party was planning to take the outcome to the courts.
In the parliamentary election, also held on Monday, Zanu-PF won easily. The president must now tackle mass unemployment and an economy shattered by the Mugabe-backed seizure of whiteowned farms, the collapse of agriculture, hyperinflation and an investment exodus.