Zimbabwe’s current president Emmerson Mnangagwa won the election concluded last week. The elections commission announced the result, declaring him as the winner with 53% of the vote on last Saturday. However, the main opposition and some analysts have expressed their doubts about the election results.
In 2017, Mnangagwa came to power through a military coup and overthrew longtime leader Robert Mugabe. His second term was fully expected as, according to experts, the parameters were supporting his ruling party ZANU-PF. The party has been in power for over forty years.
The Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC) party leader Nelson Chamisa, who was Mnangagwa’s major rival, won 44% of the presidential vote, according to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).
When the elections commission announced that Mnangagwa had won, ZANU-PF supporters at the results centre immediately began singing and cheering.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, a CCC spokesperson stated that the party rejected “any result hastily assembled without proper verification.”
Additionally, Mnangagwa narrowly defeated Chamisa in the 2018 presidential election. The constitutional court upheld the outcome despite allegations of election rigging from the opposition.
Although there hasn’t been any violence in the lead-up to the election, the police frequently forbid opposition rallies and detain supporters of the opposition in accordance with Zimbabwe’s strict public order regulations.
ZANU-PF disputes that it has an unfair advantage or tries to rig the results of elections.
This week’s vote, according to the leader of the European Union’s observation team, took place in a “climate of fear.” The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) delegation to Southern Africa observed difficulties such as sluggish voting, the prohibition of gatherings, and biassed official media coverage.
The late Saturday declaration, according to University of the Witwatersrand lecturer on politics Nicole Beardsworth, was likely a reaction to criticism from SADC and other election monitors.
