The current Zimbabwean president Emmerson Mnangagwa has been re-elected as president of the African country. This was announced by the Electoral Commission on Saturday. Both the opposition and independent observers had already expressed doubts about the fairness of the election.
Mnangagwa, 80, won 52.6 percent of the votes cast, compared to 44 percent for Nelson Chamisa, the leader of the opposition, the committee said. Chamisa, from the centre-left party CCC, had denounced electoral fraud during the vote.
The opposition party has also indicated that it will not accept the election results. ,,We have not signed the results, because they are false. We cannot accept this result,” said CCC spokesperson Promise Mkwananzi. Via messaging service X, formerly Twitter, the party also announced that the count was done ‘hastily’ and ‘without verification’. The last presidential election in 2018 was also questioned by the CCC.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Zanu-PF party, who have ruled the country continuously since independence in 1980, were determined to retain power. Mnangagwa came to power in 2017 in a military coup that ousted his mentor Robert Mugabe. Zimbabwe was then in a deep economic crisis. The economic malaise continues.
Not only the opposition had already announced before the elections that there would be fraud. NGOs also say that Zanu-PF’s recent election campaign was marked by ruthless repression of the opposition and serious irregularities in the electoral lists.
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