The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission announced on Saturday evening that incumbent president Emmerson Mnangagwa had won the presidential elections with 52.6 % of the vote to 44 % for his main challenger Nelson Chamisa.
The general elections took place on 23 August and were prolonged by another day because ballots had not been delivered in time to many of the polling stations. The elections included votes for the president, the parliament and local municipalities. Voter turnout was almost 70 %.
Mnangagwa, 80, represents the ZANU-PF party which has ruled Zimbabwe since it gained independence from British rule in 1980. He replaced the former autocratic leader Robert Mugabe in 2017 and won the previous elections in 2018 with about the same margin. Nelson Chamisa, 45, a lawyer and former minister, leads the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), the main opposition party.
Early polls forecasted that Mnangagwa would lose the presidency but that his party would keep the majority in the parliament (national assembly). The final results showed a reassuring victory for Mnangagwa. In the parliament, his party lost mandates but kept a narrow majority with 136 seats of 270, against 73 for CCC. The remaining seats are reserved for women.
The first reactions disclosed the deep divide in the country. A spokesperson for CCC said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that the party rejected "any result hastily assembled without proper verification". The spokesperson for ZANU-PF, rejected any allegations that the elections had been rigged. “We have shown the whole world that we have exercised democracy.”
Despite some disturbances, the elections were largely peaceful, according to an elections observer team from the Southern African Development Community (SADC). However, it criticized the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and stated that some aspects of the elections fell short of the requirements of the constitution, the electoral law and SADC principles governing democratic elections.
The EU did also send an election observation mission to Zimbabwe (EU EOM). The mission has been present in Zimbabwe since 8 July following an invitation from the Zimbabwean authorities and was led by Chief Observer, Fabio Massimo Castaldo, an Italian MEP. In total, the EU EOM deployed some 150 observers from all EU Member States.
“The legal framework could provide an adequate basis to conduct elections in line with international standards espoused by Zimbabwe, if implemented properly," he said on Friday in Harare. However, the EU EOM concluded that, "curtailed rights and lack of level playing field led to an environment that was not always conducive to voters making a free and informed choice in the elections".
The mission issued a preliminary report which stated that, “The passing of regressive legal provisions and acts of violence and intimidation resulted in a climate of fear”. Among others members of two accredited citizen observer organisations had been arrested.
The failure of the election commission to provide critical electoral material such as paper ballots resulted in many polling stations opening with severe delays, leading to an increasingly tense atmosphere in some locations. Voters were not informed in time about their polling stations and had to queue for hours to cast their votes.
The observers also noted the lack of a level playing field, in particular as regards freedom of assembly of the opposition parties, and the dominance of the government party in state-controlled media.
Since the previous elections in 2018, the economic and social situation in Zimbabwe, a country with 16 million inhabitants, continued to deteriorate. Inflation is rampant and a majority of the population is barely making a living in the informal economy. The country has amassed a huge debt but cannot get access to international loans. It also suffers from a brain drain, especially in the health sector.
In view of the human rights situation in Zimbabwe, the EU imposed restrictive measures in 2002 but has also reiterated its ambition for a more constructive relationship with Zimbabwe at all levels. In a statement in February 2022, it stressed its readiness to support credible and sustainable economic and political reforms, based on tangible commitments made by the government of Zimbabwe.
The Brussels Times
