HARARE, Aug 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Nelson Chamisa contested the official re-election of President Emmerson Mnangagwa and claimed victory in an election which international observers said fell short of democratic standards.
Mnangagwa, 80, won a second term with 52.6 per cent of the ballots against 44 per cent for his main challenger, Chamisa, 45, according to official results announced late Saturday by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).
The opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) refused to ratify the results, asserting that they were “false”.
“We have won this election. We are the leaders. We are even surprised why Mnangagwa has been declared a leader,” Chamisa, a lawyer and pastor who heads the CCC, told a press conference in the capital Harare.
Zimbabweans voted Wednesday and Thursday for a president and new parliament, in polling marred by delays that sparked opposition accusations of rigging and voter suppression.
“We knew we were going into a flawed election. We have a flawed voters roll, a flawed delimitation report. We had a flawed ballot. It was a flawed electoral environment,” Chamisa said.
Earlier in the day at the presidential palace, Mnangagwa challenged those who contested his re-election to go to court.
The vote has been watched across southern Africa as a test of support for Mnangagwa’s ZANU-PF party, whose 43-year rule has been accompanied by a moribund economy and charges of authoritarianism.
Foreign monitors announced Friday that the elections had failed to conform to regional and international standards.
Observer missions from the European Union, the Commonwealth and the 16-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) listed a number of concerns, including the banning of opposition rallies, issues with the voter registration rolls, biased state media coverage and voter intimidation.
That did not stop Mnangagwa from thanking “various election observation missions who have been witnessing our electoral processes without bias”.
ZEC chairwoman Justice Chigumba said Mnangagwa had garnered more than 2.3 million votes and Chamisa more than 1.9 million.
Voter turnout was 69 per cent, the commission said.
ZANU-PF was also declared the winner in the parliamentary race, securing 136 of the 210 seats up for grabs under a first-past-the-post system, against 73 for the CCC. One seat was not assigned due to the death of a candidate.
Another 60 are reserved for women appointed through a party-list system of proportional representation. — NNN-AGENCIES
