LAST UPDATE | 3 Aug 2018

ZIMBABWE’S OPPOSITION HAS rejected what it said were the “fake” results of landmark elections in which President Emmerson Mnangagwa was declared victor.

Zimbabwe awoke to the news that Mnangagwa, a former ally of Robert Mugabe, had won the historic first polls since the autocrat’s ousting last year.

The Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) announced that Mnangagwa had scored 50.8% of the vote, against 44.3% for Nelson Chamisa, the main opposition leader.

The narrow margin is just enough to avoid a run-off that would have been called if Mnangagwa had won less than half of the vote.

Chamisa lashed what he called “unverified fake results”.

“The level of opaqueness, truth deficiency, moral decay & values deficit is baffling,” he wrote on Twitter.

Mnangagwa, who was chosen as Mugabe’s successor in the ruling ZANU-PF party in November after the brief military intervention that deposed the veteran leader, hailed his victory as a “new beginning” for Zimbabwe.

“Though we may have been divided at the polls, we are united in our dreams,” he tweeted.

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.

Soldiers and police had cleared the city centre yesterday as the government vowed not to tolerate any more protests.

But by today the streets and markets were crowded as usual.

An army truck and two water cannon were parked outside MDC headquarters, and in the suburb of Mbare jubilant ZANU-PF supporters waved party banners as music blared from a car.

“This is a new Zimbabwe, we are happy,” said Tendai Mugadzi, a 32-year-old IT specialist.

He was untroubled that Mnangagwa had won by a wafer-thin margin.

“It just shows that this was a free and fair election,” he said.

Fresh start?

President Cyril Ramaphosa of neighbouring South Africa called to congratulate Mnangagwa, vowing to work closely with him and calling on “all political leaders and the people of Zimbabwe to accept the outcome”.

Ramaphosa, in a statement, expressed concern over the protest deaths, but also emphasised that the opposition “must follow legal remedies provided for in the constitution and electoral law” if they disputed the results.

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”.

Human Rights Watch said the deadly response suggested that Zimbabwe’s security forces were “as abusive as ever”, and called for an immediate inquiry into the violence.

Mnangagwa said yesterday that he wanted on independent investigation into the killings, saying he sought to settle differences “peacefully”.

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.

The new president had promised a free and fair vote that would turn the page on years of brutal repression, 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 electoral commission — synonymous with fraud under Mugabe — had once more helped ZANU-PF to steal an election.

An MDC spokesman said early today that the party was planning to take the outcome to the courts, though a legal challenge appears to offer little hope of overturning the outcome.

Huge challenges ahead 

Turnout was high at over 80% in most of the country’s 10 provinces.

In the parliamentary election, also held on Monday, ZANU-PF won easily.

International observers have praised the largely peaceful conduct of the election itself, though European Union monitors said they found an “un-level playing field” that stacked various factors in favour of ZANU-PF, including heavy coverage by state media.

“It means our suffering will continue,” Emion Chitsate, a security guard at a shopping centre in the Waterfalls district of Harare, said of the result.

It’s the same ZANU-PF which brought us to where we are.

Elections were often marred by fraud and deadly violence under Mugabe, but ZEC chairwoman Priscilla Chigumba has flatly rejected allegations of bias and rigging this time around.

Mnangagwa, 75, was the clear election front-runner, but Chamisa – a lawyer and pastor 35 years his junior – sought to tap into the youth and urban vote.

Mnangagwa was allegedly involved in voter intimidation during the 2008 elections when then opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of the run-off after at least 200 of his supporters were killed in attacks.

The president must now tackle mass unemployment and an economy shattered by the Mugabe-backed seizure of white-owned farms, the collapse of agriculture, hyperinflation and an investment exodus.

Previously solid health and education services are in ruins and millions have fled abroad to seek work.

- © AFP 2018