Incumbent President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe wins presidential elections amidst opposition
Zimbabwe’s incumbent president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has won the 2023 presidential elections with 53% of the votes. However, the opposition and several analysts are criticizing this win.
Mnangagwa became president of Zimbabwe after taking over the leadership from Robert Mugabe. He came into power in 2017 via a military coup. Analysts believe the election has already been in favor of Mnangagwa since the start. It is because the ZANU-PF party has been in power for over 40 years.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) states that the opposing candidate secured 44% of the votes. The opposing candidate was Nelson Chamisa from the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC).
ZANU-PF supporters were cheering and singing after the results were declared. A spokesperson for the CCC party took to X (formerly Twitter) to state that the opposition does not accept any result hastily announced without due verification.
Chamisa lost the presidential elections to Mnangagwa in 2018 as well. The opposition had contested those results as well. However, the constitutional court of Zimbabwe upheld the original results.
The pre-election period was quiet and free from violence. It was due to the police force banning gatherings of the opposition party and arresting the opposition party supporters.
The ZANU-PF party denies allegations of rigging and using outside influence to win the elections.
Global perception of Zimbabwe elections
The heads of the European Union and the SADC (South African bloc) noticed the elections were under threat. There were delays, biases, and skewed media coverage. It affected the overall election polls.
Nicole Beardsworth, a professor at the University of Witwatersrand, states that the delay in distributing election ballots was due to the criticism received by the SADC and other global observers.
She also questions the speed at which the ZEC announced the results of the elections