HARARE (Alliance News) – Incumbent Emmerson Mnangagwa has won Zimbabwe’s presidential vote, the electoral body said early Friday, beating opposition candidate Nelson Chamisa to reclaim a post that was long held by ousted leader Robert Mugabe.
“I do hereby declare that the votes received by Emmerson Mnangagwa are more than half the votes,” the chairperson of the electoral commission (ZEC), Priscilla Chigumba, said at a press conference early Friday in the capital Harare.
Mnangagwa got 50.8% of the vote while Chamisa took 44.3%.
“Thank you Zimbabwe!” Mnangagwa of the long-ruling Zanu-PF party tweeted after the announcement. “Though we may have been divided at the polls, we are united in our dreams.”
“This is a new beginning. Let us join hands, in peace, unity & love, & together build a new Zimbabwe for all!” he said.
During the televised presentation of the results Chamisa’s spokesman attempted to give a speech but was heckled and booed offstage by locals who said they wanted to hear from the commission.
Chamisa’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party alleges the results are wrong.
“We are not accepting the results, this is an electoral fraud and the leadership will have a press conference tomorrow on our plan of action,” MDC spokesperson Thabitha Khumalo told dpa.
Harare – which voted heavily for Chamisa – was quiet early Friday morning after the announcement with deserted streets and no signs of celebration. There has been an uneasy calm in the city since a brutal crackdown on protesters by security forces the day before.
“I’m disappointed,” taxi driver Samuel Nyika told dpa. “Everybody wanted change. (Mnangagwa) is just the same as Mugabe.”
Chamisa had given an impromptu and defiant press conference in Harare a few hours before the ZEC announced results.
“We can’t accept fallacies, fiction and falsehoods,” the 40-year-old said on Thursday, adding that contrary to a tweet by Mnangagwa, he had not been talking to the government.
“They have not reached out… you can’t rig an election and then use that as the basis of engagement,” he added.
Asked what he would do if results show Mnangagwa won, Chamisa replied: “We’ll do a lot of things within the framework of the constitution.”
Meanwhile, police said the death toll from a crackdown on opposition protesters in Zimbabwe had risen from three to six. Fourteen others were injured.
“Our investigations have also established that the number of deaths have risen to six, as three of the victims succumbed to injuries whilst seeking medical attention,” police spokeswoman Charity Charamba said.
The violence arose when troops were sent to quell opposition supporters protesting what they said was vote rigging on Wednesday. Armoured vehicles were sent in and troops fired live rounds into the crowds.
Zimbabweans voted Monday in their first elections without Mugabe on the ballot in almost four decades. The 94-year-old was ousted in a bloodless military coup in November and replaced by one-time ally Mnangagwa.
Ahead of the vote a bitter Mugabe indicated he’d be casting his ballot for Chamisa because of the way he was treated by his former party and longtime friend-turned-foe Mnangagwa.
Best known by his nickname “the Crocodile” Mnangagwa, 75, has promised wide-ranging reforms and vowed to fix the ailing economy.
Re-engagement with the West and international investment is dependent on how the election process is viewed, and Mnangagwa allowed international observers back into the country for the first time in years.
Observers so far have noted a better environment than in the Mugabe years but have also listed numerous concerns such as state media bias and government misuse of funds.
After taking part in a guerilla war against white minority rule that brought independence to Zimbabwe in 1980, Mugabe greatly improved the health and education sectors, but in the early 2000s his controversial land reform program saw the economy destroyed and hyperinflation followed.
The country is still desperately short of cash, heavily in debt, and unemployment is rife.
