Opposition likely to challenge Mnangagwa’s win

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa won the election yesterday with just over 50 per cent of the ballots as the ruling party maintained control of the government in the first vote since the fall of longtime leader Robert Mugabe.

Mnangagwa received 50.8 per cent of the vote while main opposition challenger Nelson Chamisa received 44.3 per cent. The opposition is almost certain to challenge the results in the courts or in the streets.

While election day was peaceful in a break from the past, deadly violence on Wednesday night, local time, against people protesting alleged vote-rigging reminded many Zimbabweans of the decades of military-backed repression under Mugabe.

Western election observers who were banned in previous votes have expressed concern at the military’s ‘‘excessive’’ force in the capital, Harare. Their assessments of the election are crucial to the lifting of international sanctions on a country whose economy collapsed years ago.

Shortly before the election commission’s announcement, Morgen Komichi, the chief agent for Chamisa’s opposition alliance, took the stage and said his party ‘‘totally rejects’’ the results and said he had not signed the election results. Police escorted him from the room. Later Komichi said the elections were ‘‘fraudulent’’ and he had refused an electoral commission request to sign papers certifying Mnangagwa’s win.

‘‘We’re not part of it,’’ said Komichi, adding that the opposition would be challenging the election in the courts.

With the military still deployed in Harare, the capital’s streets were quiet following the announcement of Mnangagwa’s victory.

The signs that Mnangagwa’s election will be disputed appears to deepen a political crisis that was worsened by the violence in Harare as the military swept in with gunfire to disperse opposition supporters alleging vote-rigging. The death toll rose to six, with 14 injured, police said, and 18 people were arrested at the offices of the main opposition party amid tensions over a vote that was supposed to restore trust in Zimbabwe after decades of Mugabe’s rule. –

AP A supporter of Zimbabwean’s main opposition party MDC, who was arrested following clashes, is seen detained in a police vehicle outside the MDC headquarters, in Harare.