As Zimbabwe awaits poll results
Tension, claims, counter claims and sporadic clashes between policemen, soldiers and opposition party supporters pervaded Zimbabwe last night as results were still awaited from the presidential election conducted last Monday, July 30. Soldiers were deployed in central Harare, the capital and at least six persons were reported killed when the security forces fired live bullets at protesters.
All Africans and all well-wishers of Zimbabwe also await the results with bated breath. It is not so much about who will win, but we all hope that the election results will be widely respected, the election itself should be okayed by international and local monitors and Zimbabwe will be on the mend once again to regain its pride of place in the comity African nations.
The elections are very important because they are the first held in Zimbabwe since long time ruler President Robert Mugabe was removed from power last year.
Results of the parliamentary election held on the same day have already been released. They showed the ruling Zimbabwe Africa National Union-Patriotic Front [ZANU-PF] has secured a two-thirds majority that gives the party the power to change the country’s constitution if need be. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change [MDC] Alliance was beaten to second place. However, all eyes are now on the presidential election results. The choice is between President Emmerson Mnangagwa, 75, who succeeded Mugabe following his ousting in a military-supported coup, and MDC’s candidate Nelson Chamisa, 40.
Chamisa is a lawyer and a church pastor. His political experience is limited; he served briefly as a minister in a coalition government years ago. Yet he has gained much traction with his promise of a radical change. This promise resonates very well in a country that for four decades was ruled by one man. Even though Mugabe started his rule in 1980 as a heroic freedom fighter and widely respected African statesman, by the time he fell from power he was widely seen in his country and across Africa as the man who ruined one of Africa’s best economies and had become a repressive sit-tight dictator.
Even though ZANU-PF did away with Mugabe, its candidate Mnangagwa was very closely associated with Mugabe’s rule and was in fact his right-hand man for many decades. President Mnangagwa was particularly associated with the excesses of the early 1980s when then Prime Minister Mugabe brutally suppressed an uprising in Matabele province, championed by his former civil war ally, Zimbabwe Africa Peoples UnionPatriotic Front [ZAPU-PF] led by Joshua Nkomo. In truth therefore, many young Zimbabweans will only think change has come if Chamisa and MDC Alliance win this election.
For us and other Africans however, it is not for us to tell our brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe who their ruler should be. Mnangagwa may have been associated with the dirty past but in the time he has ruled Zimbabwe, he has cut a respected and moderate path. He appears to have understood the lessons from Mugabe’s long rule. If he wins this election, we are confident that he will work hard to bury the ghosts of the past and make amends in all the areas where Robert Mugabe could not. These include forming an all-inclusive government to accommodate the MDC opposition, ending ZAPU-PF’s excesses, restoring the country back to the true democratic path, working hard to end its international isolation and repairing the economy which was once the pride of Africa.
It is important for the election commission to hurry up, conclude the counting and announce the final election result. Everything should also be done transparently in order to avoid charges of rigging. Even if the losing side makes such charges, the damage will be reduced if international election monitors state that there is no evidence to support the charge of rigging. That is our hope for Zimbabwe, one of the most important countries on the African continent.