Zimbabwe’s tainted poll
Zimbabwe’s first election since the overthrow of Robert Mugabe was marred last week by violent street protests and allegations of fraud. Official figures gave Emmerson Mnangagwa of the ruling ZanuPF party 50.8% of the vote, just enough to avoid a run-off with his closest challenger, Nelson Chamisa, of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), who took 44.3%. Zanu-pf also won two-thirds of the seats in parliament. However, the MDC alleged widespread vote-rigging and claimed the election was “stolen from the people”.
Polling day passed off quietly, but six people were killed in the capital, Harare, when the army opened fire on opposition protesters 48 hours later. Independent observers criticised the undue use of force and said the campaign had been fought “on an uneven playing field”. But they noted an “improved political climate” since Mnangagwa toppled Mugabe in a military coup last year.
What the editorials said
The elections were supposed to mark the “dawn of a new era” for Zimbabwe, said The Times. After 37 years of Mugabe’s “tyranny”, voters had hoped they would mark the end of the country’s isolation and economic decline: sanctions would be lifted, foreign investors would return. But that all depended on staging a “demonstrably fair” election. In the event, the world has seen a hotly disputed result and bloody clashes on the streets. It doesn’t help that the result of the presidential poll was postponed for several days, said The Daily Telegraph. That inevitably fed opposition suspicions of fraud. It’s all “deeply regrettable”.
To be fair, said the FT, polling day was the most peaceful in decades (some 80 people were killed in the 2008 election) and turnout was an impressive 75%. What’s more, the West has been quite willing to overlook the flaws in recent African elections in, say, Rwanda or Kenya. Still, this was not the “new Zimbabwe” promised by Mnangagwa. Since taking power last year, he has managed to regain some international goodwill. He will now need to step up his efforts.