What the commentators said

“From the start”, it was clear that neither the government nor the opposition were ever going to accept defeat at the polls, said Michael Binyon in The Times. Mnangagwa, 75, was hardly likely to throw away power so soon after wresting it from his old boss. As for Chamisa, the charismatic young lawyer and pastor who heads the MDC, he was desperate to topple the Zanu-pf regime that had persecuted his party for 20 years. Certainly, neither leader emerges from the election with much credit, said Cheryl Hendricks on The Conversation. By and large, the government allowed all political parties to campaign freely, and for the first time in many years observers from the EU and the US were allowed to monitor polling. But Mnangagwa, nicknamed “The Crocodile” for his cunning and brutality as Mugabe’s henchman, reverted to his “familiar brutality” when the results were challenged. For its part, the MDC claimed it had won even before the voting figures were announced, refusing utterly to accept any other outcome. Alas for Zimbabwe, “the leopards have not changed their spots”.

That means the country looks set to keep its “pariah status” at a time when it badly needs IMF loans and a resumption of foreign aid, said The Economist. Thanks to heavy overspending, the fiscal deficit is projected to hit 13% of GDP, and that was before the substantial pay rises for civil servants, police and the military announced shortly before the election. The government’s total debt has reached $13bn and annual per capita income is just $1,000, compared with $7,500 for neighbouring Botswana. Faced with such problems, the two sides offered almost exactly the same prescription, said Donovan Williams on the Independent Online (Cape Town). Both parties are out to undo the Mugabe legacy: scrapping land reform, nationalisation and the “indigenisation” programme that has given Zimbabweans the right to take over foreign-owned businesses. “In reality, the country did not choose policies in this poll, just a leader”.