Zim election down to the wire
THE front runners in the hotly contested Zimbabwe presidential elections, President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zanu-PF and MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa, were both confident of victory as preliminary results started being released yesterday.
MDC Alliance members had begun gathering at Harvest House, the party headquarters in the capital, Harare, for what they said were “victory celebrations”.
The incumbent, Mnangagwa, has stopped short of declaring victory, but claimed he had received “extremely positive” information regarding the results.
Zanu-PF had taken a lead in the National Assembly seats after the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) announced the first set of results from Monday’s polls. The ZEC announced it had received seven of the 210 constituency results in the country, which saw Zanu-PF winning six and the MDC Alliance one.
Zimbabwe has a three-tier election system: local authority, parliamentary and presidential.
There are also three methods of announcing the results, with all polling stations expected to post voting results in their respective areas immediately after counting.
Local authority and parliamentary candidates are well positioned to know if they have romped to victory just 24 hours after the polls.
Zanu-PF managed to get Hwedza South, represented by Tinomuda Machakaire, Chiredzi East (Denford Masiya), Masvingo West (Ezra Chadzamira), Masvingo South (Claudius Maronga), Marondera West (Spiwe Mukanyaidze) and Mudzi North (Newton Kachepa).
Patrick Dube of the MDC Alliance clinched the Gwanda Central seat.
ZEC chairperson Priscilla Chigumba, however, said results for the presidential polls would not be released until it had finished its nullification process. She denied that officials had deliberately caused delays.
Despite Chamisa’s tweet on the issue, Chigumba said the commission had not received any complaints of fraud from any candidate. But MDC Alliance official Tendai Biti insisted that the electoral body’s conduct was “totally unacceptable”.
“ZEC is taking its time to transmit results from polling stations to constituency centres, and this delay is totally unacceptable, particularly in urban centres like Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru, Mutare and Masvingo,” he said.
The local authority results are also yet to be announced.
Chigumba was expected to announce another set of results late last night.
The MDC Alliance was in a two-horse race for the presidential seat with incumbent Mnangagwa, who will be banking on Zanu-PF’s traditionally strong voter base in rural Zimbabwe.
Police warned candidates yesterday to respect the Electoral Act and desist from actions that could trigger violence in an election widely praised as peaceful.
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), a coalition of 36 NGOs that monitor elections, said their observers’ preliminary report indicated the elections were free and fair.
The ZESN observer team urged the candidates to respect the electoral processes, which will culminate in the announcement before Friday on the presidential winner between Mnangagwa and Chamisa.
In a preliminary assessment released a day after the vote, the network said the voting count at polling stations was going smoothly.
It reported that some voters had been turned away at 6% of polling stations nationwide, and at 19% in Harare.