Zimbabwe president reelected in troubled vote, officials allege
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa was reelected for a second and final five-year term late Saturday in results announced much earlier than expected following another troubled vote in the southern African country with a history of violent and disputed elections.
An opposition party spokesperson said within minutes of Mnangagwa being declared the winner that they would reject the results as “hastily assembled without proper verification.”
Mnangagwa’s victory meant the ZANU-PF party retained the governmental leadership it has held for all 43 years of Zimbabwe’s history since the nation was re-named following independence from white minority rule in 1980.
Zimbabwe has had just two leaders in that time, long-ruling autocrat Robert Mugabe and Mnangagwa.
The 80-year-old Mnangagwa, who has the nickname “the crocodile” from his days as a guerrilla fighter, won 52.6% of the votes in the midweek election, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said in a latenight announcement in the capital, Harare. The 45-yearold main opposition leader, Nelson Chamisa, got 44%, the commission said.
The results were released around 11.30 p.m., about 48 hours after polls closed.
They likely will be closely scrutinized after international election observers raised questions over the environment in the buildup to the vote and pointed to an atmosphere of intimidation against Chamisa’s supporters.
The observers said they had specific concerns over a ruling party affiliate organization called Forever Associates of Zimbabwe that they said set up tables at polling stations and took details of people walking into voting booths. The head of the African Union mission, former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, said the FAZ activities should be declared “criminal offenses.”
Dozens of local vote monitors also were arrested and taken to court on allegations of subversion that government critics said were trumped-up charges.
And there were problems with the actual vote.
The election had been due to be held on just Wednesday, but voting was extended to Thursday after delays with the printing of ballot papers. Results of the presidential election came a surprising two days after voting closed when the final figures were only expected Monday or even Tuesday, considering the election ran over by a day.
US official visits China:
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is the latest member of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet to visit China as his administration tries to mend the deteriorating ties between the world’s two largest economies. She promises to be “practical” without compromising the U.S. push to “responsibly” manage that economic relationship.
Raimondo plans meetings with Chinese officials and U.S. business leaders in Beijing and Shanghai in an effort to “promote a healthy competition, a competition on a level playing field, playing by the rules.”
“I’m also very realistic and clear-eyed about the challenges. And the challenges are significant,” she told reporters before leaving Washington on Saturday on a trip that ends Wednesday.
The secretary said she wants to find “actionable, concrete steps where we can move forward on the commercial relationship,” but she offered few details. One matter to be discussed is promoting Chinese travel and tourism to the United States, with Raimondo noting the recent easing of restrictions on large Chinese groups visiting the U.S.
Pope’s Mongolia trip: Pope Francis on Sunday described his visit later this week to Mongolia, the first-ever pilgrimage by a pontiff to the east Asian country, as a much-desired occasion to encounter a “noble, wise” people.
Speaking to the public in St. Peter’s Square, Francis said the trip would also be an opportunity to embrace the Catholic community there, describing the church in Mongolia as “small in numbers but lively in faith and great in charity.”
Francis departs Thursday, returning to Rome four days later.
There are fewer than 1,500 Catholics in Mongolia, where some 3.2 million people live in one of the world’s least densely populated countries.
The pope said Mongolia has a great religious tradition that “I will have the honor to know,” especially in the context of an inter-religious event during the trip on Sept. 3.
The largest percentage of Mongolia’s people are Buddhist.
Taliban park ban: The Taliban will use security forces to stop women from visiting one of Afghanistan’s most popular national parks, according to information shared by a spokesman for the Vice and Virtue Ministry.
The ministry alleges that women have not been observing the proper way to wear the hijab, or Islamic headscarf, when going to Band-e-amir in the central Bamiyan province.
This comes a week after minister Mohammad Khalid Hanafi visited the province and told officials and religious clerics that women haven’t been adhering to the correct way of wearing the hijab, asking security personnel to stop women from visiting the tourist hotspot.
“Going sightseeing is not a must for women,” Hanafi said at the time.
Ministry spokesman Molvi Mohammad Sadiq Akif shared a report of Hanafi’s remarks late Saturday, including use of security forces, clerics and elders to carry out Hanafi’s order. A recording of the minister’s speech in Bamiyan, aligning with Akif ’s report, was shared on social media.
Germany hail damage: A storm with large hailstones damaged most buildings in a small town in the southern German state of Bavaria, local authorities said Sunday.
The storm swept across the southern part of Bavaria on Saturday. In Kissing, just outside Augsburg, police said 12 people were injured when a beer tent that they were trying to put up was blown over.
Also in Kissing, the wind ripped wooden slats off the roof of a home for the elderly, while hail caused visible damage to the facade of a residential building, German news agency dpa reported.
The worst damage appeared to be in Bad Bayersoien, a municipality of about 1,300 people in the Garmisch-partenkirchen region, near the Austrian border.
County authorities said Sunday that it was hit by a hailstones measuring about 3 inches, which damaged parked cars and smashed roof tiles and attic skylights, while the storm also ripped roofs off some buildings.
They said that 80% of the buildings were seriously damaged, but no one was hurt.