Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa has just been elected into second term with 52.6% of the total vote, according to the nation’s electoral commission says.
The opposition party had however, claimed there had been extensive vote-rigging and international observers had also remarked that the election had fallen short of the democratic standards.
Mnangagwa is Zimbabwe’s third democratically elected president. A 2017 coup against veteran ruler Robert Mugabe had seen him come into power.
His administration had been wrought with high inflation, poverty and a palpable fear.
Mnangagwa nicknamed “The Crocodile” for his ruthlessness had pledged a new start for his country’s people when he first became president.
But since his election, Zimbabwe has had one of the largest inflation rates in the world as seen for the month of July, when prices of things rocketed to an alarming 101.3%.
Unemployment still remains a cause for concern in the country, with only 25% of Zimbabweans working formal jobs.
The president’s vow to guarantee human rights also appears empty, with little to nothing, changing in this regard since Mugabe’s exit.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, ZEC, had said that Mnangagwa’s main challenger, Melson Chamisa, the flagbearer for Citizens’ Coalition for Change, CCC, candidate Nelson Chamisa, had scored only 44% of the vote.
Mnangagwa had gotten over 2.3m votes, while his main rival, Chamisa got 1.9m votes, according to the ZEC.
Reports from the electoral body had revealed that the voter turnout of people in a country of almost 16 million people, was 69%.
The opposition party has alleged that the ballot was rigged, but the constitutional court has upheld the result.
Voting in the presidential and parliamentary elections was initially scheduled to take place on Wednesday, August 23 but was shifted into Thursday in some places due to the delayed distribution of ballot papers.
Mnangagwa’s re-election means that Zanu-PF has ruled Zimbabwe for about 43 years, since the country gained its independence from colonial rule in 1980.
