Just before midnight on Saturday, as Zimbabweans scrolled social media for news of Wednesday’s election, Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) chair Priscilla Chigumba appeared on television. The last time they would have seen the former high court judge would have been in 2018, when she announced the results of an election controversially won by Zanu-PF’s Emmerson Mnangagwa. Five years later, she was back in the same chair, doing the same job. With the same contentious result.
“Mnangagwa, Emmerson Dambudzo, of Zanu-PF party is declared duly elected president of the Republic of Zimbabwe,” Chigumba announced.
Mnangagwa, she said, had won 52.6% of the vote against the 44% garnered by his rival, Nelson Chamisa.
Not many would have been surprised by the result; after 43 years in the driving seat, it was always unlikely that Zanu-PF would lose — or cede — power. But with dissatisfaction towards the ruling party and its ruinous policies growing, many hoped that Chamisa, leader of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), would win the presidency — and so they waited anxiously for news.
Not helping the tension was that, in the hours before Chigumba finally spoke, the ZEC and Zanu-PF had called a slew of media conferences, only to cancel at the last minute.
Beauty therapist Mufaro Mahachi (not her real name) was one of the millions who waited up for the result. “I had to make sense of the situation,” she tells the FM. Now, with the defeat of Chamisa, she’s wondering what lies ahead. “I can’t imagine the next five years with ED [Emmerson Mnangagwa],” she says.
Andrew Munemo (not his real name), a resident of the opposition stronghold of Budiriro in Harare, woke up to the news on Sunday morning. He’d hoped for a Chamisa victory, leading to “a better life, more job opportunities and a brighter future”. Instead, he says, he lost his appetite when he heard of Mnangagwa’s win.
“We all know there was foul play in those results,” he says. “But no-one wants to talk about it now.”
Like many who’ve lived under the autocratic regimes of both Mnangagwa and his predecessor Robert Mugabe, Munemo knows only too well not to express his thoughts openly. “I am in fear and won’t complain. It’s the sense I get from those around me that they can’t openly talk about the election outcome because of fear.”
They stole your voice and vote but never your hope. It’s a blatant and gigantic fraud
— Nelson Chamisa
That’s no surprise. One of the concerns raised by election observers from the EU was the climate of fear surrounding the elections, and UN secretary-general António Guterres has expressed concern over voter intimidation, the threat of violence and the detention of election observers.
Monitors from the Southern African Development Community (Sadc), too, flagged intimidation of voters, the cancellation of opposition rallies, a biased state media and polling delays as some of the issues besmirching the election.
When voters in the opposition strongholds of Harare and Bulawayo arrived at the polls on Wednesday, for example, they discovered the ZEC had failed to provide ballots for some wards. (In an unprecedented move, Mnangagwa extended voting by an additional day — but it’s thought that some voters did not return to mark their ballots after the holdup.)
“Some aspects of the harmonised election fell short of the requirements of the constitution of Zimbabwe, the Electoral Act and the Sadc principles and guidelines governing democratic elections,” said the head of the Sadc delegation, Nevers Mumba, a former Zambian vice-president.
Harare-based analyst Rashweat Mukundu tells the FM a Mnangagwa victory doesn’t “in any way represent the will of the people”.
For a start, he says, “thousands of people were denied their right to vote because of the delays in the availability of election material by ZEC. Thousands more were intimidated from voting or to vote in a certain way. In rural areas, there was a notable presence of a quasi-security entity, FAZ, which was co-ordinating support for Zanu-PF.”
Forever Associates of Zimbabwe is a group with links to Zimbabwe’s dreaded Central Intelligence Organisation. It’s suggested the group was involved in the coercion and intimidation of voters after several videos emerged that purported to show FAZ officials running exit polls near voting stations.
In Mukundu’s view, the ZEC was not transparent in tallying the collated voter numbers. “If you look at South Africa, even the US, you see how it [vote counting] is done blow by blow, and each ballot is counted and put out there,” he says. “Why can’t we in this digital age adopt such methodologies and why can’t we have real-time tallying that provides for easy monitoring by the voters and political parties?”
Taken together, it’s made for a tainted poll. And Chamisa has said as much. “We knew we were going into a flawed election. We have a flawed voters roll, a flawed delimitation report. We had a flawed ballot. It was a flawed electoral environment,” he said at a news conference on Sunday.
He posted a message to his social media supporters too: “They stole your voice and vote but never your hope,” he tweeted. “It’s a blatant and gigantic fraud. Our God is faithful. There shall be freedom and justice in Zimbabwe! Remember, #Godisinit.”
The CCC has rejected the result, with Chamisa saying the ZEC and Zanu-PF stole the election from the people. Party spokesperson Promise Mkwananzi said the CCC will soon announce its next move.
On its official account on X (formerly Twitter), the ZEC paints a picture of itself as a professional and politically inclusive outfit determined to provide accurate results, with verification taking place under the eyes of the various parties’ elections agents.
But the ZEC is viewed with deep suspicion among Zimbabweans, with an Afrobarometer survey earlier this year finding just 51% trusted it to conduct credible polls, while 49% believed incorrect results were likely.
“Mapedza kubika here [Have you finished cooking the results?]”, asked an X user who goes by the handle Penzura Wacho. Another, Thulani Dube, wrote: “Announce the will of Zimbabweans not your nonsense as always.”
What Zanu-PF and what ZEC have done is to plunge us further into crisis, which will have repercussions on the economy and cause more suffering for the people of Zimbabwe
— Rashweat Mukundu
For Mukundu, Mnangagwa’s controversial victory will be costly for a country already in economic crisis. That crisis could deepen if Mnangagwa fails to deal with hyperinflation, soaring unemployment and corruption, he says.
On the political side, he believes “what Zanu-PF and what the ZEC have done is to plunge us further into crisis, which will have repercussions on the economy and cause more suffering for the people of Zimbabwe”. His concern, he explains, is the possible effect of increased protests and social action.
As it is, there is consensus that protest would elicit further clampdowns on fundamental freedoms and a shrinking of the democratic space. Already a sense of fear and tension has enveloped the country; it is almost palpable.
It’s not misplaced either. On Sunday, the opposition said CCC councillor Nelson Mukwenha had been abducted from his house in the Harare suburb of Highfield by suspected state security agents. (It’s been reported that he was later found, dumped, with marks of torture.) The abduction came just hours after suspected state security agents disrupted Mkwananzi’s news conference and attempted to remove him from the venue.
Could Zimbabwe’s anger erupt? It’s a possibility the police have certainly considered. On Sunday, assistant commissioner Paul Nyathi announced the deployment of “police officers throughout the country to maintain law and order”.
“The Zimbabwe Republic Police is fully aware of attempts by some political activists to mobilise groups of people to move in small numbers and come to Harare … under the guise of citizen voter audit or verification,” he said.
“This has even been given credence by some social media posts obtained by the police, where some individuals and groups are openly inciting violence and issuing threats aimed at causing alarm and despondence among Zimbabweans.”
Of course, given that the security forces were implicated in the deaths of six people in the wake of the 2018 election, the promise of more boots on the ground will offer Zimbabweans little peace of mind.
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