Emmerson Mnangagwa, the incumbent, was declared the winner of this week’s presidential election by Zimbabwe’s electoral commission late on Saturday, claiming that he received around 53% of the vote to his primary rival’s 44%.
Analysts predicted that Mnangagwa would win re-election for a second term since the election was strongly tilted in favor of the ZANU-PF party, which has been in power for more than 40 years.
After two decades of unrelenting economic disaster, many Zimbabweans who cast ballots in this election were eager for change but skeptical that ZANU-PF would allow any lessening of its grip on power.
HOW MNANGAGWA CAME TO POWER
80-year-old Mnangagwa assumed control when Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s longest president since the country’s independence in 1980, was overthrown in a military coup in 2017.
Mnangagwa was one of Mugabe’s closest lieutenants up until their falling out in the months before the coup and held important government roles like vice president and minister of state security.
The crocodile is a mythical creature revered in Zimbabwean folklore for its cunningness and brutality, and Mnangagwa is known as “The Crocodile” because of this.
Opponents have claimed that he served as Mugabe’s political enforcer as the late leader cracked down on dissent.
Midway through the 1980s, he was in command of internal security when Mugabe sent a brigade with North Korean training against rebels supporting his rival Joshua Nkomo.
According to rights organisations, the killings of Gukurahundi—which are known as “the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains”—killed 20,000 citizens, the most of whom belonged to the Ndebele tribe.
Despite his denial of guilt, Mnangagwa engaged traditional leaders from the massacre-affected communities on issues like reparations, reconciliation, and healing.
WHAT ARE HIS ECONOMIC VIEWS AND HAVE THEY WORKED?
After taking office, Mnangagwa, who presents himself as pro-business, repealed a Mugabe-supported local company ownership law.
Investors that withheld investment were uneasy about the rule, which obliged foreign-owned companies, including mines, to sell majority ownership to locals.
The economic recovery that Mnangagwa predicted when he entered office, however, has not happened.
As they did towards the conclusion of the Mugabe era, Zimbabweans continue to struggle with rife inflation and exorbitant unemployment, with many relying on dollar remittances from family abroad to make ends meet.
BORN IN 1942
Mnangagwa, 75, was born in 1942 in Zvishavane, in central Zimbabwe, to the main Shona ethnicity. He goes by the moniker Mn-uh-ng-ug-wa. On November 6, Mugabe sacked him from his position as vice president, accusing him of conspiring to succeed him. He then left the country.
STRUGGLE VETERAN
When he was still a youngster, he joined the struggle against minority white rule. In 1965, he was found guilty of detonating a train, and he was given the death penalty by hanging. When it was discovered that he was under 21, he was instead given a 10-year prison term and interned alongside Mugabe.