Just two weeks before this month’s elections, one of Zimbabwe’s presidential candidates Douglas Mwonzora withdrew from the campaign, citing an unfavourable electoral environment.
The opposition MDC-T party’s leader, Mwonzora, referred to the election on August 23 as a “sham and a farce” on Tuesday.
Up to a split in the MDC-T in 2022, Nelson Chamisa’s Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) was the largest opposition group in Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) declared 87 MDC-T parliamentary candidates ineligible after learning that they had submitted their nomination fees after the deadline.
Mwonzora said even if he won the presidential elections, he will not be able to push his agenda without any legislators.
“We are not going to be part of the baptism, blessing of this sham. This election is a farce,” he told journalists.
“We have seen massive disenfranchisement, mass disqualification of a good number of people. There is no doubt the MDC is being treated in a different manner from other political parties. It is because the MDC took Zec to court over delimitation. The delimitation that we fought against is now in force and its effects are now clear on this election,” he added.
“Right now, as we are speaking, Zec is busy changing boundaries of wards and constituencies. It has added more than a 1,000 more polling stations because delimitation was invalid,” he further said.
His departure did not, however, make the race less packed. Ten people are currently running for president, down from the original 12 who filed their paperwork on June 31.
The courts prohibited another contender, the exiled Saviour Kasukuwere, from running in the elections because he had resided abroad for longer than 18 months.
The former minister’s request to overturn the ban was dismissed by Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court on Tuesday.
Mwonzora said the judiciary had taken sides in Zimbabwe’s electoral disputes.
“The judges have treated our cases on technicalities, we refuse to be part of that façade,” he said.
“Zimbabweans deserve a fair judiciary and abhor selective application of the law.
“We cannot stand all these shenanigans, unfairness and impunity in our electoral system.”
The 45-year-old CCC leader Nelson Chamisa, whom President Emmerson Mnangagwa (80), who is seeking his second full term in office after gaining it through a coup six years ago, narrowly defeated in the contested 2018 elections, will be his opponent.
The opposition claims that because of the uneven playing field and shoddy voter registration, the election’s results will probably be challenged.
