In Zimbabwe’s election, the first constituency results were announced on Thursday, following delays that required a second day of voting in a small number of neighbourhoods and the detention of civil society members.
After years of economic misery, Zimbabweans cast their votes for the country’s president and parliamentarians on Wednesday, many of whom expressed hope for change. Analysts cautioned that any easing of the ZANU-PF party’s 43-year hold on power was improbable.
It is still too early to draw any conclusions about a national trend because less than 10 of the 210 parliamentary seats got results on Thursday. Before a deadline of five days, the presidential election results were not anticipated for another day or two.
Thirty-nine percent of the total 12,374 wards, or 40 of the size of neighbourhoods, had voting extensions on Thursday. The electoral commission did not provide any additional information beyond stating that the delay in printing ballots was due to legal objections.
Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe, 80, who succeeded longstanding dictator Robert Mugabe during a coup in 2017 and won a contentious election in 2018, was running for a second full term.
Nelson Chamisa, 45, of the Citizens Coalition for Change, was his main rival, much like last time.
After years of out-of-control inflation, severe currency devaluation, and skyrocketing unemployment, Mnangagwa is running for re-election. As a result, many Zimbabweans have become reliant on money transfers sent to them in US dollars by relatives living outside.
ZANU-PF, which has a long history of manipulating state institutions to manipulate elections in its favour, has analysts saying that the electoral playing field is severely skewed in its favor despite broad unhappiness with the government.
Free and fair elections are a need for any talks to help Zimbabwe overcome its debt issue and obtain loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, according to foreign lenders and donors.