Zimbabwe opens voting as citizens troop to choose next president

Voting in Zimbabwe's 2023 General election has begun as more than six million people are set to elect a president from the 11 candidates competing for the post.

Polling stations across the countries 210 constituencies are expected to run from 7am until 7pm local time (GMT+2).

There are 12,340 polling stations in the country’s 10 provinces and voters will be participating in what has been called 'harmonised national elections' in which the President, Members of Parliament, Senators and councillors are to be elected. Most of the seats are directly voted for, but senators will be chosen based on a proportional representation.

This is the ninth General Election since Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980 and 11 presidential candidates, among them one woman, are on the ballot.

Official opposition leader Douglas Mwonzora of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) withdrew from the race claiming lack of a conducive environment for a free, fair and transparent election.

It leaves 45 year-old Nelson Chamisa of Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), who is an advocate and a pastor, as the main opposition candidate.

The incumbent President Emerson Mnangagwa, 80, who is seeking a second term, came to power in 2018 following the ouster of late President Robert Mugabe by military generals in November 2017. Mugabe had been in power since Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980.

The presidential election is a political rematch between the incumbent Mnangagwa and Chamisa who came second in 2018 on the MDC party ticket with 44.3 percent. At the time, Mnangagwa was announced winner with 50.8 percent of the vote, which Chamisa disputed.

According to the Zimbabwean constitution, a winner must obtain 50 percent of votes cast failure to which a run-off between the top two candidates shall be held within 60 days. 

In 2008, a repeat election was held between President Robert Mugabe and official opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai after the first round failed to yield a 50 percent threshold. Tsvangirai had won the first round with 47.8 percent with Mugabe garnering 43.2 percent. However, Tsvangirai pulled out of the repeat poll following massive violence against his supporters.

Key issues in this current election are the economy, chocking inflation which stands at 176 percent as of June, unemployment, and the fate of the Zimbabwean dollar which was reintroduced in 2019 after a decade of dollarisation and has depreciated by more than 80 percent. One US dollar is equivalent to 4,500 Zimbabwean dollars, officially. It is more expensive in the black market, where US$1 is equivalent to about 9,000 Zimbabwean dollars.

Incumbent President Emerson Mnangagwa served in the Mugabe administration as minister then later as vice president from 2013 to 2017 before falling out with Mugabe.

He fled to South Africa and later returned to take the mantle after the military engineered a soft coup against Mugabe.

In 2018, he was declared winner in a tight contest. He has argued during campaigns that his government has created many opportunities in the economy leading to heavy investments in key sectors of mining and agriculture, and wants to build more on that.

On other hand, youthful Chamisa is promising to resuscitate the ailing economy, fight corruption and end Zimbabwe's isolation by returning it to the international community of nations. Various sanctions were imposed on the mineral rich southern Africa country during Mugabe's reign.