Zimbabwe's Emmerson Mnangagwa wins second term, Nelson Chamisa rejects poll results

Zimbabwe President and ZANU PF leader Emmerson Mnangagwa. He won his second term in office in election results announced on August 28, 2023.
What you need to know:
- Observer missions from the European Union, Commonwealth and the SADC listed several concerns, including the banning of opposition rallies, issues with the voters' roll, biased state media coverage, and voter intimidation.
- Nicknamed "The Crocodile" because of his ruthlessness, Mnangagwa first came to power after a coup that deposed the late ruler Robert Mugabe in 2017.
- A year later, he narrowly beat Chamisa the first time in a poll that the opposition leader condemned as fraudulent and which was followed by a deadly crackdown.
Harare,
Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been declared the winner of the country's election, which was marred by irregularities.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) said on Saturday night that President Mnangagwa had won with 52.6 percent of the vote, beating Nelson Chamisa of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), who had 44 percent.
The CCC immediately rejected the results, saying they were rigged as its own tally showed Mr Chamisa as the clear winner.
"We cannot accept the results," said CCC spokesperson Promise Mkhwananzi. "When ZEC announced their results, discrepancies became glaringly obvious.
"The result does not match the evidence from our returns, a stark deviation that underlines the need for an audit.

Voters queue outside a polling station during presidential and legislative elections in Harare, Zimbabwe on August 23, 2023. PHOTO | JOHN WESSELS | AFP
"The worrying absence of the signature of our presidential candidate's returning officer casts a shadow of doubt over the entire process.
"The questionable actions of some (ruling) Zanu PF (party) officials, who were apparently privy to the results in advance, further tarnished the credibility and transparency of these elections."
President Mnangagwa's chief election agent, Ziyambi Ziyambi, said his victory was expected.
"We believed that our works were our manifesto," said Mr Ziyambi. "We believe the people of Zimbabwe have voted wisely."
The 80-year-old ruler's Zanu PF also won 136 parliamentary seats, while the CCC took 73, as the party formed last year denied the ruling party a two-thirds majority with which to amend the country's constitution.
Voting in one constituency was cancelled after a candidate died before the 23 August election.

A mother holding her child casts her ballot at a polling station in Harare, Zimbabwe on July 31, 2013. PHOTO | AFP
Foreign observer missions said on Friday that the elections had failed to meet regional and international standards after several logistical problems forced voting to be extended into the next day.
Former Zambian vice-president Nevers Mumba, who led the Southern African Development Community (SADC) observer mission, said the elections did not pass the credibility test.
"The election fell short of the requirements of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, the Electoral Act and the SADC Principles for Democratic Elections," Dr Mumba said in the regional body's preliminary report.The European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) criticised ZEC for failing to administer the polls and expressed concern over the arrest of election observers."While election day was assessed by the EU EOM as largely calm, the overall electoral process was marred by significant issues relating to the independence and transparency of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission," said the mission's chief observer, Fabio Massimo Castaldo."The ZEC missed opportunities to enhance public confidence in the integrity of the voting process and the management of the results."
Voting started late at a number of polling stations after voting materials were delivered late and people voted late into the night in opposition strongholds.Zimbabwe has a history of disputed elections dating back to the era of the late Robert Mugabe, who ruled with an iron fist between 1980 and 2017, when he was overthrown in a military coup.
President Mnangagwa, who took over from his mentor promising a "new kind of democracy in Zimbabwe", is now accused of being more autocratic than Mr Mugabe.
He is serving his last term under Zimbabwe's constitution.
By securing more than half the votes cast, the president avoided a run-off. Voter turnout was 69 percent.
Nicknamed "The Crocodile" because of his ruthlessness, Mnangagwa first came to power after a coup that deposed the late ruler Robert Mugabe in 2017.
A year later, he narrowly beat Chamisa a first time in a poll that the opposition leader condemned as fraudulent and which was followed by a deadly crackdown.
This week, voting was forced to stretch into an unprecedented second day because of delays in the printing of ballot papers in some key districts including the opposition stronghold Harare.
Chamisa condemned the delays as "a clear case of voter suppression, a classic case of Stone-Age... rigging".
As a white-ruled British colony named Rhodesia, the country broke away from London in 1965, gaining independence in 1980 after a long guerrilla war and renamed Zimbabwe.
But under Mugabe, its first leader, the fledgling democracy spiralled into hardline rule and economic decline, with hyperinflation wiping out savings and deterring investment.
The opposition hoped to ride a wave of discontent over corruption, high inflation, unemployment and entrenched poverty.
But ZANU-PF was also declared the winner in the parliamentary race, securing 136 of the 210 seats up for grabs under a first-past-the-post system, against 73 for the CCC. One seat was not assigned due to the death of a candidate.
Another 60 are reserved for women appointed through a party-list system of proportional representation.
Additional reporting by AFP