South Africa and United States observers expressed worry over last week’s presidential and legislative elections in Zimbabwe and appealed for peace after the opposition termed the poll a fraud.
The elections commission pronounced incumbent President Emmerson Mnangagwa, 80, the winner late Saturday, although the outcome has been hotly questioned by experts.
Mnangagwa’s primary rival, Nelson Chamisa of the opposition Citizens’ Coalition for Change party, said on Sunday that he expected the international community to exert pressure on the electoral process.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa stated that his nation has “taken note of the preliminary pronouncements by… the African Union (AU) and the South African Development Community (SADC) Observer Missions,” asking all parties in Zimbabwe to cooperate.
Concerns raised by the SADC mission included voting delays, the prohibition of opposition demonstrations, and biassed official media coverage, while the head of the European Union’s observer mission stated on Friday that the elections took place in a “climate of fear.”
Foreign policy specialist Lwazi Somya disclosed that Ramaphosa’s remarks demonstrated that his administration was willing to assist in resolving the standoff between the Zimbabwean government and the opposition.
Somya, a senior researcher at the Southern Africa Liaison Office, said South Africa would most likely try to deal with the aftermath of the elections within a multilateral organisation such as the regional body SADC.
US State Department official Matthew Miller said that the US saw “systemic bias” against Zimbabwe’s opposition in the run-up to the election and strongly condemned the “intimidation and disruption of lawful election observers throughout the electoral period.”
He said the US was meeting with regional leaders to discuss its concerns.
Analysts predicted that the electoral field would be severely skewed in favour of Mnangagwa and the incumbent ZANU-PF party, which has been in power for more than four decades.
ZANU-PF denies having an unfair advantage, and Mnangagwa has encouraged anyone who is unhappy with the results to take them to court.
