Tuesday, 31/07/2018 16:53 (GMT+7)
Zimbabwe’s first presidential and parliamentary elections since the end of Robert Mugabe’s long rule took place on July 30th.
(Source: World Politics Review)
About 5.6 million Zimbabweans were registered to vote in the election, with 23 candidates contesting the presidential race.
“This is a new Zimbabwe, a new era,” incumbent President Emmerson Mnangagwa told the cheering crowd. He noted that he’d “opened the democratic space,” allowing all parties to campaign freely for the first time, before warning international observers to “just do your work and don’t interfere in our country’s politics.”
These will be Zimbabwe's first-ever elections since independence from white minority rule in 1980 without the participation of Robert Mugabe, who resigned in November amid pressure from the military, his party and the public.
Mnangagwa will be seeking to consolidate his hold on power and that of the ruling ZANU-PF party. The elections will be for president as well as for parliamentary and council seats.
Nelson Chamisa, 40, head of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, will be Mnangagwa's main challenger.
If no candidate receives a simple majority in the first round of the presidential election, a run-off will be held on September 8th.
The election was Zimbabwe’s first in many years to be monitored by Western observers.
Mr. Emmerson Mnangagwa, born in 1942, is serving as the third and current President of Zimbabwe since November 24th, 2017./.
Compiled by BTA