By Farai Mutsaka, HARARE
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe’s president, the country’s main opposition leader and a former ruling party stalwart exiled following a coup are all seeking to run in the presidential election scheduled for August. The three registered to run on Wednesday and the national electoral agency is to announce the final list of confirmed candidates.
The Aug. 23 vote is expected
to be another closely watched affair in a country with a history of violent and
disputed elections. Along with the presidential election, Zimbabweans will also
vote to decide the makeup of the 350-seat parliament and close to 2,000 local
council positions on the same date.
If no presidential candidate
wins a clear majority in the first round, a runoff will be held on Oct. 2.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa of the ruling ZANU-PF party is seeking what would be the 80-year-old’s final five-year term. He is expected to be closely challenged by opposition leader Nelson Chamisa, whom he narrowly beat in a disputed election in 2018.
Saviour Kasukuwere, a former
Cabinet minister and top ruling party official who fled to neighboring South
Africa after a 2017 coup that deposed longtime leader Robert Mugabe and brought
Mnangagwa to power, also registered as a candidate. It was not immediately
known if Kasukuwere had returned to Zimbabwe.
“The process
is going very well. I am happy that Zimbabwe is now a mature democracy,”
Mnangagwa told reporters at the nomination court. He appealed for peaceful
elections even as he and his party have been accused of adopting repressive tactics to stifle any opposition
to their rule.
Chamisa, the 45-year-old
leader of the Citizens Coalition for Change, said he was confident of victory,
but alleged there were voters’ roll irregularities and repeated his claims that
his supporters have been intimidated.
Once a close ally of the
autocratic Mugabe, Mnangagwa has tried to cast himself as a reformer despite accusations
that he is even more repressive than the man he helped remove from power.
Human rights groups have
accused Mnangagwa of trying to silence criticism as tensions rise due to a currency crisis, a sharp hike in food prices, a
weakening public health system and a lack of formal jobs.
Zimbabwe has faced severe
economic problems for years and has been under U.S. sanctions for two decades
over human rights abuses.
The southern African nation of
15 million people has only had two leaders since it gained independence from
white minority rule in 1980. Mugabe, who died in 2019, led Zimbabwe for 37
years until he was removed and replaced by Mnangagwa in the 2017 coup.
Mnangagwa had served as a vice
president under Mugabe.
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