Zimbabwe - August 2023

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa was re-elected in general elections held on 23 August. According to official results, Mnangagwa received 52.6 per cent of the vote, thereby avoiding a run-off against his main challenger Nelson Chamisa, who came second with 44 per cent. Mnangagwa’s party, Zanu-PF, which has governed Zimbabwe uninterruptedly since 1980, won 136 of the 210 parliamentary seats contested. The elections were criticised by international election observers, who found that they fell short of regional and international standards, and experts assessed them to be Zimbabwe’s worst ever. Amongst other irregularities, they pointed to voter intimidation and suppression, extreme delays in the opening of polling stations and undue restrictions on freedoms of association and assembly (many opposition party rallies were banned or disrupted). They also raised concerns about the arrest of 41 domestic observers, who were conducting a parallel voter tabulation. The results of the election were disputed by the largest opposition party, Citizen’s Coalition for Change, which claimed to have won and called for fresh polls. It has called for fresh elections to be held. Only 11 per cent of the 633 parliamentary candidates were women (compared with 14 per cent in 2018) and of these only 23 were elected (two fewer than in 2018). Voter turnout for the presidential election was 68 per cent (down from 86 per cent in 2018) and for the parliamentary election was 67 per cent (down from 83 per cent in 2018).            

Sources: Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, African Union and The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, Southern African Development Community,  European Union, Africa Confidential, The Africa Report, Associated Press News, British Broadcasting Corporation, The Conversation,  International IDEA