An electoral worker empties a presidential candidates ballot box onto a
table during counting operations for Zimbabwe's general election at the
David Livingston Primary school in central Harare on July 30, 2018. AFP
PHOTO | MARCO LONGARI
Update: Zimbabwe's opposition MDC party on
Tuesday claimed victory in the country's historic elections, setting the
scene for a showdown with the ruling ZANU-PF that has held power since
independence in 1980.
Senior MDC official Tendai Biti
said party leader Nelson Chamisa had won the presidential race, and
alleged that the authorities were delaying the publication of results.
"The
results show beyond reasonable doubt that we have won the election and
that the next president of Zimbabwe is Nelson Chamisa," Biti told a
press conference at the party's headquarters in Harare.
"We
are however seriously concerned about evidence of interference... there
is a deliberate delay in announcing the results. This delay is totally
unacceptable."
"We have won the election, we are now
daring ZEC (Zimbabwe Electoral Commission) to announce the result. We
have done an impossible thing."
His announcement set
off celebrations among party supporters outside the building, but no
official results have yet been declared.
------------------------------
Earlier story: Zimbabwe's
rival presidential candidates both claimed Tuesday they were heading
for election victory, setting up a tense count in the country's first
vote since the ouster of longtime ruler Robert Mugabe.
President
Emmerson Mnangagwa said his ruling Zanu-PF party was receiving
"extremely positive" data, while opposition leader Nelson Chamisa said
the MDC party was "winning resoundingly".
The claims
pointed to a contested result in the historic election, raising the
prospect of competing fraud allegations and a possible run-off vote in
September — required if no candidate wins at least 50 per cent of
ballots in the first round.
Zanu-PF has held an iron
grip on power in Zimbabwe since independence from British colonial rule
in 1980, and victory for the opposition would be a major upset.
Analysts
have said it was unclear whether the country's military generals, who
ousted Mugabe and ushered Mnangagwa to office last year, would accept a
win by the Movement for Democratic Change.
Defeat for
the ruling party would likely lead "to a denunciation of the election by
the Mnangagwa administration and the potential for the military to
intervene to secure power for Zanu-PF," the London-based BMI risk
consultancy said.
Anxious wait for results
"I
am scared — is there going to be unrest?" Stone Sibanda, a 39-year-old
taxi driver in Harare, told AFP. "It is a very sensitive moment.
Everyone is anxious.
Estimated turnout was around 75 percent before polls closed on Monday evening after a peaceful day of voting.
Early
results from the elections — presidential, parliamentary and local —
are expected Tuesday, and full results are due by Saturday.
At
one polling station in the capital Harare, officials counted large
piles of ballots using gas lanterns and candles late into the night on
Monday.
But Mnangagwa, 75, Mugabe's former right-hand man, was confident of an outright first-round win.
"The
information from our reps on the ground is extremely positive! Waiting
patiently for official results as per the constitution," Mnangagwa said
on Twitter.
Chamisa, 40, who raised allegations of
voter fraud repeatedly during the campaign, was equally buoyant, saying
that his MDC was ready to form the next government.
"Winning resoundingly... We've done exceedingly well," he said on Twitter.
"Winning resoundingly... We've done exceedingly well," he said on Twitter.
Zimbabwe's
much-criticised election authority declared Tuesday that the vote had
been free of rigging — even though the count was not yet completed.
"We
are absolutely confident there was no rigging... we at the Zimbabwean
Election Commission will not steal (the people's) choice of leaders, we
will not subvert their will," said ZEC chair Priscilla Chigumba.
Mugabe,
94, whose authoritarian 37-year regime held power through violent,
fraud-riddled elections, voted in Harare alongside his wife Grace after a
surprise press conference at his home on Sunday at which he called for
voters to reject Zanu-PF.
EU cites 'shortcomings'
Once-banned
European Union election observers, present for the first time in years,
said participation appeared high but warned of possible problems in the
polling process.
"There are shortcomings that we have
to check. We don't know yet whether it was a pattern or whether it was a
question of bad organisation in certain polling stations," the EU's
chief observer Elmar Brok told AFP on Monday.
The bloc
will deliver a preliminary report on the conduct of the election on
Wednesday, as will the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and
the African Union teams.
Mnangagwa was the clear
election front-runner, benefitting from tacit military support, loyal
state media and ruling party controls of government resources.
But Chamisa, a young lawyer and pastor who performed strongly on the campaign trail, sought to tap into the huge youth vote.
The
new government must tackle mass unemployment and an economy shattered
by the seizure of white-owned farms under Mugabe, the collapse of
agriculture, hyperinflation and an investment exodus.
Previously solid health and education services are in ruins, and millions have fled abroad to seek work.
Both
candidates had vowed to clean up government and attract foreign
investment to create jobs after the isolation and systematic corruption
of the Mugabe era.
In 2008, then opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of the presidential run-off against Mugabe
after attacks orchestrated by the state claimed the lives of at least
200 of his supporters.
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