Phuti Mosomane
President Cyril Ramaphosa will on Monday attend the inauguration of Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnagagwa after the opposition party – Nelson Chamisa’s Citizens Coalition for Change – failed to launch a court challenge to the election outcome.
The presidential inauguration ceremony will take place at the National Stadium in the capital city Harare.
Mnangagwa, secured a second five-year term in the results announced last week on Saturday which mark a 43-year rule by the ZANU-PF, which has been in power since 1980, following the end of white minority rule in the southern African country, formerly known as Rhodesia.
The 80-year-old Mnangagwa received more than 52% of the vote while the 43-year-old Chamisa received 44%. Initially, Chamisa rejected the results but his failure to officially lodge a court challenge paved the way for Mnangagwa to be inaugurated on Monday.
Last week, Ramaphosa ‘congratulated the government and the people of The Republic of Zimbabwe for organizing and holding the harmonized elections to elect the President, National Assembly and Local government representatives, which took place on 23 and 24 August 2023’.
Ramaphosa will be accompanied by the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor.
Observers have also raised concerns about the way the elections were conducted.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) and African Union (AU) Observers said although voting was mostly peaceful but the organisations noted issues including voting delays, the banning of rallies, ZANU-PF favoured state media coverage and the repeated failure of the electoral commission to give candidates access to the voters’ roll.
“The mission observed that the pre-election and voting phases were peaceful and calm however, it noted that some aspects of the harmonised election fell short of the requirements of the constitution of Zimbabwe, the electoral act and the SADC principles and guidelines governing democratic elections,” according head of the delegation Nevers Mumba.
The head of the European Union’s observer mission, Fabio Massimo Castaldo, said the environment for free and fair elections was not always conducive to voters making a free and informed choice.
“Acts of violence and intimidation resulted in a climate of fear,” he told a news conference in the capital Harare, adding that the election did not meet international standards for transparency,” Castaldo said.
Economic situation in Zimbabwe
The elections in Zimbabwe have a direct impact on South Africa as estimates say more than 1.4 million Zimbabweans stay in the country.
South Africa together with other African countries have urged the US and EU to end sanctions against Zimbabwe arguing that “they were hurting the region”.
In 2019, a group of 16 African countries called on the US and EU to “immediately lift” sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe. The sanctions date back to 2002 during the late President Robert Mugabe’s rule.
“The crisis in the country is having terrible consequences for the region, as Zimbabwe lies at the heart of Southern Africa. Many regional infrastructure development plans, including roads, railways and power transmission lines have been brought to a standstill, as they have to run through the country.
“The continental free trade is also undermined by the situation prevailing in Zimbabwe,” former President of Mozambique Joaquim Chissano told a recent high-level debt resolution forum held in the capital Harare.
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