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Foreign observers found that Zimbabwe’s election this week didn’t meet regional, international or the country’s own constitutional standards, as police guarded the national results centre.
“Curtailed rights and lack of level playing field led to an environment that was not always conducive to voters making a free and informed choice in Zimbabwe’s” election, Fabio Massimo Castaldo, head of the European Union mission, said in a statement. “The passing of regressive legal provisions and acts of violence and intimidation resulted in a climate of fear.”
The Southern African Development Community observer mission said the vote conducted and later extended was “generally calm and peaceful.” But it also said the ballot “fell short” of the country’s constitution, noting that state media favoured one party.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have accused the government of undermining civil liberties over the past five years and closing the political space for the opposition. Armed police surrounded the election results centre, which was the site of violent protest and a state crackdown during the disputed 2018 election.
A credible election — which has largely been peaceful so far — is seen as key for the southern African nation to inch closer to a deal with Western creditors over the clearance of $18 billion of debt. Zimbabwe has not received any loans from Western-based lenders for more than two decades.
The incumbent, President Emmerson Mnangagwa is expected to be reelected despite a long-running economic crisis in the resource-rich country that has led to the near-collapse of government services, an almost worthless local currency and an inflation rate of 77%.
The police arrested 41 people in Harare suspected of subverting the electoral process, and several laptops, mobile phones and other equipment was seized during a raid on four properties.
Police presence has intensified in Harare’s city centre, particularly near the results center of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, where parliamentary results began to trickle in overnight. Both the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front and the Citizens Coalition for Change led by Nelson Chamisa, the main opposition, are claiming victory.