ZIMBABWE GOES TO THE POLLS ON SATURDAY FOR BY-ELECTIONS

Sat 26 March 2022:

Zimbabweans voted in parliamentary and local authority by-elections on Saturday, which are considered as a preview of what to expect in next year’s national elections.

The elections, which opened at 7:00 a.m., have sparked such enthusiasm that President Emmerson Mnangagwa has held a series of campaign rallies to rally support for the ruling ZANU-PF candidates.

“We need change,” Jasen Maeka, a 42-year-old unemployed man said after voting at a polling station in central Harare.

“We should give the opposition a chance. This government has proved to be a failure,” Maeka said.

Three-quarters of the country’s 270 legislators are elected into office. A tenth of those seats are up for grabs on Saturday, as well as five percent of the 1,958 local government council seats.

The southern African country is in the grips of an economic crisis characterised by high inflation that has eroded purchasing power and led to foreign currency shortages, unemployment of more than 90 percent and low manufacturing capacity.

Its currency is also in free-fall against the US dollar; in December 2016, when the new Zimbabwean dollar was introduced, it was pegged at ZWL 1: $1, but it now trading at ZWL 220 to a dollar.

Opposition leader Nelson Chamisa, who is seen as the most formidable challenger to Mnangagwa, formed a new party Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), three months before the by-elections.

“We are going into a crucial by-election…it is a dry run of the 2023 election,” Chamisa told his final campaign rally in a working class district on the outskirts of Harare on Thursday.

The new party drew massive crowds to its campaign rallies.

Chamisa’s party complained of growing repression by the authorities as several of its parties were banned by the police during the two-month long campaign.

One person was killed and 22 others were injured after unrest during an opposition protest last month.

During the election campaign, Vice President Constantino Chiwenga compared the opposition to lice that needed to be “crushed.”

The ZANU-PF party, which has led the country since its independence from Britain in 1980, also drew large audiences to the polls.

Critics accuse Mnangagwa of muzzling dissidents, and the opposition has expressed concern that the election may be rigged. Mnangagwa gained office in 2017 after Robert Mugabe governed for 37 years.

In a struggle over control of the country’s main opposition party, voters are casting ballots in 28 parliamentary constituencies, including 20 where opposition legislators were recalled.

The rest of the seats fell vacant following the deaths or reassignment of the incumbents.

By-elections were also being held in 122 local government municipalities.

The by-elections were supposed to be held within 90 days of the seats falling vacant but Mnangagwa delayed the polls in 2020 citing the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sixteen parties were taking part in the elections.

On the eve of the polls, Chamisa’s party alleged that the election was rigged before voting had taken place, citing errors in the voter register.

Harare-based political scientist Rashwit Mukumdu said the by-elections will be an indicator of how next year’s presidential election will play out.

“These elections are a precursor or an indicator of how the actual election will be next year,” Mukumdu said. “It will reveal the level of inroads ZANU-PF has made in urban constituencies where the opposition enjoys key support and vice versa for the opposition, and we will see if they have made inroads with rural voters where the ruling party enjoys support.”

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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