Robert Mugabe. Photograph by Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Lock (USAF)
After a number of concerns were raised early on election day, two separate African observer groups have said that Zimbabwe’s presidential and parliamentary elections were free and peaceful.
President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party have claimed victory, but his claim was rejected by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai who described the claim as a “huge farce” and the elections “null and void”. Zanu-PF and Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have shared a difficult coalition government since violence broke out after the contested presidential elections in 2009.
Zimbabwean citizens were casting their votes for a new president as well as 210 lawmakers and local councillors when they went to the polls on Wednesday, with the results due to be called no later than Monday.
Mugabe has said that he expected a “landslide victory” of more than 70% in an interview with the country’s Herald newspaper. It is difficult to get an estimation of the results at this point, however, as it is illegal to leak results in the country.
Whilst the African Union (AU) observers described the elections as free and fair, their view was not shared by the domestic monitoring group Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), who described scenes of people being turned away from the polling stations in urban areas where support for Tsvangirai is strongest.