Police said on Thursday they had arrested 41 local monitors of Zimbabwe’s elections as the opposition cried foul over irregularities in a poll forced by delays to stretch into an unprecedented second day. Monitors from Zimbabwean pro-democracy and pressure groups were arrested in multiple raids on Wednesday night and their computers and mobile phones were seized, police said. “The equipment was being used to unlawfully tabulate election voting statistics and results from polling stations,” police said, describing the activity as “subversive and criminal”. Less than a quarter of polling stations in Harare — an opposition stronghold — opened on time on Wednesday, electoral authorities said, blaming delays in printing ballot papers.

The problems forced President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is seeking a second term, to issue a late-night directive extending the vote by another day. In dozens of polling stations, voters braved long waits for ballot papers to be delivered for the triple elections, for the presidency, legislature and municipal councils. Patrick China masa, ruling ZANU-PF’s treasurer, said the share of polling stations where voting was delayed was “insignificant” and “would not tarnish the reputation” of the election. The poll is being watched across southern Africa as a test of support for Mnangagwa’s ZANU-PF party, whose 43-year rule has been battered by a moribund economy and charges of authoritarianism. The largest opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), which poses the biggest challenge to Mnangagwa, lashed the electoral process as “fundamentally flawed.”

Delays, intimidation and other irregularities meant the ballot was “unable to produce a free and fair electoral outcome,” CCC spokesman Promise Mkwananzi told reporters. “Nonetheless we knew this beforehand, and we have prepared ourselves to win an unfree and unfair election.” Nelson Chamisa, head of the CCC, earlier slammed the delays as “a clear case of voter suppression, a classic case of Stone Age... rigging”. Chamisa, 45, is the main challenger to Mnangagwa, 80, who came to power after a coup that deposed late ruler Robert Mugabe in 2017. Confident of victory, he wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “It’s a decisive win!”

 
Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)