President Cyril Ramaphosa has congratulated Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his ruling ZANU-PF party on winning last week’s election.
On X (formerly Twitter) Ramaphosa said: ‘I congratulate President Emmerson Mnangagwa on his re-election. I wish him and the people of Zimbabwe well for the upcoming term.’
This was despite claims of rigging and intimidation from the opposition, who have rejected the results.
Official results showed that Mnangagwa had won the Presidential election with 52.6% of the vote, while Nelson Chamisa of the CCC secured 44.0%.
In the parliamentary race official results showed ZANU-PF had won 136 seats, while the CCC managed 73.
Chamisa called the poll a ‘gigantic fraud’.
Observers from the Southern African Development Community said that while the poll had been peaceful it had not been credible. The European Union, meanwhile, said the poll had been conducted in a climate of fear.
UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres expressed his concerns over ‘the arrest of observers, reports of voter intimidation, threats of violence, harassment and coercion’.
[Image: From 2019; https://www.flickr.com/photos/governmentza/46442831965]