{"id":5465,"date":"2018-08-02T22:58:01","date_gmt":"2018-08-02T22:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/?p=5465"},"modified":"2018-08-03T07:23:20","modified_gmt":"2018-08-03T07:23:20","slug":"emmarson-mnangagwa-elected-zimbabwe-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/?p=5465","title":{"rendered":"Emmerson Mnangagwa declared winner in disputed poll"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Staff Reporter<\/p>\n

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has won Zimbabwe’s presidential election, according to the electoral commission.<\/p>\n

With all 10 provinces declared, Mr Mnangagwa won 50.8% of votes, compared to 44.3% for opposition leader Nelson Chamisa.<\/p>\n

Police removed opposition officials from the electoral commission stage when they rejected the results.<\/p>\n

The chairman of Mr Chamisa’s MDC Alliance said the count could not be verified.<\/p>\n

By narrowly winning more than 50% of the vote, Mr Mnangagwa avoids a run-off election against Mr Chamisa.<\/p>\n

The president said on Twitter he was “humbled”, and called the result “a new beginning”.<\/p>\n

Mr Mnangagwa, from the governing Zanu-PF party, took over as president last November from long-serving leader Robert Mugabe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr Chamisa has insisted he is the winner of the presidential poll, telling reporters earlier on Thursday that Zanu-PF was “trying to bastardise the result”, something “we will not allow”.<\/p>\n

But the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) said there was “absolutely no skulduggery”.<\/p>\n

Six people died after opposition protests in Harare on Wednesday over alleged vote-rigging.<\/p>\n

The elections were the first since Mr Mugabe, 94, was ousted and were intended to set Zimbabwe on a new path following years of repressive rule.<\/p>\n

Harare was reported to be quiet on Thursday, as troops patrolled the city centre ordering people to “behave”.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr Mnangagwa said the government was in talks with Mr Chamisa to defuse the crisis. He proposed an independent investigation to bring those who were behind the violence to justice.<\/p>\n

“This land is home to all of us and we will sink or swim together,”\u00a0Mr Mnangagwa said in a series of tweets<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The day after the election, the MDC Alliance said Mr Chamisa had won the presidential vote, pre-empting an official announcement and prompting its supporters to celebrate in some areas of Harare.<\/p>\n

The following day, when Zec announced that Zanu-PF had won the parliamentary vote by a landslide, tensions rose.<\/p>\n

Opposition supporters were also angered by the delay in announcing the presidential results.<\/p>\n

Home Affairs Minister Obert Mpofu said the government would not tolerate such protests.<\/p>\n

The opposition “are testing our resolve, and I think they are making a big mistake”, he said.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Mr Chamisa condemned the deployment of soldiers and the subsequent loss of life.<\/p>\n

“Soldiers are trained to kill during war. Are civilians enemies of the state?” he asked.<\/p>\n

“There is no explanation whatsoever for the brutality that we saw.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Zec announced the results from the 10th and final province, Mashonaland West, late on Thursday after days of waiting.<\/p>\n

The European Union and Commonwealth missions earlier criticised the delay in announcing the presidential results.<\/p>\n

This is the first time in 16 years that the government has allowed EU, Commonwealth and US election monitors into the country.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the week, Zec announced the parliamentary results, giving Zanu-PF 144 seats, the MDC Alliance, which is made up of seven parties, 64 seats, and one seat to the National Patriotic Front, formed by Mugabe loyalists after he was ousted.<\/p>\n

Although Zanu-PF won by a landslide, its majority has shrunk since the 2013 election, when it obtained 160 seats and the MDC, then led by the late Morgan Tsvangirai, 49.<\/p>\n

More than five million people were registered to vote in Monday’s poll. Turnout was 70%.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Staff Reporter President Emmerson Mnangagwa has won Zimbabwe’s presidential election, according to the electoral commission. With all 10 provinces declared, Mr Mnangagwa won 50.8% of votes, compared to 44.3% for opposition leader Nelson Chamisa. Police removed opposition officials from the electoral commission stage when they rejected the results. The chairman of Mr Chamisa’s MDC […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5465"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5465"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5469,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5465\/revisions\/5469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}