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Zimbabwe Presidential elections 2013: Mugabe re-elected president
Incumbent Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe (l) and opponent and outgoing Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai (r). PHOTO/Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert/Press Association
Incumbent Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe was Saturday declared winner of the presidential elections, securing his seventh term, however, the country’s opposition has dismissed Mugabe’s winning of the poll as a “farce”, with the main opponent Morgan Tsvangirai calling the vote as “fraudulent and stolen”.
Mr. Tsvangirai, has said he will challenge the results in court with evidence of vote-rigging, and other irregularities.
The results released by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission revealed that Mugabe’s party had won 158 of the 210 parliament seats giving it a two-thirds majority in the legislature, thus enabling it to amend a recently approved constitution that provides for democratic reforms.
Tsvangirai’s party, which had gambled that a high turnout in its favor would overcome any alleged fraud in the vote, captured 50 seats and two went to independent candidates.
According to the results, Mugabe won 61 percent of the vote, compared to 33 percent for Tsvangirai, who had been prime minister in a power-sharing deal with the president. Officially, Mugabe, gets another five-year term in office.
Tsvangirai’s party lost several seats in its Harare urban strongholds by massive margins compared to their overwhelming victories in 2008.
In one Harare constituency, Tsvangirai’s party won with 9,538 votes to 8,190 captured by Mugabe’s party. In 2008, the same district voted for the MDC candidate, Tendai Biti, by about 8,300 ballots against Mugabe’s 2,500 votes.
The vote on Wednesday was peaceful and the African Union and regional monitors of the Southern African Development Community, or SADC, have generally endorsed the elections as peaceful, however have expressed concern about the reported irregularities, and have demanded a full account of voter numbers from the country’s electoral commission before passing their final judgment on whether the elections were free, fair and credible.
Source: Newswires