Gearing up for crucial general elections

Campaigns are in full swing in Zimbabwe as political parties prepare for the general election on August 23. Incumbent President Emmerson Mnangagwa of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), is hoping to secure a second term in office.

His biggest rival in the presidential election is Nelson Chamisa of the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party. The two were the frontrunners in the last presidential race in 2018 too. This time around though, they will have to contend with a once exiled former ZANU-PF minister, Savior Kasukuwere, too. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has approved 11 presidential candidates in total, with each having had to pay $20,000 to appear on the ballot. To win the presidency, one candidates must get more than 50% of the vote.

If no outright winner emerges, a run-off between the top two contenders will be held on October 2. Alexandar Rusero, a politics professor at Africa University in Zimbabwe, says only Mnangagwa, Chamisa and Kasukuwere have any chance of emerging as the winner.

“The rest are just side shows and maybe people who are strategically positioning themselves in the post-election. Because what happened in the 2018 election has since proved that there are some dividends if you invest in this race,” Rusero told DW. Voters in the southern African country will head to the polls against a backdrop of an alleged intensifying crackdown on the opposition.

Several members of the opposition have been arrested and dozens of opposition campaign events have been blocked. The CCC has also complained that it has been given too little exposure on national television in the run-up to the vote.

One voter in Harare told DW she is worried about the violence on the political scene in the run-up to the vote. “I think the current elections, judging from the current social media posts, like Twitter, I have seen many cases of political assaults happening. So, they are violent,” Adorable Jamela said.

Eighty-year-old Mnangagwa has led Zimbabwe since the military forced long-term leader Robert Mugabe to resign in 2017. The election that secured him a first presidential term was disputed. Zimbabwe’s ailing economy and international sanctions that date back to the Mugabe-era are big election issues.

Last month, inflation was officially at 175% but some economists estimate it to be higher. Negotiations are meanwhile underway to end sanctions and clear decades of unpaid loans that make up the bulk of Zimbabwe’s $14 billion external debt.

Another key election issue has been the so-called Patriotic Bill which Mnangagwa signed into law this month. It makes a provision for a death sentence to be imposed on any citizen who calls for international sanctions on Zimbabwe.

“We will not [allow] the Western countries to dictate to us. We do not dictate to them. This interference from outside is unacceptable,” Mnangagwa said in defence of the new law recently. “We as a sovereignty state and a member of the United Nations ... have a sovereign right to run our elections, uninterfered.

Rutendo Matinyarare, the chairman of the pro-government Zimbabwe Anti-Sanctions Movement, says the new law “deters people and unites Zimbabweans to not sabotage their own country.” But Lucia Masuka, the executive director of Amnesty International in Zimbabwe, disagrees and describes the legislation as “an attack on the rights to freedom of assembly, association, and expression.”