The United States is engaging Zimbabwe’s neighbours on the way forward after President Emmerson Mnangagwa was re-elected in polls described as flawed by regional observers, a senior official has said.
Mathew Miller, the US State Department spokesman, said Washington shared its concerns with Zimbabwe’s neighbours about the conduct of the polls.
“The United States is reaching out to regional leaders to share our concerns, including what this means for the international community’s nascent efforts to re-engage the Zimbabwean government,” Mr Miller said in a statement on Monday.
“The stakes are high for the people of Zimbabwe and the region. We urge all Zimbabweans to remain peaceful and to pursue grievances through established legal channels.
President Mnangagwa was declared the winner of last week’s election with 52.6 per cent of the vote, but the results were rejected by his main rival Nelson Chamisa.
Mr Chamisa of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), who won 44 percent of the vote, said the election was a gigantic fraud.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) observer mission said the elections did not meet regional and international standards for democratic elections.
“The United States stands with the people of Zimbabwe and their right to choose their leaders in free and fair elections conducted in a transparent manner,” Miller said on Monday night.
The US and other Western countries have maintained sanctions against Zimbabwe since the turn of the millennium, citing alleged electoral fraud and human rights abuses.
Since coming to power after a military coup that toppled long-time ruler Robert Mugabe in 2017, President Mnangagwa has tried to re-engage the West to end Zimbabwe’s international isolation, with limited success.
The August 23 election was seen as key to advancing the country’s efforts to re-engage with an African Development Bank-led debt rescheduling plan, which is dependent on free and fair elections.
However, foreign observer missions were unanimous in their preliminary reports that the polls failed to meet international standards after chaos that saw voting extended into the next day due to late delivery of ballot papers to polling stations in opposition strongholds.
“Although the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has announced the results of the country’s recent presidential election, several observer missions have expressed deep concern and stated that the country’s electoral process did not meet regional and international standards for credibility,” Miller said.
“In particular, the United States notes the systematic bias against the political opposition during the pre-election period and reports from respected civil society groups that ZEC officials pressured election observers to sign altered results forms from polling stations.
“We urge the ZEC to make publicly available disaggregated polling station results to increase confidence in the tabulation process.”
The US also criticised the arrest of independent election observers throughout the election period, which it said prevented them from independently verifying the results announced by ZEC.
Washington condemned threats against members of the SADC observer mission by Zimbabwean ruling party and government officials, which it called “dangerous, inflammatory and unacceptable”.
“These actions belie President Mnangagwa’s repeated commitments to respect the rule of law, transparency and accountability,” Miller added.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s acting Foreign Affairs Minister Amon Murirwa on Monday summoned European Union (EU) ambassadors in the country to protest against the preliminary report by Brussels’ election observer mission that the August 23 polls were flawed. Murirwa said Zimbabwe “finds it disturbing and unfortunate that the EU Election Observation Mission has deliberately issued a broad statement full of misrepresentations and allegations”.
“Much of the preliminary report was not based on actual observation of the elections and misled the world about the conduct of the elections,” he said.
In the run-up to the elections, President Mnangagwa repeatedly complained that some observers had come with preconceived ideas about Zimbabwe’s electoral system. His government also expelled observers from South Africa and the United Kingdom ahead of the polls. It also refused to accredit many foreign observers and journalists on the eve of the elections.
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Source: Nation Africa
