Harare: “For free, fair and credible elections, vote Emmerson D Mnangagwa for president,” the enormous billboards throughout Harare instruct residents, showing the benevolent gaze and gap-toothed smile of the man better known as “the Crocodile.”
Zimbabweans who go to the polls on July 30 will for the first time in almost 40 years find this face on their ballot in place of the moustachioed visage of Robert Mugabe, one of Africa’s longest-ruling leaders before he was toppled by a military coup last year. While 23 candidates are running for president, in reality, only two stand a chance: Nelson Chamisa, 40, the youthful leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and Mnangagwa, 75,Mugabe’s comrade-turned-foe and successor.
Despite having spent his entire career in the political party that ran Zimbabwe’s once-vibrant economy into the ground, Mnangagwa does have support thanks to the ousting of the despised Mugabe family and his promises of a prosperous new chapter for the country.
But other voters say the Crocodile was on the wrong side for too long, and they want to see a party other than his Zanu-PF in power — in what would be a first since Independence in 1980.
“He knew everything that Mugabe was doing,” Ronald, 26, a Harare taxi driver, says dismissively of Mnangagwa. “But if Chamisa wins, we can do something better. ... We want change.”
Most Zimbabweans, at least in the capital, speak relatively freely about which way they’re leaning politically — something they might have thought twice about under Mugabe.
So far, the climate for this election is not nearly as tense as in previous years, when MDC rallies were often violently broken up by police or ruling party thugs.
Chamisa, a Christian pastor, has been drawing big crowds too. Not that state media is reporting his popularity.
The Herald newspaper has routinely referred to the opposition’s crowds as “paltry” and runs editorials such as “Violence runs in MDC-Alliance’s DNA” and “MDC Alliance too unstable to govern.”
And, compared with the large Mnangwaga billboards, the cash-strapped opposition has only small posters dotted around the city.
As the pivotal vote draws nearer, Chamisa has increasingly been crying foul and threatening a boycott, alleging that the voter rolls contain thousands of ghost voters — including one born in 1884 — and that the MDC does not have a fair shot at winning.
Zimbabwe’s huge diaspora cannot cast their votes from abroad, which will also negatively affect the MDC.
Meanwhile, the MDC has been riven by political infighting since the death of its founder, Morgan Tsvangirai, from cancer earlier this year. There were vicious disputes over who would replace the stalwart leader, and the party is still plagued by divisions.
Mnangagwa, for his part, vows that the elections will be totally transparent and has allowed foreign observers back to monitor the polls for the first time in years.
But despite his confidence, the president doesn’t seem to be taking any chances either, having increased the salary of Zimbabwe’s soldiers — who brought him to power through the military coup — by more than 20 per cent, local media reported last week. “This [election] is going to be historic simply because of [Mugabe’s] absence. But I think that his party and his successor, President Mnangagwa, will probably win,” predicted professor Stephen Chan, noting the MDC’s divisions.
Mnangagwa will likely win “without needing to cheat,” added Chan, who teaches African political thought at SOAS University of London.
What’s most striking here is the effort most members of the ruling party are now moving to distance themselves from Mugabe and the former first lady — who they were fawning over just months ago.
But the main criterion in this election for most Zimbabweans — whose ruined economy and massive inflation have long made global headlines — is that whoever comes to power must bring back investment and jobs. — dpa
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
