HARARE: President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Sunday called Zimbabwe a "mature democracy" after winning a second term in office despite the opposition rejecting the result of a vote that international observers said fell short of democratic standards.
Mnangagwa, 80, won 52.6 percent of the ballots against 44 percent for his main challenger, Nelson Chamisa, 45, according to official results announced late Saturday by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).
"We have demonstrated that we are a mature democracy," the president said, praising a high turnout. "We take pride in the fact that we are an independent and sovereign nation."
Zimbabweans voted Wednesday and Thursday for president and parliament in polling marred by delays that sparked opposition accusations of rigging and voter suppression.
Promise Mkwananzi, a spokesman for Chamisa's Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), said the party did not sign the final tally, which he described as "false".
The vote has been watched across southern Africa as a test of support for Mnangagwa's ZANU-PF party, whose 43-year rule has been accompanied by a moribund economy and charges of authoritarianism.
Foreign monitors announced Friday that the elections had failed to conform to regional and international standards.
Observer missions from the European Union, the Commonwealth and the 16-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) listed a number of concerns, including the banning of opposition rallies, issues with the voter registration rolls, biased state media coverage and voter intimidation.
That did not stop Mnangagwa from thanking "various election observation missions who have been witnessing our electoral processes without bias".
"As a sovereign state, we continue to call on all our guests to respect our national institutions," he said.
Nicknamed "The Crocodile", Mnangagwa first came to power after a coup that deposed the late ruler Robert Mugabe in 2017.
A year later, he narrowly beat Chamisa a first time in a vote the opposition leader condemned as fraudulent, and which was followed by a deadly crackdown.
This week, voting was forced to stretch into an unprecedented second day because of delays in printing of ballot papers in some key districts.
Chamisa condemned the delays as "a clear case of voter suppression, a classic case of Stone-Age... rigging".
As a white-ruled British colony named Rhodesia, the country broke away from London in 1965, gaining independence in 1980 after a long guerrilla war, and was renamed Zimbabwe. — AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
