By Nyasha Chingono and Nelson Banya
HARARE (Reuters) -Zimbabwe’s Emmerson Mnangagwa secured a second term as president at an election this week, winning over 52% of the vote, the country’s electoral commission said late on Saturday.
Mnangagwa, who took over from longtime leader Robert Mugabe after a 2017 army coup, was widely expected to secure re-election as analysts said the contest was skewed in favour of the ruling party.
His main challenger, Nelson Chamisa who leads the opposition Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC) party, secured 44% of the presidential vote, according to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
A CCC spokesperson said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that the party rejected “any result hastily assembled without proper verification”.
Mnangagwa narrowly defeated Chamisa at the last presidential election in 2018. The opposition alleges that election was rigged but the constitutional court upheld the result.
Mnangagwa’s ZANU-PF party has been in power for more than four decades.
While the run-up to the election has been largely free from violence, the police routinely ban opposition rallies and arrest opposition supporters using Zimbabwe’s tough public order laws.
ZANU-PF denies it has an unfair advantage or seeks to influence the outcome of elections through rigging.
The head of the European Union’s observer mission on Friday said this week’s vote took place in a “climate of fear”. Southern African regional bloc SADC’s mission noted issues including voting delays, the banning of rallies and biased state media coverage.
(Reporting by Nyasha Chingono and Nelson BanyaAdditional reporting by Carien du Plessis and Bhargav Acharya in JohannesburgEditing by Alexander Winning)
