Zimbabwean President Says The Disputed Election Reveals 'Mature Democracy'

Harare, Sep 4 (AP) Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Monday hailed recent elections as a sign of the country’s mature democracy and a victory over Western adversaries, as he took an oath of office following a vote whose credibility was questioned by both Western and African observers. Mnangagwa, 80, won disputed polls held on Aug 26, garnering 52.6% of the vote ahead of main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa’s 44%. His ZANU-PF party, which has ruled the tiny nation of 15 million people since independence from white minority rule in 1980, also retained a parliamentary majority.

There are no losers but victory for the people of Zimbabwe against the neo-colonial tendencies of our country’s detractors and those who believe that might is right…We have shamed our detractors, he said before jubilant supporters, many of them bussed to pack a 60,000-seater Chinese-built stadium in the capital, Harare. Counter revolutionaries and their proxies will never prevail in Zimbabwe, said Mnangagwa, who routinely accuses the opposition of being puppets of the US and other Western nations that placed sanctions on the country two decades ago over alleged human rights violations.

The elections are the second since the ouster of longtime autocratic ruler Robert Mugabe in a 2017 coup. Mnangagwa, a close Mugabe ally for years, became president following the coup. He undertook to thaw icy relations with the West after taking power. He even applied for Zimbabwe to rejoin the Commonwealth, a bloc of mainly former British colonies that Zimbabwe left in 2003 after it became apparent that the organisation would extend a suspension imposed a year earlier following elections marred by allegations of violence and rigging.