Zimbabwe election: Emmerson Mnangagwa declared winner in disputed poll

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has won Zimbabwe’s presidential election, according to the electoral commission.

  With all 10 provinces declared, Mr Mnangagwa won 50.8% of votes, compared to 44.3% for opposition leader Nelson Chamisa.

Police removed opposition officials from the electoral commission stage when they rejected the results.

The chairman of Mr Chamisa’s MDC Alliance said the count could not be verified.

By narrowly winning more than 50% of the vote, Mr Mnangagwa avoids a run-off election against Mr Chamisa.

The president said on Twitter he was “humbled”, and called the result “a new beginning”.

Mr Mnangagwa, from the governing Zanu-PF party, took over as president last November from long-serving leader Robert Mugabe.

Mr Chamisa has insisted he is the winner of the presidential poll, telling reporters earlier on Thursday that Zanu-PF was “trying to bastardise the result”, something “we will not allow”.

But the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) said there was “absolutely no skulduggery”.

Six people died after opposition protests in Harare on Wednesday over alleged vote-rigging.

The elections were the first since Mr Mugabe, 94, was ousted and were intended to set Zimbabwe on a new path following years of repressive rule.

Earlier in the week, Zec announced the parliamentary results, giving Zanu-PF 144 seats, the MDC Alliance, which is made up of seven parties, 64 seats, and one seat to the National Patriotic Front, formed by Mugabe loyalists after he was ousted.

Although Zanu-PF won by a landslide, its majority has shrunk since the 2013 election, when it obtained 160 seats and the MDC, then led by the late Morgan Tsvangirai, 49.

More than five million people were registered to vote in Monday’s poll. Turnout was 70%.

Source: bbc