The government of Zimbabwe has decided to extend the vote for the presidential elections by one day, even if only in some constituencies, to renew the parliament and hundreds of municipal councils: the votes were held on Wednesday, but delays until 10 ore in the delivery of ballot papers they had prevented many citizens from voting. The vote was extended until Thursday, in 40 districts of the three provinces of Harare, Mashonaland Central and Manicaland. These are not all those where there have been delays in delivering ballots: the list does not include the province of Bulawayo, where the opposition of the current government has much consensus.
However, the list includes 11 constituencies in Harare, the capital, where the highest number of voters are concentrated and where the opposition is very strong: in the province of Mashonaland Central, however, the ruling party, the National Union, is very strong. African of Zimbabwe – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), of the current president Emmerson Mnangagwa, while in that of Manicaland the result could be more contested.
The Republic of Zimbabwe is a southern African country with about 15 million inhabitants which has always been governed by the same party, ZANU-PF, since 1980, the year it gained independence from the United Kingdom. Mnangagwa has promised “free and fair” elections, but there are big doubts that he is going like this: the electoral campaign took place amidst repressions, bans and arrests of the opposition. According to the Zimbabwean political scientist Brian Kagoro, if the electoral campaign hadn’t been so hostile the current ones they would have been “the most winnable elections” for the opposition in the last fifteen years.
– Read also: The repression of the opposition to the presidential elections in Zimbabwe