Zimbabwe’s incumbent President Emmerson Mnangagwa (80) welcomed the latest election result which the Zimbabwean election commission said he won with 52.6% of the vote while the opposition Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC) leader Nelson Chamisa got 44%.

“I competed with them and I am happy that I have won the race,” he said at State House on Sunday, 27 August, amid heavy police presence in parts of the capital.

“Those who feel the race was not run properly should know where to go to.”

Mnangagwa took over in 2017 when longtime strongman Robert Mugabe was toppled in a military coup. His first term was marked by runaway inflation, currency shortages and sky-high unemployment.

Chamisa, speaking on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, said: “It’s a blatant and gigantic fraud.”

It was unclear whether the opposition would use the courts to dispute the election results, as Zimbabwe’s judges have historically sided with the governing party.

Political analyst Munjodzi Mutandiri, from the Southern Africa Liaison Office, said the opposition had more to gain by taking to the streets than to the courts.

“The questions around judicial independence won’t cure the legitimacy challenge (of the results) just as (the electoral commission’s) impartiality and perceived lack of independence have created” the disputed results, he said.

CCC spokesman Promise Mkwananzi said that the official results differed from those tallied by the opposition.

“The CCC has initiated a comprehensive citizen’s review of the vote count,” he said.

An observer team from the Southern African Development Community said voting was peaceful but noted issues including voting delays, the banning of rallies, biased state media coverage and the failure of the electoral commission to give candidates access to the voters’ roll.

Mnangagwa accused the observer mission of overstepping its mandate. “I am aware that some observer missions went beyond their call of duty,” he said.

(Reporting by Nyasha Chingono; Writing by Carien du Plessis; Editing by Bhargav Acharya and Nick Macfie)