Zimbabwe had a rocky ride before these were held. In a series of pre-election court cases complaints about irregularities against ZEC, the body overseeing elections marched side by side with the election campaign, as did allegations and protests of intimidation and lack of equal treatment of all parties. Thus, it is hardly surprising that protests and complaints of rigging followed.
The cancellation of a press conference by President Mnangagwa after announcing his victory was a further part of post-election events. Unexpected and worrying were the police raids on the poll monitoring groups Zimbabwe Elections Support Network and the Election Resource Center, which deployed 7,500 observers, seizing computers and other equipment. The police spokesman charged them with “subversive and criminal activities” to fabricate results.
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights criticized the action against accredited election observers.
Other voices repeated that the present regime had increasingly used the judiciary to pressure the opposition.
In an Afrobarometer pre-survey, almost half the respondents feared “announced results will not reflect counted results.”
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