Opposition activists confirm 2023 poll results

Ranga Mataire, Zimpapers Politics Hub

IN last year’s harmonised elections, President Mnangagwa won 52,6 percent of the vote to 44 percent for Nelson Chamisa, but shadowy groups aligned to the latter, among them Pachedu, worked to undermine the poll outcome. 

They claimed the numbers were manipulated by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.

However, exactly a year after the polls, they now admit they lied.

Activist Freeman Chari, who was part of Pachedu, claims to have collated results from 84 percent of V11 forms, which showed that President Mnangagwa garnered 52 percent, matching official results. 

Chari also admitted that his tally excluded many votes from Zanu-PF strongholds in Mashonaland East, West and Central provinces, indicating that, even by Pachedu’s own unverifiable figures, President Mnangagwa had an unassailable lead. 

Political analysts say Chari’s admission confirms the duplicity of opposition activists, who have repeatedly undermined the credibility of the elections without providing evidence. 

They also claim this explains why Chamisa chose not to file an election petition.

Chari admits Pachedu and other groups knew that Chamisa had lost the polls but kept this from his supporters because they were afraid of being seen as endorsing what he called “sham elections”.

They withheld this information hoping to encourage the opposition to boycott council and Parliament. 

“We hoped CCC (Citizens Coalition for Change) would reject the whole election in toto. Unfortunately, some decided to go to Parliament and councils,” Chari wrote.

Ahead of the 2023 harmonised elections, opposition activists going by the name Team Pachedu claimed to have developed an app called Mandla, which they said was able to tabulate election results. 

They also claimed the app allowed CCC supporters to check their correct polling stations, as well as the opposition party’s bona fide candidates.

In an apparent dig at CCC supporters, Chari wrote on his X handle that, now that he had released their “tabulated results”, he expected honest conversations and not unfounded claims of victory.

Educationist Dr Augustine Tirivangana said there was nothing extraordinary about what Chari and his shadowy group had done.

“These naysayers have never peddled their own agendas. They have always been emissaries of agents of doom. I am saying so because I don’t believe that they have suddenly seen the light or that they are renouncing their agency,” he said.

“These statistics that they have released confirming that His Excellency, Dr ED Mnangagwa, actually won by a slightly bigger margin is an attempt to curry favour by flattery, having realised that any talk about elections and the legitimacy question have in fact been quashed by events.”

Dr Tirivangana said the former chairperson of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation, Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema, had endorsed the election results in Zimbabwe.

SADC had since entrusted the affairs of the region to President Mnangagwa as the new chairman of the regional bloc.

“Those who watched the inauguration ceremony will also confirm that even the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) publicly threw its weight behind the new chair of SADC, and, in fact, promised to fund several projects. Given this background, Chari and team want legitimacy by dancing along, for any talk about stolen elections has become both superficial and irrelevant. In any case, who are they to endorse our election results? What authority do they have? Just seeking the limelight for their own reasons,” Dr Tirivangana added.

Another analyst, Dr Brain Sedze, said Chari and his Pachedu outfit were disingenuous in not publishing whatever “results” they claimed to have for fear of unsettling opposition supporters, who had been told that the elections were not free and fair.

“He (Chari) is now coming out now because the person that they were banking on cannot be relied upon to take power. 

“He does not have an institution, he does not have an ideology, he does not respect national emblems and calls it idol worship and he does not respect those who fought for this country . . . ,” said Dr Sedze.