Chamisa rejects Zim poll results

The digital news platform NewZimbabwe.com has reported that the “MDC Alliance rejects ‘fraudulent’ presidential results and that its leader, Nelson Chamisa is to address the nation”.
This follows the midnight announcement that Zanu-PF’s Emmerson Mnangagwa received 50.8% of the votes in the presidential election while Chamisa garnered 44.3%. Mnangagwa barely avoided a run-off with the final results.
“The opposition MDC Alliance has rejected the presidential election results which gave incumbent Emmerson Mnangagwa of the ruling Zanu-PF party a narrow victory over his main challenger Nelson Chamisa.”
According to the news website, just before the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission confirmed the results, senior MDC Alliance official Morgan Komichi and Chamisa’s spokesman Nkululeko Sibanda “entered the results announcement room and rejected the outcome”.
Komichi described the results as fraudulent, adding they had not signed them off before he was escorted out of the room by the police.
Komichi spoke to NewZimbabwe.com and said the results announced by ZEC were “predetermined figures that were made some months before”.
“These figures, as far as we are concerned, are fake and illegal because they were violating the law, the procedures and the rules,” he said.
“The procedures are that, at any stage, the results are supposed to be verified by the polling agents, signed for then announced. Even from the polling station to the ward level to the national level, there are polling agents at all those levels and I’m the polling agent of the president Nelson Chamisa at national level and I did not see the results they have announced, and I did not sign the results they have announced, and I did not verify them either.
“So, that procedure which is lawful, which is in the (Electoral) Act has been violated and we are saying those results were predetermined; they are fake.
“We reject the results as the MDC Alliance, we don’t respect the outcome at all; the whole process was not free, fair and credible. We will be guided by the law. My president is going to address the nation; he is going to give the direction.”
Reuters reported that Chamisa had tweeted that “The level of opaqueness, truth deficiency, moral decay and values deficit is baffling.”
In the meanwhile, Mnangagwa said this morning that he was "humbled" to have won the country's landmark election, hailing it as a "new beginning" after the ousting of autocrat Robert Mugabe.
"Thank you Zimbabwe! I am humbled to be elected President of the Second Republic of Zimbabwe," he said in a Twitter message.
Zanu-PF supporters took to the streets of Harare to celebrate the party’s victory.
STAFF REPORTER