Dejected Chamisa refuse to accept defeat

A dejected Nelson Chamisa has refused to accept defeat in the Zimbabwean presidential election and has accredited his loss to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission for releasing "fake results".

"The ZEC scandal of releasing unverified fake results is regrettable. The ZEC denied our election agent access to results before announcement. The ZEC must release proper and verified results endorsed by parties.

"The level of opaqueness, truth deficiency, moral decay and values deficit is baffling," said the opposition MDC Alliance leader on Friday morning.

These articulations came after Zanu-PF President Emmerson Mnangagwa was declared the winner in Zimbabwean election marred by violence.

ZEC announced the 75-year-old's victory late on Thursday, polling 2.46 million votes against 2.15 million for 40-year-old Chamisa.

The MDC alliance leader rejected the results and violence that prevailed subsequent to the announcement saying "I thought the force of will would prevail over will of force". He maintained that the ZEC had colluded with the ruling party to steal the elections.

While the ZEC was announcing Mnangagwa's victory two prominent leaders of the MDC alliance, national chairperson Morgan Komichi and the party's spokesperson Doctor Nkululeko Sibanda, told the media at the results centre that "they rejected the results".

Their reasons for rejecting the results were because "the results were not verified by the chief election agents of the candidate [Chamisa]".

Zimbabwe's electoral policy clearly states that once the results have been collected the chief election agents for all candidates should verify the results. However, Komichi claimed that, as Chamisa's agent, he was never afforded the opportunity to verify the results.

Furthermore, the results are supposed to be signed off by the various agents for the different candidates to make them official. Komichi claimed that since he was not given the chance to verify the results, he had not signed off the results before they were announced, thus he denounced them as "fake results".

Mnangagwa condemned the opposition's claims. He urged unity and said he was committed towards settling any "differences peacefully and respectfully, and within the confines of the law".

"I am therefore calling for an independent investigation into what occurred in Harare yesterday [on Thursday]. We believe in transparency and accountability, and those responsible should be identified and brought to justice," said Mnangagwa.

The elected president also encouraged the opposition to work together with the ruling party saying: "Together, we must lead by example and show all Zimbabweans that peace is paramount. This land is home to all of us, and we will sink or swim together."