Emmerson Mnangagwa wins Zimbabwe’s first post-Mugabe election

Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former spy chief installed after Robert Mugabe’s removal in a coup in November, was elected on Thursday.

This was after a poll marred by the deaths of six people in an army crackdown on opposition protests.

After two days of claims and counterclaims, the 75-year-old Mnangagwa secured a comfortable victory, polling 2.46 million votes against 2.15 million for 40-year-old opposition leader Nelson Chamisa.

An MDC official briefly interrupted the results announcement to say the party rejected the result as it had not been able to verify them.

The election, the first since the army’s removal of 94-year-old Mugabe, passed off relatively smoothly but its aftermath revealed the deep rifts in Zimbabwean society and the instinctive heavy-handedness of the security forces.