FILE PHOTO: Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Nelson Chamisa addresses a media conference following the announcement of election results in Harare, Zimbabwe, August 3, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings
August 25, 2018
HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader on Saturday rejected a court ruling that confirmed President Emmerson Mnangagwa as winner of the July 30 presidential vote and said he had a legitimate claim to lead the country.
The Constitutional Court dismissed Nelson Chamisa’s challenge on Friday, saying he had failed to prove his allegations of vote fraud.
“I respectfully disagree and reject the position that was arrived at by the constitutional court,” Chamisa told reporters in Harare.
“I have a legitimate claim that I should lead Zimbabwe,” Chamisa said, adding that he would not attend Mnangagwa’s inauguration on Sunday.
Last month’s election, the first since Robert Mugabe was removed as President in a November coup, was expected to pull Zimbabwe out of its diplomatic isolation, end international sanctions and prompt an economic recovery.
But the vote has left the nation polarised, with violence flaring on the streets of Harare, and Chamisa, who leads the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), mounting his legal challenge.
Responding to Mnangagwa’s Twitter comments that his door and arms were open to Chamisa, the 40-year-old opposition leader said any negotiations with the ruling party could only be about resolving the president’s legitimacy and “vicious cycle of disputed elections”.
Chamisa also repeated that peaceful street protests would be an option that the opposition would take to “protect the people’s victory”.
(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe,; Editing by Alison Williams and Ed Osmond)
