Screenshot from YouTube video,’Zimbabweans Living in South Africa Protest Election Outcome‘ on VOA Africa. Fair use. By Njabulo Ncube
Zimbabwe has re-elected President Emmerson Mnangagwa in yet another disputed presidential election, the aftermath of which has sparked claims of state retribution against perceived opponents. Critics say the ongoing post-election retribution is reminiscent of the reign of Mnangagwa’s former leader, the late president, Robert Mugabe, who after failing to gain the majority vote in the 2008 presidential election resorted to violence targeting supporters of the opposition leader Morgan Tavangirai‘s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Tsvangirai had allegedly outpolled Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF) . Mugabe then turned to state security agents, the military and veterans of Zimbabwe's war of liberation who unleashed untold violence against opposition supporters. An estimated 500 opposition supporters are said to have been killed, forcing the African Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to broker a power-sharing deal between Mugabe and Tsvangirai. Through this deal, Mugabe remained as president, Tsvangirai became prime minister, their parties shared control of the state police (MDC) and army (ZANU-PF) and the breakaway MDC-M's leader became deputy prime minister. Mnangagwa replaced Mugabe in a military-assisted coup in November 2017 and then, controversially, went on to win the presidential election against Nelson Chamisa of the coalition of parties then called the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance in July 2018. However, just 72 hours following an underwhelming inauguration on September 4, attended by only a few heads of state, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission contentiously declared Mnangagwa the winner over Chamisa of the newly named Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC). Soon after, reports of violence against human rights defenders, lawyers, and opposition supporters began surfacing in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital. Human rights defenders immediately called on the international community to speak out on the violence being carried out in towns and rural areas where people perceived to have voted against Mnangagwa and the ZANU-PF were being targeted. The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum and the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) roundly condemned the alleged retribution. The ZLHR named Wimberaiishe Nhende, CCC councillor-elect in Harare and Sanele Mukuhlani, an opposition supporter, as the two latest victims of the ZANU-PF campaign of violence. The pair have been left hospitalized after they were tortured by some as yet unidentified people, who abducted them on September 2, two days before Mnangagwa’s inauguration.
According to the ZLHR’s statement, Nhende, the councillor-elect for Ward 26 in the Glen Norah suburb, and Mukuhlani, were abducted from the Milton Park suburb in the capital, Harare. The men were bundled out of their vehicle by armed assailants who smashed their vehicle windows before taking them to a location in Mapinga in Mashonaland West province, about 70 km (43 miles) from Harare, where they were later dumped.
“Along the way, the duo, which was handcuffed, was tasered by their assailants in a bid to incapacitate them. They were also tortured by being whipped with sjamboks all over their body and were also beaten with truncheons,” said ZLHR in a statement soon after the incident, adding that the attackers also injected an unknown substance into Nhende and Mukuhlani before they dumped them about 100 metres from the Gwebi River.