Zimbabwe: 11 candidates gear up for crucial general election in August

Zimbabwe’s presidential elections due to be held on 23 August will be contested by a total of 11 candidates, but according to analysts, it will be a race between incumbent Emmerson Mnangagwa and the main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa.
Campaigns are in full swing in Zimbabwe as political parties gear up for a general election on 23 August. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has approved 11 presidential candidates in total, whereby to win the presidency, one candidate must get more than 50% of the vote. If no outright winner emerges, a run-off between the top two contenders will be held on 2 October. But the experts generally agree that there are really only two frontrunners — incumbent president, Emmerson Mnangagwa of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and Nelson Chamisa of the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party — both of whom were already frontrunners in the last presidential race in 2018.
But unlike five years ago, this time around, they will have to contend with a once exiled former ZANU-PF minister, Savior Kasukuwere, too. According to Alexandar Rusero, a politics professor at Africa University in Zimbabwe, only Mnangagwa, Chamisa and Kasukuwere have any chance of securing the top post. “The rest are just sideshows and maybe people who are strategically positioning themselves in the post-election. Because what happened in the 2018 election has since proved that there are some dividends if you invest in this race,” Rusero says, adding he is doubtful that the 2023 elections will bring about meaningful change. “Unfortunately, we are not yet at a stage where there is a relationship between what voters want and what they vote for, otherwise we wouldn’t have ZANU-PF in power for the past 43 years,” he said.