Emmerson Mnangagwa, the president of Zimbabwe, says the country will hold its first presidential and parliamentary elections in July 2018, after the long ruler of former president Robert Mugabe.
He made the announcement after meeting with the South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday, March 17, 2018.
.The polls will be the first major test of the new leader, who took power in November 2017, after a de facto military coup forced the 94-year-old Mugabe to resign.
They will also be the first without Mugabe’s name on the ballot since independence from Britain in 1980.
“As a nation, party and government, we are looking forward to very peaceful, transparent and harmonised elections in July this year,” Mnangagwa said
Mnangagwa, 75, said the elections would be free of the violence that gripped previous polls and which was one of the reasons for strained relations between Zimbabwe and the West.
“I have already invited all political parties in Zimbabwe to a roundtable where we all commit ourselves to non-violence,” he added.
Mnangagwa will have to announce a date in an official notice. He has said he would invite Western observers, who had been banned under Mugabe’s rule.
The state-owned weekly Sunday Mail said a European Union pre-election team was expected in Harare on Monday.
Phillipe Van Damme, the EU head of mission in Zimbabwe, told the paper it would meet the president, political party leaders, and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
Mugabe, in his first comments since he stepped down, said last week that Mnangagwa’s rule was “illegitimate” and a “disgrace”.
