Zimbabwean president talks unity; challenger alleges fraud

The two news conferences embodied Zimbabwe's bitter political divisions: Riot police unsuccessfully tried to scuttle an appearance in a hotel garden by the opposition leader who said the country's election was a fraud, while the president spoke about a "flowering" of freedom and bipartisan unity from a red carpet in an elegant State House building.

Yesterday's dueling narratives unfolded a day after the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said President Emmerson Mnangagwa won the first election without Robert Mugabe on the ballot, ending a tumultuous week that began with optimistic scenes of peaceful voting, turned ugly with a deadly crackdown by soldiers in Harare, and ended with the prospect of a legal challenge over the result.

The vast majority of Zimbabweans want to escape the debilitating legacy of Mugabe, whose early promise as leader after independence from white minority rule in 1980 gave way to repression, economic paralysis and a string of elections marred by violence and rigging allegations.

The events at the end of the week suggested that Zimbabwe is conflicted, clinging to old habits even as it tries to forge a more open future.

Police with helmets, shields and clubs surged into a hotel garden where dozens of journalists were waiting for a news conference by opposition leader Nelson Chamisa.

They ordered everyone to leave and scuffled with some videographers and others who were reluctant to move and peppered the police commander with comments like: "What law has been broken? We've been threatened by your officers."
"We are not accepting this fiction," said Chamisa, a 40-year-old lawyer and pastor who heads the Movement for Democratic Change party. "We want a proper result to be announced."
"You have a crucial role to play in Zimbabwe's present and its unfolding future," he said. "Let us both call for peace and unity in our land."