HARARE – Regional leaders must negotiate a “dignified exit” for President Emmerson Mnangagwa, MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa said on Monday as he repeated his position that the Zanu PF leader lost elections held on July 30.

The Constitutional Court will on Wednesday begin hearing arguments in an election petition brought by Chamisa, challenging Mnangagwa’s election victory declared by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).

At a Southern African Development Community summit in Namibia over the weekend, regional leaders congratulated Angolan President João Lourenço for winning elections but not Mnangagwa.

“I’m fortified by that position because they know that Mnangagwa did not win,” Chamisa told a news conference at his party’s headquarters.
State media hailed Zimbabwe’s elevation to rotating deputy chair of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security as a personal triumph for Mnangagwa.

Said Chamisa: “That position is given to a country, it is not a Mnangagwa position. I will take up that position as head of state once the processes have been confirmed.

“We don’t want people who celebrate nothing, and they want to make it something. He was not celebrated, he was not honoured. President Lourenco was congratulated and his MPLA, but not Mr Mnangagwa because they know that the jury is still out, he has not won this election. The people voted and they cheated.”

Chamisa appealed to SADC leaders to help Zimbabweans “heal the divisions”. He described the regional body as the “guarantors of peace, the guardians of regional prosperity and freedom.”

“There’s need for people to start to be on a permanent path to cure the illegitimacy, to cure the crisis that we have, the electoral stalemate. That can only be done if SADC were to come in and help us negotiate a respectable exit for Mr Mnangagwa and for those who have been voted out,” he said.

“To the international community, the road to the future of Zimbabwe – good governance, the rule of law and observance of human rights – passes through a safe pair of hands and a genuinely alternative politics and narrative. We represent such.”

Mnangagwa insists he won elections and has vowed to vigorously defend against Chamisa’s bid to overturn his narrow win. He avoided a run-off election by just 37,000 votes, according to figures released by ZEC.