Zimbabwe elections: 5.5m people registered as polls open in first election without Robert Mugabe on ballot

Deposed president still trying to make influence felt a year after losing grip on power

Zimbabweans have gone to the polls in their first election without former president Robert Mugabe on the ballot.

The current president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, succeeded the 94-year-old last November in a bloodless coup that put an abrupt end to Mr Mugabe 37-year presidency. He is facing 40-year-old Nelson Chamisa, a lawyer and pastor who wants to become Zimbabwe’s youngest head of state.

Voters hope the election will provide a chance to alter the country’s global pariah status and spark a recovery in its failed economy following the long and brutal presidency of Mr Mugabe.

Some 5.5 million people were registered to vote and dozens of people waited in line to vote outside many polling stations in Harare, the capital.

“I want to do this and get on with my business. I am not leaving anything to chance. This is my future,” said Emerina Akenda, a first-time voter.

Voting began at 7am local time – 5am GMT – and polls are open until 7pm.

But Mr Mugabe attempted to make his influence felt once again, turning against the Zanu-PF party he led for so long and Mr Mnangagwa, his former vice president. In his first public appearance since being removed from power he praised Mr Chamisa as the only candidate who could “return legitimate government to the country”.

The former anti-colonial fighter went on to decry the “evil and malicious characters” who deposed him, and stridently defended his wife Grace. Ms Mugabe, who was by her husband’s side during the press conference in which he made the comments, is accused of serious corruption but Mr Mugabe demanded critics “leave her alone”.

Ms Mugabe had a long-running rivalry with former intelligence chief Mr Mnangagwa and was widely believed to have been behind his sacking from government, which sparked her husband’s eventual downfall – and the thwarting of her own political ambitions.

Thousands of election monitors have fanned out across the country to observe a process that the opposition says is biased against them despite electoral commission assurances that it will be credible.

A record of more than 20 presidential candidates and nearly 130 political parties are participating. If no presidential candidate wins 50 per cent of the vote, a runoff will be held on 8 September.

“This is a critical moment in Zimbabwe’s democratic journey,” said Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former Liberian president and a leader of one of the international observer missions.

“The elections today provide an opportunity to break with the past,” Ms Sirleaf said at a polling station in a school in Harare. “The lines and voter enthusiasm we are seeing this morning must be matched by an accurate count and their choice must be honoured.”

Past elections were marred by violence, intimidation and irregularities, but Mr Mnangagwa, 75, a former enforcer for Mugabe who says he now represents change, has promised that this election will be free and fair.

Nicknamed “the Crocodile”, an animal famed in Zimbabwean lore for its stealth and ruthlessness, Mr Mnangagwa has pledged to revive a moribund economy, attract foreign investment and mend racial and tribal divisions.

Mr Chamisa leads the Movement for Democratic Change (MCD) previously headed by Morgan Tsvangirai, who died in February this year. He has promised wide-ranging economic reforms and pointed to the 35-year age gap between him and the current president. He said earlier this year that “I represent the new. Mnangagwa represents the past”.

Nick Mangwana, Zanu-PF’s representative in Europe, said on Monday his party would lead Zimbabwe into a “new era”, after 38 years in charge, now that Mr Mugabe was no longer the “one centre of power in Zimbabwe”.

He admitted, in an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, that “a lot of things are not where they are supposed to be”, and added: “Nobody is asking the people of Zimbabwe to forget the past.

“But what we are saying, and the message we are giving to Zimbabweans, is that good things happened in the last 38 years, bad things happened in the last 38 years.

“We’ll build on the good things that happened in our country and we will learn from the bad things. Zanu-PF knows where things went wrong.”

But the MDC’s David Coltart told the broadcaster it was “disingenuous” to blame everything on Mr Mugabe. “Infrastructure has collapsed” under Zanu-PF which had overseen the country’s “draconian past”, he said.

He added: “These people were part and parcel of all the destruction that has been brought to Zimbabwe in the last 38 years.”

The presence of Western election monitors for the first time in years is an indicator of a freer political environment, though concerns have been raised about state media bias towards the ruling party as well as a lack of transparency with the printing of ballot papers.

Inside polling stations on Monday, voters were given three ballot papers: one for their presidential pick; another for member of parliament; and a third for local councillor. Polling officers helped voters put each ballot paper in the right box.

“We need change because we have suffered a lot here,” said 65-year-old Mable Mafaro while voting in Harare. “We have suffered a lot. That’s all.”

Additional reporting by agencies