A week before the country’s elections, police in Zimbabwe reported that they had detained 40 members of the main opposition party for obstructing traffic and causing a disturbance.
On August 23, voters in the southern African nation will choose a new president and legislature in what many predict will be a contentious election marked by a crackdown on dissent and worries about vote-rigging.
According to party spokesman Fadzayi Mahere, the Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC) was campaigning in a Harare neighborhood in the south-west on Tuesday when supporters were stopped by police.
The CCC allegedly informed authorities it would stage a rally, but changed the venue after notifying them, according to the police, who confirmed they had detained 40 CCC activists.
Police reported that the CCC supporters “started chanting party slogans and singing” as they “went on a car rally procession” around the neighbourhood and halted at a traffic light.
Social media users posted video of a packed junction of people wearing the yellow uniforms of the CCC, some of them were crammed within the bed of a small truck.
The opposition has long alleged that it was unfairly singled out for attention by the government in the run-up to the election, with its members being detained and numerous CCC activities being halted.
According to a report released by Human Rights Watch this month, the forthcoming election would be place using a “seriously flawed electoral process” that does not adhere to international norms for democracy and fairness.
It charged cops with engaging in “partisan conduct” and employing “intimidation and violence against the opposition”.
In the presidential election next week, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, 80, of the ZANU-PF, who has led the country since its independence in 1980, is running for re-election.
Nelson Chamisa, a preacher and CCC leader who is 45 years old, is his biggest rival.
