Zimbabwe’s former ambassador to China, Chris Mutsvangwa, reprimanded the opposition MDC for remaining in election mode by rejecting President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s victory in the 2018 General Elections.
Using analogy derived from football, Mutsvangwa urged the MDC to accept defeat and move on for the sake of national economic development. He said:
A football game has 90 minutes and if it’s not over, there are 30 minutes of extra time. If there is still no winner then, you go for a penalty shoot-out, and then the game is over.
We have a party (MDC) which wants the game to go on forever. We finished elections in 2018, and yet they want the country to be in election mode until 2023 so that the country can’t be governed.
President Mnangagwa barely managed to attain the 50+1 per cent threshold required to have him declared the winner in the 2018 Presidential election.
However, his closest rival, MDC leader Nelson Chamisa rejected the result as flawed and approached the Constitutional Court for redress, but the electoral challenge was dismissed with Mnangagwa’s victory being upheld by the Justices.