Ramaphosa U-turn on Zim elections ‘fake news’

A tweet claiming to be from President Cyril Ramaphosa u-turning on his congratulatory message to his Zimbabwean counterpart has been labelled as “fake news”.

Zimbabwe held its national elections last week, with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) announcing President Emmerson Mnangagwa won 52.6% of the vote to 44% for Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) leader Nelson Chamisa.

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Despite foreign monitors raising concerns around the elections, Ramaphosa said he had congratulated Mnangagwa on his re-election.

“I wish him and the people of Zimbabwe well for the upcoming term,” he added.

‘Apology’

Amid backlash over the message, a tweet claiming to be from the president said it was apologising for his “premature congratulations”.

“I would like to issue an apology to the people Zimbabwe [sic] for our premature congratulations message. For now, we stand with SADC’s preliminary report and Dr Mumba,” it read.

Head of digital communications in the Presidency Athi Geleba took to social media to slam the tweet, calling it “fake news”.

Preliminary findings

Former vice-president of Zambia Dr Nevers Mumba headed the Southern Africa Development Community’s (SADC) observer mission for the elections and raised concerns about the elections in his preliminary report, including alleged voter intimidation, coercion, biased state media coverage, voting stations not being accessible for the disabled, and some not being able to vote.

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“The mission noted some aspects of the harmonised elections, fell short of the
requirements of the constitution of Zimbabwe, the Electoral Act, and the SADC principles and
guidelines governing democratic elections.

Ramaphosa defended his congratulatory message.

“The SADC body has issued a preliminary report. They will still sit down with many other observers and analyse everything. So, let’s wait until all that comes out, but the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has made a declaration, and on that basis, we have issued our congratulatory message.

“So, the rest of the things still need to be processed, and everybody, including the government of Zimbabwe, accepts that. So let’s wait until everything is well-processed,” said Ramaphosa.

Additional reporting by Vhahangwele Nemakonde