A week before the elections, forty opposition activists arrested in Zimbabwe

Forty opposition activists were arrested on Tuesday (August 15th) in Zimbabwe, a week before the presidential and legislative elections, during a campaign parade in a suburb of the capital, Harare, learned Agence France-Presse (AFP). with the main opposition party and the police.

The southern African country will hold these elections on August 23, which promise to be tense. President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a candidate for re-election, has been accused for months by the opposition of carrying out increasing repression.

Forty members of the Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC) “were arrested as they traveled down the road in a procession,” coalition spokeswoman Fadzayi Mahere told AFP. Some stood in the back of pickup trucks, others marched on foot, according to footage shared on social media.

The police confirmed, in a press release, the arrest of the forty activists for breach of public order. According to the police, the opponents did not respect the perimeter declared to the authorities for the campaign operation.

Frequent suspicions of electoral irregularities

In next week’s ballot, Mr Mnangagwa, 80, will face Nelson Chamisa, a 45-year-old lawyer and pastor, who heads the CCC. The Coalition last week denounced “political violence” ahead of the polls, but Chamisa has vowed not to give up.

Mr. Mnangagwa had succeeded in 2017 to Robert Mugabe, hero of independence remained thirty-seven years in power, thanks to a coup d’etat. He was elected president the following year, narrowly winning (50.8%) after a vote marked by violence.

The landlocked country has been ruled by the same party since its independence in 1980, and suspicions of electoral irregularities are frequent. In a recent report, Human Rights Watch denounced a “seriously biased electoral process” ahead of the next election. The NGO accused the police of being “partisan” and of using “intimidation and violence against the opposition”.

Plagued by poverty, galloping inflation and endemic unemployment, Zimbabwe has been experiencing serious economic difficulties for the past two decades.