Zimbabwe president ready to accept opposition victory in July polls – Foreign Minister

Sibusiso Moyo, Zimbabwe’s Foreign Affairs and International Relations Minister says his boss President Emmerson Mnangagwa is ready to accept the outcome of presidential elections slated for July this year.

Moyo, famed as the then military officer who announced a takeover of political power in November 2017, made the comments whiles speaking at Chatham House Africa programme event in London.

“If an opposition candidate is victorious in the elections President Mnangagwa is prepared to accept. Political contestation must not override national interests. People can come and go, but the state is more important,” he is quoted to have said.

Beside the elections which he said the government was committed to ensuring was free and fair, Moyo also touched on topics relating to Zimbabwe’s engagement with the international community, the issue of land, revamping the economy, political and social reforms, freedom of the media and the need to repackage Zimbabwe and breakaway from its isolationist past.

HE Sibusiso Moyo – Elections on July 18 2018 will reaffirm our commitment to openness & transparency. The #Zimbabwe government will apply rules & standards for holding free and fair elections in a peaceful, violence free environment. We welcome international observers #CHAfrica pic.twitter.com/eAcOLh1vIb

— Chatham House Africa (@AfricaProg) April 23, 2018

He was in London as an observer for the just ended Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). Moyo met with his British counterpart, Bosis Johnson, on Harare’s plans to return to the body.

Zimbabweans go to the polls in July this year for what is the first post-Mugabe elections. The nonangenarian who ruled Zimbabwe for over three decades was deposed in a de facto coup last November.

The army backed former vice-president Mnangagwa who had fled to South Africa for fear of his life, returned to take over as president. He will be leading the ruling Zanu-PF into the elections as he eyes his first constitutionally mandated full term.

The main challenger is 40-year-old Nelson Chamisa who leads the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). A dozen other candidates are expected to be on the ballot paper.