The new error Collation of Post Election OVT 23-August to 30-September-2023

23 Aug The new error Collation of Post Election OVT 23-August to 30-September-2023

On 23 and 24 August 2023, Zimbabwe held its second harmonised elections since the infamous 2017 coup which ousted the long-serving former president, Robert Mugabe. Shortly after the coup, expectations for enhanced social protection mechanisms were soon shattered by the extrajudicial killings, torture, sexual assault and widespread intimidation that characterised the August 2018 harmonised elections1. Yet again, violence and retribution progressed into January 2019, wherein extrajudicial killings doubled from 7 during the 1 August 2018 post-election violence, to 17 cases by 19 January 20192. Through a special report The New Deception: What has Changed?3 the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum (the Forum) concluded that the so-called “new dispensation” is more violent and autocratic as compared to the ousted Mugabe regime. The Forum also consolidated incidences of human rights violations from 1998 to 2020 through an analytical report “Ruled by Violence4. The report concluded that violence witnessed during the “the new dispensation” constituted crimes against humanity in accordance with international human rights law.

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