Zimbabwe Election: Polls Open In First Vote Since Robert Mugabe's Removal

Election will see 75-year-old president Emmerson Mnangagwa face 40-year-old Nelson Chamisa.

Polls opened on Monday in Zimbabwe’s first election since the removal of former president Robert Mugabe, a watershed vote Zimbabweans hope will rid the country of its global pariah status and spark a recovery in its failed economy.

The election will see 75-year-old president Emmerson Mnangagwa, a long-time Mugabe ally, face 40-year-old Nelson Chamisa, a lawyer and pastor who is vying to become Zimbabwe’s youngest head of state.

Zimbabwe Election: Polls Open In First Vote Since Robert Mugabe's Removal

About 5.5 million people are registered to vote in the nation anxious for change after decades of economic paralysis and the nearly four-decade rule of the 94-year-old Mugabe. Long lines of voters were waiting outside some polling stations.

“I just have to do this. I have to see a better Zimbabwe for my kids. Things have been tough,” Tawanda Petru, 28, an unemployed man voting in Mbare, a low-income district of the capital Harare, said.

Source - www.theguardian.com