ELECTION: Zimbabwe polls open in first vote since Ex President Mugabe removal

Polls have opened in Zimbabwe’s first election since the removal of its former president Robert Mugabe , a watershed vote that will determine the former British colony’s future for decades.

The election pits the 75-year-old president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, a longtime Mugabe ally, against 40-year-old Nelson Chamisa , a lawyer and pastor who is vying to become Zimbabwe’s youngest head of state.
Voting began at 7am (0500 GMT) on Monday and will end at 7pm.

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.

via guardian.co.uk

“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.