Philimon Bulawayo Many citizens and international observers cautiously hoped that the southern African nation of Zimbabwe would find its way from dictatorship to democracy this year. However, despite this election being that first time in many years that the repressive Mugabe was not on the ballot, the election commission declared Mugabe's enforcer and vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa president. In the weeks after the election, the government ruthlessly cracked down on the opposition with groups of Mnangagwa's backers conducting house-to-house searches for opposition leaders.