ZSE weekly review

Published: 06 August 2013

The local bourse was defensive in the just ended week as the country went to the polls on the 31st of July 2013. The industrial index was up 0.3% to close the week at 231.21 points after gains in midtier stocks. Gains were recorded in Afdis (+15%), Turnall (+12%), Natfoods (12%), NMBZ (11%) and OK Zim (7%).

On the other hand declines were recorded in Barclays (-15%), Innscor (-14%) and Powerspeed (-7%). Turnover was little changed irrespective of the fact that the week was a day short due to the 31st of July 2013 being an election date. Traded vale was 7% down to USD 4.9m with foreign participation dominating both the sell and buy side.

The harmonised election results indicate that Zanu-PF won 158 seats of the 210 parliamentary seats, giving it a two-thirds majority in the legislature. MDC-T gained only 50 seats and 2 seats we taken by independent candidates.

The Zanu-PF Presidential candidate R.G. Mugabe was declared the winner with 2,110,434 votes (61.09%) and his nearest rival M.R. Tsvangirai on 1,172,344 votes (33.94%). Although the elections has been declared free and fair by the majority of the African countries including SADC and the African Union (AU), the MDC-T, Australia, Britain as well as USA are reported to have said that they were not free and fair.

Despite the disagreements the parties generally agree that the elections were held in a peaceful environment.

The MDC-T is reported to be challenging the results in the Constitutional Court (Con Court) in which it has 7 days within which to file the case. The ruling from the Con Court is then expected within 2-3 days. This implies that swearing in of the President may have to wait until probably 16 August 2013.
- Imara Zim Stockbrokers

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