Zimbabwe's election race went into high gear on Thursday after the nomination court gave the green light to 23 presidential candidates to take part in the July 30 general elections.
This will be the country's first election since independence in 1980 in which long-time president Robert Mugabe will not appear on the ballot paper.
Incumbent President Emmerson Mnangagwa's closest rival is considered to be MDC Alliance head Nelson Chamisa. The MDC Alliance consists of seven opposition parties.
The increase in the number of presidential candidates - which include three women and one independent candidate - was in part fuelled by cracks that have emerged in the main rival political parties, Zanu-PF and the MDC, according to political observers.Some presidential candidates - such as musician Bryn Taurai Mteki, who used to be Mugabe's praise singer - and other relative unknowns, are thought to be in the race mainly because Mugabe is gone.
"The post-Mugabe era makes current incumbents look so ordinary that they can be challenged and some eccentrics want to disrupt the system," said political commentator Innocent Batsani Ncube, of research university Royal Holloway, University of London.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said on Friday that the voters' roll would be available for inspection and electronic copies would be made available to all candidates taking part in the general elections...