Medics attend to people injured in an explosion during a rally by Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe June 23, 2018. Tafadzwa Ufumeli/via REUTERS

Several Zimbabwean presidential candidates and political parties condemned the assassination attempt over the weekend on Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa and signed an agreement to have a peaceful campaign ahead of elections at the end of July.zimab

Mnangagwa was speaking at his first rally in the second city of Bulawayo, an opposition stronghold where the ruling ZANU-PF has not won in national elections since 2000. Image courtesy: Reuters

Zimbabwe’s opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa, left, of the Movement for Democratic Change speaks at a news conference. Picture: ReutersNeither Mnangagwa nor Nelson Chamisa, the leader of the biggest opposition party, the MDC, attended the meeting but their representatives signed the agreement, which was drafted by the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission.

There are 23 candidates standing for president in the July 30 elections, the first without former president Robert Mugabe since independence in 1980.

The explosion at the end of Mnangagwa’s rally in Zimbabwe’s second largest city, Bulawayo, on Saturday killed two of the president’s aides and was the first serious violence in the current election campaign.