{"id":65659,"date":"2015-11-25T11:19:11","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T17:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=65659"},"modified":"2015-11-25T11:19:11","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T17:19:11","slug":"cheating-accusations-mar-zimbabwes-mister-ugly-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/11\/25\/cheating-accusations-mar-zimbabwes-mister-ugly-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheating accusations mar Zimbabwe\u2019s \u2018Mister Ugly\u2019 contest"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Maison<\/a>
Maison Sere was named winner of the annual competition in Harare, beating 34 other contestants. (Screengrab from Mirror Online’<\/a>s video)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

HARARE, Zimbabwe \u2013 Pageant judges have crowned a new winner of Zimbabwe\u2019s 4th annual \u201cMister Ugly\u201d contest, upsetting supporters of the crowd favorite who called the winner too handsome and prompting rioting at the event.<\/p>\n

Judges on Saturday chose 42-year-old Mison Sere, citing his numerous missing front teeth and a wide range of grotesque facial expressions, over William Masvinu, who had held the title since 2012.<\/p>\n

Masvinu and his supporters mobbed the judges upon hearing their decision, claiming that Sere was \u201ctoo handsome\u201d to win and his ugliness wasn\u2019t natural since it was based on missing teeth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am naturally ugly. He is not. He is ugly only when he opens his mouth,\u201d maintained Masvinu, gesturing at his rival.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo we have to lose our teeth to win? This is cheating,\u201d shouted another contestant, Patrick Mupereki. While no one was injured, there was a great deal of pushing and shoving as the results were announced and insults were hurled at the judges.<\/p>\n

Beauty pageants are popular in this southern African country and even though they are typically for women, scandal is not unusual. Earlier this year, Miss Zimbabwe winner Emily Kachote faced a backlash on social media, with Zimbabweans calling her ugly and undeserving of the crown.<\/p>\n

She was later forced to step down when just two weeks into her reign, images surfaced of her posing nude \u2013 which incidentally also brought down her predecessor.<\/p>\n

Sere dismissed the critics as just \u201csore losers\u201d as he pocketed the $500 in winnings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey should just accept that I am uglier than them,\u201d he said. \u201cI hope to get a TV contract. I already moved around schools performing and showcasing my ugliness so this is a chance to make it on TV.\u201d<\/p>\n

The complaints of Masvinu and the other contestants may have a degree of validity. Organizers had previously announced that disabilities or enhancements would not be accepted in the competition which should focus on \u201cnatural ugliness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pageant organizer David Machowa originally told the Associated Press that he began the contest to remove the stigma of ugliness. \u201cLooks are God given. We should all be proud of who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pageant involved three rounds of modelling, with individual and group struts down a catwalk of a Harare nightclub.<\/p>\n

\u201cSere made tremendous effort to enhance his ugliness by pulling facial stunts,\u201d said judge Abigail Mataranyika, a university student. \u201cMasvinu thought he is so ugly that he didn\u2019t need to try hard. That cost him the crown.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s competition attracted a record number of 36 entries, compared to just five in 2012 when Masvinu began his winning streak. The competition was suspended in 2014 due to a lack of sponsorship, but this year the owners of a string of Harare nightclubs donated $1,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HARARE, Zimbabwe \u2013 Pageant judges have crowned a new winner of Zimbabwe\u2019s 4th annual \u201cMister Ugly\u201d contest, upsetting supporters of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":65660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-65659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fashion-and-beauty","tag-original","mauthors-farai-mutsaka","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}