By Lance Guma
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HARARE – Lawyers representing the MDC-T led by Morgan Tsvangirai on Friday filed a court application challenging the controversial July 31 election which gave 89 year old Zimbabwe tyrant President Robert Mugabe another 5 years in office.
Outside the recently formed Constitutional Court building MDC-T spokesman Douglas Mwonzora told journalists “the prayer that we seek is that this election be declared null and void and also that a fresh election be held within 60 days.”
“We are going to submit good evidence in our view. Some of the evidence is going to be oral evidence,” said Mwonzora.
“The person on trial is not the Movement for Democratic Change. The person on trial is Mr Mugabe and his government. It’s also the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and, I dare say, the judicial system of Zimbabwe.”
The MDC-T will raise issues of a skewed voter registration exercise, a doctored voters’ roll which was kept secret, overprinting of ballot papers (more than 35%), use of fake ink and double voting by Zanu PF supporters.
No UV lamps were used to detect removal of visible ink that allowed double voting, use of fake registration slips obtained from Zanu PF officials, high number of assisted voters, and bussing in of people from other constituencies.
Zanu PF threatened to evict resettled families, used soldiers to intimidate villagers, traditional leaders to force bloc voting, abused and monopolised the state media and the chaotic special vote allowed double voting of its supporters.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), dominated by Mugabe apologists and former state security operatives, declared Mugabe the winner with 61 per cent of the vote in last week’s election, against Tsvangirai with 34 per cent.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) who brokered a power sharing deal in 2008 after Mugabe lost elections have called this year’s “free and peaceful” but have avoided saying the election was fair.
The MDC-T has demanded a forensic audit of the electoral processes in particular the voters’ roll, the ballot papers, where they were printed, the special vote; voter displacement and voter registration certificates.
The party said it is determined to pursue all peaceful, legal, political, constitutional and diplomatic remedies to resolve the current crisis and once all the remedies have been exhausted, Zimbabweans should be allowed a fresh opportunity to freely and fairly elect a government of their choice.
The smaller MDC led by Welshman Ncube issued a statement saying “having considered all available options” it “has opted to refrain from taking the disputes to court” because “taking this matter to court will be akin to going to Robert Mugabe and asking him to reverse his ‘victory’.
In an interview with Nehanda Radio political commentator Sanderson Makombe disagreed and said “court petitions serve not just seeking the nullification of an electoral result. Crucially it affords the petitioner an opportunity to examine, inspect and audit all voting material used.”
“It is the only public and official fora where evidence of rigging can be unearthed and presented to court. Making allegations of rigging without substantiating such allegations with tangible evidence does not nor serve an applicant. For example multiple voting using same identity is easily unmasked by inspecting voters rolls used in that constituency.
“It is very unfortunate that precedent has demonstrated that previous court applications have yielded nothing to the petitioner but in this case the focus should not be in anticipating positive judgements but in understanding how the grand theft was instituted and the extent and methods of the rigging scheme.
“It should be noted that the new constitution has provisions for speedy resolution of election disputes through electoral courts as witnessed just after party primaries when the courts were asked to adjudicate on whether some independent candidates should carry their former party’s logos,” Makombe said.
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