LIVE: Zimbabwe election court challenge

By Farai Mutsaka

Harare was under tight security Wednesday as the Constitutional Court began to hear the main opposition party’s challenge to the results of last month’s historic presidential election.

Police barricaded the streets around the court in central Harare amid high tensions over the crucial case which will decide if President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s election victory is valid.

The opposition claims the vote had “gross mathematical errors” and it seeks a fresh election or a declaration that its candidate Nelson Chamisa is the winner of the July 30 vote.

*The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission declared Mnangagwa narrowly won with 50.8 percent of the vote, avoiding a runoff. Chamisa received 44.3 percent, the commission said.

“It’s like a kid was playing with the figures,” a lawyer for the opposition, Thabani Mpofu, told the court. He alleged that 16 polling stations had identical results and that “massive doctoring” took place.

Mpofu told the court the electoral commission had produced three sets of presidential vote results, including one in court papers where the commission revised downwards Mnangagwa’s win down to 50.67 percent.

The commission attributed that to an “error” but argued it was not significant enough to invalidate the win.

Mpofu said that in all Chamisa could have lost more than 69,000 votes, well over the 31,000 votes that allowed Mnangagwa to avoid a runoff election.

“On that basis a runoff is unavoidable,” Mpofu said.

Chief Justice Luke Malaba, however, pressed the opposition for the original election results forms to back up their allegations: “We cannot act on generalities.”

“The jurisprudential and political burden that weighs heavily on the shoulders of each of the Constitutional Court judges today is that they are about to adjudicate by far the most important case of their legal careers,” Welshman Ncube, a Chamisa ally and constitutional lawyer wrote on Twitter.

Before the hearing started at around 10 a.m. (0800 GMT), Chamisa’s lawyers accused Zimbabwe’s Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi of refusing to issue temporary work permits to three South African members of their team.

The judges let the three keep working in the team in court. Ziyambi declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.

Mnangagwa and the electoral commission argue the opposition’s application should be dismissed on a technicality, saying it was filed too late and that papers were not properly served on respondents.

In his affidavit, Mnangagwa argues the court should not hear Chamisa’a application because he “scandalized” the court by claiming during political rallies that the judiciary was biased toward the ruling party, ZANU-PF.

The case was being televised live by the state broadcaster, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, but the courts ruled that the proceedings could not be livestreamed on social media. Journalists and others accredited by the court were following proceedings from a giant television screen on the court premises, but they were not permitted to carry mobile phones or laptops.

Chamisa’s lawyers in court said they had not been allowed to bring in electronic gadgets, either.

According to Veritas, a legal think tank based in Harare, the court can declare a winner or invalidate the election and call for a fresh election or make any other order it considers “just and appropriate.”

If the court upholds Mnangagwa’s win the inauguration would take place within 48 hours.

This is not the first time the opposition has challenged election results in court. Following the 2013 presidential election, then main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai filed a challenge but later withdrew it, claiming he would not get a fair hearing. The court declined his withdrawal and proceeded to rule on the case in favor of Mugabe. Associated Press