Elections ruling will open floodgates

By Moses Chamboko

Given the dichotomy of our political landscape and polarisation of the nation which worsened in the last decade, mixed reactions to the precedential elections judgement by the Constitutional Court were to be expected.

It would have been most surprising if Jonathan Moyo was not among the first to comment. As for Lovemore Madhuku, despite his intelligence and bravery, he has increasingly become a solitary voice seemingly suffering from an identity crisis.

While the true identity and motive of Jealousy Mawarire’s sponsors can be a matter for another day, what’s most significant is that he is a citizen of Zimbabwe who approached a Zimbabwean court with a case whose outcome is now in the public domain. The case put to bed any debate around June 29.

Disregarding political considerations or implications, every law-abiding Zimbabweans must be encouraged by this historic court ruling as it sets a precedent that the Constitutional Court will be called upon to reflect on as well as uphold in future.

The nation now expects nothing short of consistency from the same court, which consistency must entail an equal degree of expediency, impartiality and professionalism.

We have had cases sitting in our courts for many years, some of them pretty urgent, without any determination or hearing. Some have been postponed on several occasions for reasons that were not at all convincing.

For nearly five years, several constituencies have gone without parliamentary representation despite cases of by-elections brought before the courts. With this ruling, we hope this will now be a matter for historians.

President Mugabe has since declared that he will abide by the court ruling. This is both fascinating and encouraging. Fascinating in that he is the same leader whose party has disregarded court rulings in the past, encouraging in that we now expect all court rulings to be abided by in future.

Nobody has the right to pick and choose which rulings to abide by and which ones to disregard. Having said that, proclamation of the election date before the next Sadc summit in Mozambique is a very remote possibility. There are critical stakeholders to our crisis who cannot simply be wished away.

The new constitution is unequivocal on the role and conduct of members of the security services. They have to be apolitical, professional and non-partisan. It goes further to say they cannot hold any position in any political party.

Using Mawarire’s case as reference, ordinary Zimbabweans can now approach the Constitutional Court for redress should they know of any security services officer who is also an active member of a political party.

Those who sit in the Politburo or Central Committee or wish to contest the next elections must think seriously about their positions. Any general making inappropriate comments or pronouncements of a political nature must be arraigned before the Constitutional Court.

There is need to uphold the supreme law of the land.

The new constitution is also very clear on the process for voter registration. Anything short of the mandatory 30-day registration requirement must be challenged at the Constitutional Court.

The process has to be transparent. Should we continue to receive hate speech and inflammatory reporting from state media, we now have the determination to seek redress in court. For this constitution to work, every Zimbabwean must make an effort to enforce it.

Now that the court has virtually opened floodgates through Mawarire’s case, we don’t want to hear baby cries of “we are understaffed” in future. All deserving cases must be treated with the same measure of urgency.

With the time frame for elections legally determined, the nation curiously waits to see if indeed ZANU PF’s call for early elections was genuine. Their preparedness will be tested in the coming days.

Completing the ongoing restructuring exercise, drafting rules for primary elections and agreeing on them, holding the primaries, healing the wounds, moving on to campaigning, all in less than eight weeks, will be a very interesting development. Let’s see who is going to be under pressure.

Moses Chamboko writes in his personal capacity. He can be contacted at [email protected]