Zimbabwe court refuses to delay July 31 election

The Zimbabwe Constitutional Court, led by a Mugabe ally on Thursday afternoon, threw out an application to extend the election date to August 14.

Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku and his fellow judges on the bench unanimously ruled that harmonised elections are to be held on July 31 in accordance with President Robert Mugabe’s unilateral proclamation.

“For the avoidance of doubt, elections should proceed on the 31st of July in terms of the proclamation by the president of Zimbabwe in compliance with the order of this court,” Chief Justice Chidyausiku said.

Chidyausiku declined to give reasons for the court’s unanimous rejection of the requests, lodged after the regional South African Development Community (SADC) said a delay was needed to lay the ground for a credible vote.

Despite the impression that both President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai had asked for the elections to be postponed, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa who had filed the appeal on behalf of the government had earlier told the court “I only came to court because SADC forced me”.

Pro-democracy activists however feel Mugabe and Zanu PF want to rush into an early election as a way of avoid implementing meaningful reforms that would curb their abuse of state institutions like the army, police, Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) and the state media.

More details later……………