Timba in court over Mt Pleasant result
By Nomalanga Moyo
Outgoing Mt Pleasant MP Jameson Timba has approached the High Court seeking access to voting records, as he launches his fight to have the results of the recent election annulled.
Timba’s application, the first of many other constituency appeals planned by the MDC-T, is set to be heard this Wednesday by High Court Judge Joseph Mafusire.
In court papers filed by lawyer Selby Hwacha, Timba says he wants access to the records in order to glean proof that the poll outcome was manipulated.
Timba argues that the recent poll was full of irregularities which justified further scrutiny of the material being kept by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
Some of the anomalies include the inconsistent constituency results announced by ZEC, as well as the issue of the voters’ roll – which Timba says he could not audit as only a hard copy was only given to him on the afternoon of voting day.
Timba told SW Radio Africa on Monday that his court petition is in two parts: “The first involves requesting a court order to gain access to all voting material used in the Mt Pleasant Constituency, including the voters’ roll, the list of all people who voted, including those who used voting slips.
“Then on Monday, August 19th, I will lodge another petition to have the (Mt Pleasant) constituency results and those of the whole election itself, set aside for various irregularities observed before and during the election,” he explained.
In his court petition, Timba says ZEC issued conflicting results of its official results for Mt Pleasant. “At constituency centre, ZEC announced 18,092 valid votes were cast, then at the national command centre, announced only 12,165 valid votes were cast.
“Figures for candidates were very different too. Applicant won 6,893 votes for himself and his party-list candidates in the first announcement, but only 3,817 votes, according to the next one. It is important that the correct voting figures for Mt Pleasant election be established and be made known to all.”
Timba alleged that two voters’ rolls were used in Mt Pleasant, and he could not verify if the roll he received on elections day, was the one used at polling stations.
He further claimed that the constituency’s boundaries were altered, and voter registration slips and special voting forms abused to allow multiple voting.
“Police printed ballots for special votes, then illegally controlled who was allowed to vote in the special voting at Mt Pleasant Hall over the period 14 to 16 July, in breach of the Act,” Timba said.
Part of Timba’s evidence, that people from outside his Mt Pleasant Constituency were bused in to vote in favour of ZANU PF, includes a video that has been widely circulated on the internet.
In the video, MDC-T official Tendai Biti is seen querying the presence of the clean-shaven police recruits who had arrived in a bus to vote at one of the constituency polling stations.
However assistant police commissioner Charity Charamba dismissed concerns that the police recruits who voted in Mount Pleasant did so illegally as part of ZANU PF’s rigging machinery.
Charamba said reports of vote rigging were “baseless” and “hallucinations”, adding that “there is nothing amiss in taking police recruits in a bus from Morris Deport to their relevant wards,” the Daily News newspaper reported Wednesday.
Timba lost the seat to ZANU PF’s Jaison Passade, in an election widely condemned as chaotic and undemocratic. ZEC Commissioner Mkhululi Nyathi resigned in protest at what he implied was the unprofessional manner in which the elections had been conducted.
In a related case, MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai filed two court applications Friday, also seeking to force ZEC to release election records, which he says will prove that widespread rigging occurred. All the petitions will be heard Wednesday morning. SW Radio Africa
