Timba back to court to request inspection of voting material

By Tichaona Sibanda

The former MDC-T MP for Mount Pleasant, Jameson Timba, on Monday filed an urgent High court application seeking to have voting material in the constituency inspected. 

Timba’s initial application to have access to the July 31st material was dismissed by High court Judge Chinembiri Bhunu on a technicality. According to the judge, Timba had erred by petitioning the court to rule on the voting materials before he had filed his case against the results that he’s disputing.

The former legislator, who is the Foreign Affairs advisor to MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai, said he’s going back to court after Judge Bhunu ruled in his favour on another petition where he’s seeking the setting aside of election results in Mount Pleasant.

‘The Judge has ruled that I have good cause after I filed my petition to seek a re-run of the election in Mount Pleasant. The Judge said the petition should therefore proceed to trial.

‘So this is the stage where we are in now, there will be a full trial on elections in Mount Pleasant and as such the other petition is for me to extract the evidence that I require for my trial from ZEC.

“Remember ZEC (Zimbabwe Electoral Commission) filed opposing papers saying the material I wanted was mixed with papers for the presidential election and that it would be problematic for them to separate the material,’ Timba said.

He added: ‘This is the reason why I’ve gone back to court seeking to have those materials made available by ZEC.’

Timba lost the Mt Pleasant seat to Jason Passade of ZANU PF who got 7,920 votes compared to his 3,800. However the MDC claims most of those who voted for Passade were ZANU PF youth members from outside the borders of the constituency.

There is also a video of alleged vote rigging in Mt Pleasant filmed on the day of the election, showing youths disembarking from a bus that had travelled from distant areas in Manicaland province.

In the video, MDC-T Secretary-General Tendai Biti is seen confronting ZEC officials for address verification details of hundreds of ZANU PF youths bussed from Manicaland’s Honde Valley, using Zupco buses, to a Mt Pleasant polling station. A ZEC official fails to answer Biti’s queries while agreeing that the youths were clearly not on the voters’ roll. SW Radio Africa