Biti claims foreigners voted in Zim election

The Secretary General of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Tendai Biti, claims some of the youths who voted in the Mt Pleasant constituency during last year’s harmonised elections might have been from West Africa. 

The former Finance Minister was testifying in an election petition brought by MDC-T’s losing candidate, Mr Jameson Timba, who is seeking to reverse Jason Passade’s controversial victory in Mt Pleasant.

Passade, who contested on a Zanu-PF ticket, polled 7 945 against Mr Timba’s 3 817 in Mt Pleasant. But Biti said that on voting day, he went to a polling station at the corner of Churchill and Hellier roads in Mt Pleasant and found two queues.

“(The) people in the queue immediately struck me, my Lord. They were youthful, whose ages ranged from 15 to 19 and clean-shaven … what we call in Shona mazuda. Their clothes were old-fashioned, rustic or archaic so to speak.”

“Even their skin texture was of West Africa, they were very dark, this struck me, my Lord.”

Justice Chinembiri Bhunu asked Mr Biti if he had inquired about their nationality, to which he responded: “I have no evidence, but I don’t believe these people were Zimbabweans.”

He said when he tried to engage them in a conversation in Shona and English they remained mute and could not name a single street in Mt Pleasant.

Mr Biti said he went into two Zupco buses parked near the polling station and tried to talk to the occupants, who again allegedly did not respond and instead  fled while shielding their faces.

“I got into the bus. I saw blankets, shopping bags that are normally used by cross-borders, chicken carcasses and empty Chicken Inn fast food boxes strewn everywhere in one of the buses,” he said.