HARARE - High Court judge George Chiweshe has deferred a ruling on Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC party application to prevent a special vote by security and electoral officers to Wednesday. The judge president deferred the case to pave way for negotiations between the parties involved. The urgent chamber application filed last Friday cites Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec), co-ministers of Home Affairs Theresa Makone and Kembo Mohadi, police chief Augustine Chihuri and Finance minister Tendai Biti as respondents. Lawyer Harrison Nkomo told the Daily News the case was heard in chambers and postponed. “There are very sensitive negotiations going on between MDC and Zec lawyers to reach an amicable agreement),” Nkomo said. “The negotiations are not for public consumption, so the matter was deferred to Wednesday.” Morgan Komichi, MDC deputy national chairman, said in the application, that the number of officers who applied to participate in the special voting exercise had been vastly inflated. Komichi asked the High Court to stop the special two-day vote, saying the 69 000 police officers who applied to vote on Sunday and yesterday were way above the 44 133 officers shown on a ministry of Finance salary schedule for the whole country. “Applicants have it on good authority that 1st respondent (Zec) intends to allow 69 222 persons to vote via the special ballot yet the official number of persons under 3rd respondent’s (Chihuri) command does not exceed 44 113 in terms of information from 2nd respondent (Makone and Mohadi), who is their employer and 4th respondent (Biti) who is the minister of Finance,” says Komichi in his application. Komichi said Chihuri had refused to explain the disparities, despite an MDC request. In the alternative, Komichi said the court is requested to direct Zec to set up mechanisms by which the special voting exercise shall be transparent. Meanwhile the vote by security and electoral officials continued on Monday, with the Zimbabwe Election Support Unit (Zesn) saying the chaotic scenes that blighted the two-day special vote was a harbinger of worse things to come in the July 31 harmonised elections unless government avails resources to the Zec. Zesn is a civic society organisation that monitors electoral processes in the country. Solomon Zwana, Zesn board chairperson, expressed concern with “several incidents of intimidation and arrests of human rights campaigners” who were involved in civic voter education. “We are concerned that with only 16 days to the harmonised elections, this shoddy state of affairs could impact on Zec’s preparedness to fully manage the election process on July 31,” Zwana said. “We urge that adequate resources are availed to Zec to ensure that the organisation carries its constitutionally mandated duties.” Zec, an independent commission responsible for running and conducting electoral processes in the country, has been crippled by a lack of funding amid revelations from the Finance ministry that government does not have the resources to fund elections. Zec’s ill-preparedness for the watershed elections came to the fore, as police officers who constituted the majority of those who have applied for special voting, were either turned away or found their names absent from the register as logistical challenges blighted the poll. Questions have been raised over Zec’s preparedness for polls that will involve 6,2 million people when the body failed to handle less than 100 000 people. Zesn’s observers also noted that some senior police officers were bringing different versions of the voters roll, including handwritten one, which was inconsistent with the national roll.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Jul 2013 08:12:42 +0000
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