Tsvangirai drops court case: he MDC-T President Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai has withdrawn his presidential election challenge at the Constitutional Court hours before the matter was slated to be heard before the court. The MDC-T lawyer Chris Mhike served the withdrawal affidavits at the ConCourt in Harare this evening. The MDC-T Leader Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai filed his notice of withdrawal at the Constitutional Court at exactly 17:25 this Friday evening. ZBC News understands that Mr. Tsvangirai cited negative publicity by the state media, the presence of the chief justice at the national shrine on Heroes day and the unavailability of ballot material as the reasons for the withdrawal. Earlier during a press conference held at the MDC-T’s Harvest House headquarters, the party’s national spokesperson Mr. Douglas Mwonzora had mulled pulling out citing grievances against the electoral court, the Attorney-General and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. The Constitutional Court has deferred proceedings on the election petition to Monday the 19th of August at 10 am. According to President Robert Mugabe’s legal representative in the matter, advocate Fred Gijima, who had already filed heads of argument on behalf of his client, the pullout by the MDC-T is unprocedural and null and void as legally such serious constitutional matters can only be withdrawn before the court itself and not prior to proceedings. Legal analysts have described the last minute pullout by the MDC-T premier as being influenced by a plot to attempt to smuggle its grievances to the SADC summit taking place this weekend in Malawi since the regional body has always made it clear that it doest not interfere with matters before the courts. Meanwhile the electoral court has dismissed with costs the matter pitying former legislator for Mt. Pleasant Jameson Timba versus the ZEC Chief Elections officer Mr Lovemore Sekeramayi. Timba was challenging the victory by incoming legislator Jason Passadi. Timba’s request for a recount of ballots in the constituency has been dismissed by the Electoral Court on the basis of lack of merit.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 19:06:13 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015