A case is before the Supreme Court to remove 23 of those excluded from the ballot papers on February 3, with the February election scheduled for tomorrow.
The urgent chamber request made by the Central Electoral Commission and its interim Secretary-General, Singiso Chabangu, to remove the names of three members of Parliament and 20 councillors, recalled last November, from the ballot paper for the by-elections scheduled for 3 February 2024; The hearing and determination by the Harare High Court has been set for tomorrow, Wednesday 17 January 2024 at 10:00 am.
The three representatives are Amos Shibaya [former MP for Mkoba North]Sisyphus’ gift [former MP, Pelandaba-Tshabalala] and Stephen Chagwiza [former MP,
Goromonzi South]. A notable name among the 20 councilors is former Harare mayor, Ian Makone, who was a councilor for Ward 18 in the capital.
Pursuant to the Chamber’s urgent request, the 23 defendants illegally submitted their nomination papers to the Nomination Tribunal for the by-election scheduled for February 3, 2024, which was held on December 18, 2023, under the same ticket of the same political party that called them in the election. first place.
The defendants’ case is clearly weakened by the fact that there is already a Supreme Court ruling by Justice Nefer Katyo, which, on the basis of similar facts, struck the names of the removed MPs from the ballot paper for the by-election held on 9 December 2023.
Precisely because of this ruling, other Chamisa MPs and councilors are competing in the by-elections on 3 February 2024 as independent candidates.
The 23 chose to be stubborn. Well, be stubborn and find out.
Claims that the case set for tomorrow cannot proceed or is doomed to failure because of the appeal of Justice Katyo’s ruling in the Supreme Court are empty and sterile, firstly because there is in fact no valid appeal in the Supreme Court. Second, Judge Katyo’s declaratory order only affected the defendants in that particular case, because it was not of general application.
It is clear that the 23 defendants in the case scheduled for tomorrow stubbornly decided to contest under the ticket of the same party that summoned them to politics, only as a pointless political ploy to intimidate the party that summoned them, the Electoral Commission of Zimbabwe. [ZEC] And the courts.
Although they apparently succeeded in intimidating the Central Electoral Commission, they clearly did not succeed in doing the same to the party that summoned them; And there’s no chance in heaven that they can intimidate the court.
False bravado is of no use in legal matters.
Anyway, matters have come to a head, and the matter will be heard tomorrow, and it is up to the court to decide.
At the same time, there is no prize for guessing that if the respondents lose, despite the fact that their case is hopeless from the beginning, they will nevertheless go through their now predictable political dance with political claims that the judiciary has been captured blah blah blah.
This is the way things have become as Professor Jonathan Moyo writes on X
