Presidential election con court verdict: Chamisa vs Mnangagwa-ZEC..Petition results today

Zwnews Chief Correspondent

HARARE: The Zimbabwe Con Court will today, Friday, 24 August 2018,  deliver a ruling in a case in which MDC Alliance leader Mr Nelson Chamisa is challenging President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s victory in the July 30 harmonised elections.

Chief Justice Luke Malaba, sitting with eight other judges of the Constitutional Court, reserved judgment after hearing arguments from all the parties involved in the matter.

The verdict of Zimbabwe’s much awaited presidential court case is likely be based on technicalities after it was argued that the applicant MDC-Alliance president Nelson Chamisa lacked primary evidence.

Although the Alliance leader had no primary evidence, their heads of arguments was convincing. Chamisa’s chief legal counsellor Thabani Mpofu, despite lack of primary evidence managed to give Zimbabwe Electoral Commission a torrid time, and exposed ZEC’s flaws, basing his arguments the commission’s own figures.

Mpofu  laid it bare before the court that the whole election process was ill managed to give Zimbabwe president-elect Emmerson Mnangagwa a win.

At the same time, ZEC’s revision of president Mnangagwa’s win downwards from the initial 50.8 technically was an admission of guilt according to MDC-Alliance president Nelson Chamisa’s legal counsel. The judges never grilled them to explain why there was a lot of irregularities concerning the figures. Malaba let them get away with murder.

Mpofu told the court that ZEC’s changing of the results three times was unacceptable. The larger part of Chamisa’s case was based on the shortcomings of ZEC.

On the other hand, Mnangagwa’s lawyers whom the bench seemed to have a soft spot with, also based their defense on technicalities as well, as they tried to evade the issues raised by the applicant’s lawyers.

In that regard, a re-run, though unlikely, would be a fairer verdict, as both Chamisa, Mnangagwa, and ZEC had their own technical flaws. ZEC did not provide evidence that some voters chose to vote only in the presidential and not in the parliamentary, nor did it explain the mis-match of the figures.

According to the law any voter who votes in only one or two from the three ballots provided is recorded. Malaba never demanded that data from ZEC.

Based on what has been put on the table, it is  hard to maintain Mnangagwa’s win, while at the same time it is also hard to declare Chamisa the winner.

The verdict set for tomorrow is more on technicalities than anything else. zwnews