Zim election verdict today

TENSION: ‘PRESIDENT, VICE-PRESIDENT AT ODDS’

Chamisa challenging July 30 election results and Mnangagwa’s victory.

The Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe said it will rule today after hearing the main opposition party’s challenge to the results of last month’s presidential election, the first without long-time leader Robert Mugabe on the ballot.

Police barricaded streets in the capital Harare on Wednesday amid high tensions over the case which will decide if the victory of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former Mugabe enforcer, is valid, Reuters reported.

Zanu-PF’s secretary for legal affairs, Paul Mangwana, has defended the government’s decision to bar Nelson Chamisa’s South African lawyers entrance to the court when proceedings first began on Wednesday.

Chamisa is challenging the July 30 election results and Mnangagwa’s victory.

“In order for you to work in another country, you need to comply with the laws of that country,” Pindula News yesterday reported Mangwana as saying.

Mangwana said the South African team lacked work permits. “It’s not deliberate for the government to stop them from working in this country. There is no automatic right of audience in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).”

The lawyers were later allowed in after intense negotiations with the judicial authorities.

The Africa Judges and Jurists Forum (AJJF) had dispatched senior judges and jurists to observe the court challenge.

Arnold Tsunga, Africa director at International Commission of Jurists, disclosed that three jurists had already been accredited to observe Chamisa’s presidential petition, NewsDay reported.

“The Africa Judges and Jurists Forum will be represented by secretary-general Martin Masiga from Uganda, Retired chief justice Earnest Sakala of Zambia and Justice Isaac Lenaola from the Supreme Court of Kenya,” Tsunga said.

The International Court of Jurists and the AJJF work closely together and the former has lent its support to the AJJF mission in Zimbabwe.

The AJJF is based in South Africa and was formed by African judges and jurists to promote the rule of law and development in the SADC region.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that a heated argument allegedly broke out in Mnangagwa’s offices over who was in charge of national security, according to people with direct knowledge. At one point, Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga apparently reminded Mnangagwa that it was he who had installed him in power after last year’s coup against Mugabe. – ANA