Full bench to rule on Zimbabwe election

Zimbabwe’s chief justice‚ Luke Malaba, on Wednesday said that the judgment on the country’s disputed presidential elections would be handed down on Friday at 2pm.

Malaba will be sitting with a full bench of nine judges.

The dispute was heard on Wednesday. MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa is challenging the outcome of the election and on August 10 brought an election petition seeking that the results be set aside.

The incumbent‚ President Emmerson Mnangagwa‚ was declared winner of the poll with 50.8% of the vote.

Chamisa received 44.3% of the vote. The top court has 14 days by law to make a ruling on the election.

The last day for this provision is this Friday.

The MDC Alliance’s legal representative‚ Thabani Mpofu‚ in his submissions asked that the court nullify the result based on inflation of numbers in Mnangagwa’s favour‚ ghost voters and a faulty voters’ roll.

The main premise of his argument was that “the numbers don’t lie” and that there was an inconsistency in the tally between the votes cast and the number of registered voters.

Mpofu further claimed that in 16 constituencies‚ the results given by the electoral commission were starkly similar.

Meanwhile, police have arrested a critic of Mnangagwa on charges of insulting the president in a Facebook post.

Munyaradzi Shoko was held after he posted statements on Facebook saying the president’s name was “generally associated with evil and devilish deeds”. –