CHAMISA CHALLENGES ELECTION RESULT IN COURT

HARARE - Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader, Nel- Nel son ha isa filed a on- on stitutional Court challenge yesterday against President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s election victory, he wrote on Twitter. “Our legal team successfully fifiled filed our court pa papers. We have a good case and cause ,” Chamisa tweeted. The MDC party alleges that the vote re result was rigged and Pres President Mnan Mnan- gagwa's narrow victory was due to a falsified vote count in Zimbabwe s first election since the end of obert Mugabe's rule. Mnangagwa, who is seeking to reverse Zimbabwe's economic isolation and attract desperately needed foreign investment, had vowed the elections would turn a page on Mugabe's repressive 37-year rule. Mnangagwa of the ruling Zanu-PF party won the presidential race with . percent of the vote - just enough to avoid a run-off against the MDC s Chamisa, who scored 44.3 pe rcent. Meanwhile in Washington, US resident Donald Trump has signed into law a bill that imposes tough new conditions that have to be met in Zimbabwe before sanctions are lifted. resident Mnangagwa has said that his country is open for business, but this new law - the Zimbabwe Democracy and conomic ecov- ery Amendment Act - could scupper those plans as far as the US is concerned. Official results show that Mnangagwa won last month's presidential election but the opposition alleges that the figures were manipulated. The US law says that for sanctions to end the election has to be "widely accepted as free and fair." One condition mentioned is that the army has to "respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of all persons and to be nonpartisan in character." Meanwhile, lawyers for opposition figure Biti yesterday asked judges to throw out charges against him over the protests against alleged election fraud, in a case raising further international concern about the new government.