MDC-T’s BVR case deferred
THE High Court has postponed to Thursday the hearing of the MDC-T’s application challenging President Mugabe’s proclamation of biometric voter registration (BVR) dates.
The hearing should have been heard yesterday, but Government was not ready to argue the matter.
The State applied for a postponement.
Justice Davison Moses Foroma, who is presiding over the case, granted the application to allow lawyers representing President Mugabe and ZEC to file their responses.
MDC-T secretary-general Mr Douglas Mwonzora confirmed the development.
“The matter has been postponed to Thursday because the Government lawyers are not ready to argue the matter.
“They wanted time to study the case and file their responses,” said Mr Mwonzora.
The MDC-T on Tuesday last week launched an urgent chamber application seeking to stop President Mugabe from proclaiming the dates of voter registration.
Through Proclamation No. 6 of 2017, President Mugabe declared that the BVR process would run from September 14 to January 15 next year.
The opposition political party claimed time was inadequate to have the new voter registration system in operation.
In its application, the MDC-T claims that President Mugabe should not have proclaimed voter registration dates before ZEC procured BVR servers to store the data.
In his affidavit, MDC-T secretary-general Mr Mwonzora said ZEC informed a high-level political platform involving MDC-T and other political parties that 400 electoral biometric kits for training purposes had been procured.
According to the party, it was expected that a further 2 600 kits would be procured for the actual new voter registration process countrywide.
Mr Mwonzora further argued the date fixed to commence new voter registration was highly “ambitious and untenable”.
The MDC-T also raised concerns over the custody, location of servers, transmission of data from polling station to district servers and national servers and access of political parties to inspect the servers before information is stored in the servers.
The President said he proclaimed the date for the commencement of voter registration on the advice of ZEC.
He said as Government, they were guided by the Constitution and ZEC on how elections are to be run in the country.
The President urged all people aged 18 and above to register at centres that will be established.
ZEC chairperson Justice Rita Makarau stated the President’s proclamation setting dates for the start of voter registration was meant to give legal effect to the process.