MDC-Alliance files papers

LAWYERS representing MDC-Alliance leader Mr Nelson Chamisa yesterday filed answering affidavits and heads of arguments at the Constitutional Court as the ongoing legal challenge to President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s electoral victory enters the home stretch.

The President-elect’s lawyers will file their final papers tomorrow ahead of a sitting of the full nine-judge Constitutional Court bench on Wednesday.

Speaking to journalists after filing the papers, MDC-Alliance legal representative Mr Sylvester Hashiti said: “We have filed our detailed heads of arguments addressing all points of all that they (President Mnangagwa’s legal team) raised. We have also filed replying affidavits to reply to what their purported experts have said.”

Zanu-PF Secretary for Legal Affairs Cde Paul Mangwana said they would file their opposing papers tomorrow as instructed by the Constitutional Court.

“Our main line of argument is that their application is attempting to substitute votes that were cast through a scientific formula which they are positing. Elections are won and lost on the basis of votes.

“You don’t determine an electoral output through some scientific formulas. At law we have the best evidence and in this case, the best evidence in this case comes from the ballots.”

Cde Mangwana said they would also argue for the case to be dismissed on a technicality over late submissions, before the merits of the case are heard.

He said the MDC-Alliance failed to serve President Mnangagwa on time, something Mr Hashiti disputes.