LOSING Mt Pleasant MDC-T candidate Jameson Timba has filed a court application seeking to have the election results for the constituency set aside.
EVERSON MUSHAVA
Timba lost the seat to Zanu PF’s Jaison Passade in the July 31 general polls. He becomes the first losing MDC-T parliamentary candidate to challenge the poll results.
In his application to be heard this Wednesday before High Court judge Justice Joseph Mafusire, Timba is demanding to have access to the voting material to adduce evidence of alleged rigging for his petition.
Any petition challenging the House of Assembly results should be lodged within 14 days from the day the national assembly results were announced.
According to court papers, Timba cited several irregularities that he claimed gave him justification to approach the court to have access to the voting material from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec).
“Firstly, his application shows that Zec issued conflicting announcements of its official results for Mt Pleasant election,” Selby Hwacha, Timba’s lawyer, said in the court application papers.
“At constituency centre, it (Zec) announced 18 092 valid votes were cast, then at the national command centre (broadcast live nationally and internationally, and repeated by other media) announced only 12 165 valid votes were cast.
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“Figures for candidates were very different too. Applicant won 6 893 votes for himself and his party-list candidates in the first announcement, but only 3 817 votes, according to the next one. It is important that the correct voting figures for Mt Pleasant election be established and be made known to all.”
Timba alleges that two voters’ rolls were used in Mt Pleasant, and he was not given a chance to verify if the one given to him was the one used at polling stations on voting day.
He claimed he was only given a 2000 voters’ roll on July 31 in the afternoon.
Boundaries of the Mt Pleasant constituency, Timba claimed, had also been altered.
He further claimed that the use of voter registration slips was abused to allow multiple voting, while he has video recordings of people being bussed to vote in the constituency.
In his founding affidavit, Timba said more than 1 780 unused Special Voting (SV2) forms were sent to his constituency and many people were allowed to vote on July 31 after producing these forms.
“Police printed ballots for special votes, then illegally controlled who was allowed to vote in the special voting at Mt Pleasant Hall over the period 14 to 16 July, in breach of the Act,” Timba said.
