MDC Alliance presidential candidate, Nelson Chamisa, who is challenging the election result in which he lost to Zanu PF leader, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has unlimited options at his disposal to overturn the disputed electoral result, political analyst, Brian Kagoro has said.
By Tinotenda Munyukwi
Speaking in Harare yesterday at an Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) Conversations function, Kagoro said there was no need to criticise Chamisa’s decision to approach the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) to challenge the presidential poll result because constitutionally any aggrieved candidate is entitled to such.
“In reality, a candidate who is aggrieved, who is unhappy with an electoral process and an outcome is entitled to delegitimise it or to have it nullified through the court of law,” he said.
“The process at the moment is that a petition will be filed or has been filed and will have clear ground regarding the legitimacy of the election and its outcome.
“It will ask for specific relief, either to set aside of the declaration of Mnangagwa as the winner, but if the MDC [Alliance] is able to prove that Mnangagwa did not win, but actually Chamisa did win, then the remedy is not a rerun, but a declaration made with Chamisa as the winner.”
Last Friday, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) announced that Mnangagwa narrowly escaped a run off election by 0,8%, winning 50,8% of the votes ahead of his closest contender Chamisa, who had 44,4%.
But Chamisa insists he won the elections, and Zec announced a fake result.
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It is not clear when Chamisa will file his ConCourt challenge, although he is due to have done so by today.
National Patriotic Front spokesperson, Jealousy Mawarire said the elections were flawed.
“I think there are prospects, there are quite a lot of things that happened in this election that can be challenged and any fair court or sober minded judge will rule in favour of the opposition,” Mawarire said.
AMH chief content officer, Dumisani Muleya, who was one of the panellists, urged journalists to remain objective in their work and to uphold a high level of professionalism in order to avoid tainting their work with political bias especially on social media.
“Media houses have social media rules and regulations, what you can tweet and what you can’t, but those are not being adhered to,” he said.
“People don’t want to be professional and they don’t want to be ethical.”
AMH Conversations are held every Monday and Thursday, as they seek to provide thought leadership on public discourse in the country.
AMH publishes NewsDay, NewsDay Weekender, The Standard and the Zimbabwe Independent.
