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Judge to rule on Mpopoma by-election
By
Lindie Whiz
A BULAWAYO judge will rule Wednesday on an application by an aspiring
MP who wants a by-election in the Pelandaba-Mpopoma constituency to
be called promptly by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).
Justice Nicholas Ndou of the Electoral Court withheld judgment last Friday on the order sought by Job Sibanda, a lawyer running as an independent candidate.
Elections were not held in Pelandaba-Mpopoma, together with Redcliff and Gwanda North, following the death of opposition MDC candidates after the nomination court sitting for the March 29 general elections.
Sibanda states in his founding affidavit that after the Nomination Court sitting in February, and during the campaign period, he travelled the length and breadth of the constituency canvassing for votes and by the date of the election he had “done enough to win the parliamentary seat in my constituency".
Sibanda accused the Electoral Court of a "wilful flouting of the provisions of the Electoral Act” by delaying announcing a by-election.
ZEC lawyer George Chikumbirike, argued that the Chief Elections Officer, the Chief Elections Officer and the ZEC, cited as the first and second respondents respectively, had been wrongly joined in the court application.
He argued that the two respondents only participate if an election process has been started, that is through the order of the President.
Chikumbirike further argued that the Electoral Court had no jurisdiction to hear the application. Its functions, the lawyer said, are to preside over election petitions.
He said the proper court, which Sibanda should have approached, is the High Court. The matter, Chikurumbirike also argued, was not urgent in any way and should be treated as any other High Court civil case.
"The application before this court is hopelessly defective and flawed. The Applicant (Sibanda) has not set out the basis of his application in the papers that are before the court. A chamber application should relate to issues of law," submitted Chikumbirike.
Walter Nyabadza, of the Attorney General’s Office, representing President Mugabe, asked for a postponement of the matter arguing that he had not been given enough time to get full instructions from the Civil Division in Harare.
In response, Sibanda’s lawyer Kossam Ncube argued that the postponement being sought by Nyabadza would defeat the whole purpose of bringing the matter as an urgent application.
After a 30-minute recess, Justice Ndou heard in his chambers from another of Sibanda’s lawyers, Charles Paul Moyo, who indicated they were consenting to withdrawing of the action against the Chief Elections Officer and the ZEC, but Chikumbirike would not take any of that.
“My clients are not consenting to the withdrawal of the case against them and the best way to proceed is for the court to dismiss the case with costs at a higher scale,” the lawyer said.
Justice Ndou said
he would make a ruling on all the matters that Chikumbirike had raised.
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