‘Dismiss petitions’

Daniel Nemukuyu Senior Court Reporter
LAWYERS representing Zanu-PF national assembly winning candidates are seeking the dismissal of 35 electoral petitions filed by MDC-T losers citing irregularities.The parties’ lawyers met the Electoral Court registrar last Thursday morning and they agreed to deal with the preliminary objections raised by Zanu-PF and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission first before hearing the main arguments.

Chief among the objections was that the bulk of the petitions were not properly filed because the petitioners did not append their signatures on the petitions as required by the law.

The respondents (Zanu-PF and ZEC) argue that the petitioners should have signed on the actual petitions and not on the supporting affidavits as they did in most of the petitions.

It was also argued by the respondents that the petitioners failed to state their complaints in the petitions themselves and they chose to state them in an affidavit which was not permissible at law.

Zanu-PF was represented by Mr Terrence Hussein, Advocate Fred Gijima, Mr Joseph Mandizha and Mr Gilbert Machingambi while more than 10 lawyers led by Mr Trust Maanda appeared for the MDC-T petitioners at the meeting held at the Electoral Court on Thursday morning.