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Fidelis Munyoro

Chief Court Reporter

TWO Zanu-PF losing parliamentary candidates have approached the Electoral Court seeking to challenge the victory of their opponents in last month’s polls.

The ruling party won 136 of the 210 constituencies against CCC’s 73.

However, Cde Francis Mukwangwari who lost Zvimba East by 189 votes to Mr Oliver Mutasa of CCC and Cde Munyaradzi Tobias Kashambe who lost Seke by 755 votes to Mr William Madzimbamuto of CCC filed electoral petitions at the Electoral Court last week seeking to set aside the election of the two CCC legislators, citing irregularities.

Mr Mutasa and Mr Madzimbamuto are listed as respondents in the two separate petitions.

In his petition, Cde Mukwangwariwa based his contention on electoral irregularities that allegedly occurred on voting day at Stapleford Siding station when Zimbabwe Electoral Commission officials were giving voters supporting Mr Mutasa more ballot papers than what was required.

He alleged that these voters were given five ballot papers instead of three ballot papers with the extra two ballot papers being for the National Assembly election.

He said although he alerted the police officers at the polling station, nothing was done to remedy the irregularity. He also alleged that the declaration of poll results made by ZEC also does not show any rejected votes or percentages in the constituency.

“This is an irregularity in view of the fact that my polling agent had noticed people voting with extra ballot papers,” he argued.

“The declaration of the poll results by Zec was done whereas my polling agent did not sign the V23B form for the particular polling station. The reason why my polling agent refused to sign the V23B form was that it was not in tandem with what had been observed at the polling station.”

Cde Kashambe in his petition is seeking a recount of votes argued that there were mathematical errors in compiling the total number of votes received thereby inflating the number of votes received for Mr Madzimbamuto.

He also accused ZEC of underhand dealings, saying there were elderly voters who were turned away for failure to locate their names despite the fact that no assistance was given to them.

“During counting, polling agents representing the applicant’s political party at some points were chased away from the polling room, while respondent’s agents remained.”

Both Mr Mutasa and Mr Madzimbamuto are yet to respond to the petitions filed against them.