Tsvangirai looks to Sadc over election ruling

ZIMBABWE's Constitutional Court has in effect backed President Robert Mugabe's call for swift elections by ordering them to be held before July 31, earlier than the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, wants.

The bitterly split country's highest court, headed by Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, announced its ruling on Friday after a court application filed by Jealousy Mawarire, a little-known rights activist, for Mr Mugabe to announce an election date. Now aged 89, Mr Mugabe has been in power since independence in 1980.

He will seek regional endorsement for early polls on June 9 at a summit in Maputo of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc), a body which has seldom stood in his way. But Prime Minister Tsvangirai will be at the summit and will press demands for immediate political reforms, both in the security and media sectors and in voter registration, which his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says are essential for fair elections.

Mr Tsvangirai withdrew from the final ballot of the last polls, in 2008, handing victory to Mr Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF who were accused of orchestrating extreme violence against MDC supporters after the first round.

Mr Mugabe was pushed into signing a power-sharing Global Political Agreement (GPA) after the elections but the opposition says Zanu-PF has dragged its heels and the playing field is far from level.

The next elections are also hamstrung by disputes over the source of funding. Mr Tsvangirai said at the weekend the Constitutional Court had "overstepped its mandate" by ordering a date for the elections ' a subject which he said remained a prerogative of the executive.

"The Supreme Court has no power whatsoever to set an election date. In the true spirit of separation of powers, an election date remains a political process in which the executive has a role to play," Mr Tsvangirai said.

"An election date is the responsibility of the executive, which has not shown that it has failed to announce such a date. Sadc and the people of Zimbabwe know that an election date is a result of political pronouncements in which the judiciary has no role to play."

Political observers said Mr Tsvangirai's jibe at the judiciary served two purposes: to pre-empt Zanu-PF from trumpeting the ruling at the Sadc summit and to mark the beginning of a standoff between the opposition and the courts.

Prior court rulings have already given traction to Mr Mugabe's plan for early elections.

In April, Judge President George Chiweshe dismissed suggestions from the MDC the polls should be delayed until September. He said since Zimbabwe was neither at war nor under a state of emergency, an extension was unwarranted.

It was unknown yesterday if the MDC would appeal the ruling.

Zanu-PF welcomed the Constitutional Court ruling and rejected any commitment to prior reforms. "There are no reforms, we have no reforms to talk about … elections are long overdue," the ruling party's spokesman Rugare Gumbo said.

Parliament's five-year tenure comes to an end this month, creating a legislative vacuum and allowing Mr Mugabe to rule by decree.

"I think it's all just cooked up and the MDC does not even know how to respond," political commentator Tanonoka Whande said.

"I suspect this court thing is a set-up … who is this unknown man (Mr Mawarire) who sued to pressure Mr Mugabe to hold elections by a certain date? The reality is we are not ready for elections yet," he said at the weekend.