Chamisa tells Con-Court that he won with 60%

Opposition leader Nelson Chamisa claims in his petition challenging the outcome of the July 30 presidential elections that he won the polls with 60 percent, citing several mathematical inconsistencies he says  if corrected would reduce President Emmerson Mnangagwa's tally to below 50 percent.

The MDC Alliance filed a legal challenge to results of the presidential election, in a move that delays the inauguration of Mnangagwa as president of Zimbabwe.

The opposition conglomerate filed their paperwork with the Constitutional Court (Con-Court) on Friday, alleging the result of the July 30 vote had been rigged in favour of incumbent Mnangagwa, the leader of the ruling Zanu PF party.

"Our legal team successfully filed our court papers. We have a good case and cause!!" MDC leader Nelson Chamisa said on Twitter.

Mnangagwa was declared winner of the elections by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) which said he had polled 50,8 percent against Chamisa's 44,3 percent.

In his Con-Court petition citing Zec, Mnangagwa and 22 other presidential candidates, Chamisa said he has evidence to show that he won the popular vote, and alleged Zec manipulated votes.

"Although I am not the one on trial, I point out that my tally of votes is 2 674 032 as against 2 008 639 for the first respondent.

"That is in terms of what is on the Zec sever. I will by separate process subpoena those results.

"I point out that these are the entries made in real time by Zec before it connived to change the results," Chamisa said in his petition.

Mnangagwa's inauguration was set for today but has been deferred until after the Con-Court makes its determination on the petition.

In his affidavit, Chamisa claims that the recently-held harmonised elections were held under circumstances where Mnangagwa's Zanu PF disregarded the Electoral Act and the Constitution by blatantly violating people's rights, vote buying, intimidation and harassment of opposition party supporters.

He also alleges that Zec was biased towards the ruling party and did not sanction Zanu PF or its candidates who were openly violating the Electoral Act through vote buying.

Chamisa said the voters' roll that Zec used in the election contained ghost voters and that he participated in the election without the vital document.

"It is also common cause that the voter registration exercise was done in the course of the few months leading up to the calling of the election, in other words was done recently and one would expect that all the details would be up to date.

"A variety of audits of the voters' roll prepared by Zec were done.

"The audits conducted show that 11 percent of voters could not be found, which, when extrapolated, amounts to some 625 000 voters.

"In other audits done by civic organisations, the voters' roll was found to have serious discrepancies including duplicate voters, false ID numbers and false surnames...the conduct of Zec was in breach of the law in that it registered people who were ineligible to be on the roll.

"For all these reasons, what Zec announced does not reflect the will of the people of Zimbabwe.

"On that basis, the result must be set aside. So too must the declaration relating to first respondent being the winner and accordingly the president-elect of the republic," Chamisa said in his voluminous court papers.

According to the MDC Alliance leader, Zec violated the law when it failed to post the election results in 21 percent of the polling stations; something he said was designed to ensure that Mnangagwa won the elections.

"At the close of polling at or around 19:00hrs on the 30th of July 2018, sample results from all over the country in the form of completed V11 forms were released and were all over social media.

"I attach the relevant V11 forms and mark them the ‘A series.' Those results showed that I had in excess of 60 percent of the vote cast. The results were released from around 20:00hrs to 01:00hrs.

"After it became apparent that first respondent was in a state of deep bother, twenty third respondent immediately stopped the counting in many polling stations and the completion of the necessary returns.

"The polling station returns V11 forms were not completed until the next day on the 31st of July 2018 when they once again started trickling in at or around midday," reads part of Chamisa's founding affidavit.

The MDC Alliance is asking the Apex Court to consider "mathematical violations" because all the "constitutional and statutory violations" and counting discrepancies "were meant to and did unduly favour the first respondent (Mnangagwa)."

"The violations go to the root of a proper and credible electoral process.

"These are accordingly irregularities that cannot be ignored. These are irregularities that do not arise from mistakes

"I submit that the evidence placed before the court shows gross irregularities which affect the validity of the election and its outcome.

‘That being the case, I submit that the entire process must be declared invalid and accordingly set aside.

"As is borne out by the results on the Zec sever, I won the election and won it resoundingly.

"The court is therefore in a position in which it can declare the fact of my victory.

"This is also clear when the manufactured results given to first respondent are excluded from the final computation...alternatively, the court has to order a fresh poll simply because the data that Zec has is just too compromised to be made the basis of anything," said Chamisa.

Mnangagwa has three days to file his notice of opposition with the Registrar and to serve it on the applicant.

If he does not, he will be barred from taking any further part in the proceedings.

Chamisa then has another three days to file an answering affidavit, if he wishes to do so, and file his heads of argument.

The Con-Court has just 14 days to hear and decide the court case.

And its decision is final.