MDC-T petitions defective, says the Electoral Court

MDC-T petitions challenging election results for Marondera East and Hurungwe West constituencies are fatally defective for Zanu-PF winning candidates to respond to them, the Electoral Court ruled yesterday.

Justice Bhunu ruled that MDC-T losing candidates Ms Tracy Mutinhiri and Wilson Makanyaire who were seeking to reverse the victory of Zanu-PF candidates Cdes Jeremiah Chiwetu and Temba Mliswa for Marondera East and Hurungwe West constituencies respectively failed to comply with laid down procedures in filing their petitions.

Both petitioners had also sought to bar the respondents, arguing that they filed their response out of time.

But the judge ruled that the argument had no merit because the respondents could not respond to "a petition that had been held to be a nullity".

Justice Bhunu said it was unnecessary to make a finding on whether or not the respondents' papers were in order because at law, when something "is a nullity it is an event that never happened in the eyes of the law".

He said in the consideration of the court and the law, the petitioners never filed any petitions for the respondents to respond to.

For that reason alone the need to respond did not arise, said Justice Bhunu.

"In the final analysis, it is accordingly ordered that both electoral petitions filed by the petitioners are a nullity, void and of no force or effect for want of compliance with (Section) 167 of the Electoral Act (Cap 2:13) as read with (rule) 21 of the Electoral Court Rules 1995," he said.

"That both petitions in case numbers EC32/13 and EC31/13 be and are hereby dismissed with costs.

Justice Bhunu went on to declare Cdes Mliswa and Chiwetu as duly elected legislators for Hurungwe West and Marondera East constituencies respectively.

The Electoral Court rules require that once a petitioner names a person as having engaged in corrupt or illegal practices, he or she is obliged to give the full name and address of the person guilty of such conduct and serve a copy on that person so that he could respond.

In both petitions, Ms Mutinhiri and Mr Makanyaire accused various individuals and most of the traditional leaders in their respective constituencies of engaging electoral malpractices without giving them a chance to be heard.

"It is inconceivable that such prominent members of society could have been unknown to the petitioners," said Justice Bhunu.

"None of the petitioners proffered the valid defence that the alleged perpetrators of such electoral malpractices were unknown to them."

Justice Bhunu ruled that it would be unjust for petitioners to assert their right to be heard while denying others the same right by omission.

Ms Mutinhiri and Mr Makanyaire had filed petitions seeking to set aside electoral results in the two constituencies on account of irregularity.

The same court last week dismissed an election petition by MDC-T losing candidate for Goromonzi North Mr Ian Makone, who was challenging the election of Beatrice Beata Nyamupinga, while 17 other MDC-T candidates have since dropped their petitions.

MDC-T filed 39 petitions just after the harmonised election challenging the poll results in their respective constituencies countrywide, but the cases are crumbling one by one.