MDC-T withdraws another election petition, Kaukonde declared duly elected

MDC-T yesterday withdrew another petition challenging Zanu-PF's victory in the Marondera Central constituency in the July 31 harmonised elections, bringing to 31 the number of petitions so far either dropped or dismissed for failure to comply with the Electoral Court rules.

Out of the 39 MDC-T petitions filed after the elections only eight are left and they are likely to crumble the same way for lack of evidence.

Mr Ian Kay withdrew his petition against Zanu-PF's Ray Kaukonde after the petitioner failed to comply with the court's rules.

This prompted Justice Chinembiri Bhunu to declare Kaukonde duly elected National Assembly member for Marondera Central constituency.

In October, MDC-T dropped 17 other cases upon realising that they had failed to comply with court rules.

The 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.

The petitioners in all the cases accused individuals and most of the traditional leaders in their respective constituencies of engaging in corrupt practices without giving them a chance to be heard.

This means a petitioner should physically account for those who did not vote and show enough evidence that they did not do so.

MDC-T filed 95 petitions after the harmonised elections seeking to quash the poll results in their respective constituencies countrywide, but the party failed to raise the US$10 000 security costs in respect of all the petitions and ended up paying for only 39.