MDC Alliance not going to court

MDC Alliance president Nelson Chamisa said they will not waste their time by taking grievances to courts, alleging such a move was unnecessary since the Judiciary was compromised.

Addressing his party supporters at the White City rally in Bulawayo, Advocate Chamisa said Tuesday is the d day for ZEC to concede to the printing of a new ballot paper under their supervision or risk having the country ungovernable.

"I heard President Mnangagwa saying that if I have any grievances whatsoever I should go to the courts, I won't go there, instead we will go to the people and we will discuss the issues in the court of public opinion, let the people decide. We are not joking, we insist and I assure you what we used to do at university we can do times 10, asifuni bumbulu, we want proper elections. Mnangagwa is now afraid of me because I have shown him that I am resolute," said Mr Chamisa.

He said their main bone of contention was regarding the printing of the ballot paper, which Zec recently completed. He said as a party they were pushing for a reprint as they were not satisfied that the current ballot paper was authentic.

"We don't want a fake ballot paper, we want a ballot paper which is genuine and authentic. Zec just told us from nowhere that they had printed the ballot paper, from where by who and how? I met with the Elders led by Kofi Annan and told them some of our grievances. On Monday I am meeting with Sadc and I will be telling them our concerns.

"I have told my team that we have to make sure that the ballot paper is reprinted, we don't care whether there is now little time till 30 July. The least which we can agree on is to test batch by batch and after testing it, we will be part of the security details guarding it until voting day, worse still we would also push for a change on the colour of pen to be used when voting, if we were meant to vote using blue pens we would rather shift to red," said Mr Chamisa.

The head of the Sadc Election Observer Mission (SEOM) Tete Antonio has counselled political parties aggrieved by the electoral process should use legal means to seek redress in order to avoid conflict'

Speaking at the launch of the observer mission in Harare yesterday, Mr Antonio called for dialogue between the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and all stakeholders around areas where there are disagreements in order to have a free, far and credible election.