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Zimbabwe&#8217;s Constitutional Court has dismissed MDC Alliance’s presidential poll results challenge and has ruled in favour of Emmerson Mnangagwa as the winner of the July 30 presidential elections.

Zimbabwe top court dismiss MDC Alliance poll petition

HARARE (Reuters) &#8211; The presidential candidate for Zimbabwe’s main opposition accused the ruling ZANU-PF of trying to steal the general election on Wednesday after official figures gave President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s party a majority in parliament.
Nelson Chamisa, 40, and the 75-year-old Mnangagwa were the main contenders in Monday’s vote, the first since Robert Mugabe was forced to resign after a de facto coup in November after nearly 40 years in power.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s results showed Mnangagwa’s ZANU-PF cruising to a big majority after picking up 109 seats against 41 for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Another 58 seats are yet to be declared.
Results of the presidential poll are expected by Saturday.
On his official Twitter feed, Chamisa accused the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission of releasing the parliamentary results first to prepare Zimbabweans for a Mnangagwa victory.
“The strategy is meant to prepare Zimbabwe mentally to accept fake presidential results. We’ve more votes than ED (Emmerson Dambudzo). We won the popular vote (and) will defend it,” Chamisa said.
On Wednesday, foreign observers, including the European Union, who have been monitoring the elections for the first time since 2002, will issue their verdict on Monday’s vote.
Zimbabwe was once one of Africa’s most promising economies but under Mugabe’s rule became tainted by corruption, mismanagement and diplomatic isolation. Its population of 13 million is struggling amid shortages of foreign currency, unemployment above 80 percent and lack of foreign investment.
In the capital Harare many people went about their usual daily grind, including queuing up for scarce cash outside banks.
The House of Assembly of Parliament has 210 seats and ZANU-PF would need to win 30 more to have a two-thirds majority that would allow it to change the constitution at will.
Voters in Zimbabwe traditionally pick a presidential candidate based on their party affiliation and the trend in the parliamentary election was expected to continue when results for the president are announced this week.
Chamisa’s MDC won in most urban centres, where it enjoys majority support. One independent candidate and a member from a party linked to Mugabe also won one seat each.
On Tuesday Former Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) finance minister Tendai Biti and ZESN, the main domestic election monitor, said one in five polling stations &#8211; more than 2,000 in all &#8211; had not physically posted tallies on their doors, as required by law.
That omission gave room for the ZEC, which ZESN and the opposition have accused of bias, to manipulate the results in favour of Mnangagwa and the ruling ZANU-PF party, Biti said.
Even though the election passed off peacefully, several water cannon trucks patrolled outside the central Harare headquarters of the MDC as its red-shirted supporters danced in the streets.
Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe and Joe Brock; Editing by Paul Tait and Raissa Kasolowsky

Opposition party questions poll as Mnangagwa’s ZANU-PF wins majority in Zimbabwe parliament

A company helping to produce a new voter roll for Zimbabwe has accused the election commission of “impropriety” in its handling of tenders, potentially tarnishing the credibility of a poll meant to usher in a new era of transparency post-Mugabe.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-290705 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/zimbabwe_shutterstock_405855385-730x480.jpg" alt="" width="730" height="480" />
A credible vote is key to the restoration of democratic legitimacy following a de facto coup in November that ousted veteran leader Robert Mugabe after 37 years at the helm. It is also crucial to unlocking badly needed financial aid and repairing relations with Western powers.
New President Emmerson Mnangaga, 75, a onetime protege of Mugabe, said last week that transparent elections would be held by July and that he would respect the result if the opposition wins.
Laxton Group, a South African-run ID systems firm with production headquarters in China, filed papers with Harare’s Administrative Court on Jan. 25 questioning why it had lost out on a contract to “clean up” the list of registered voters.
The company, whose directors are mostly South African, has been registering Zimbabwean voters since September in a United Nations-backed attempt to generate a “clean” list of voters as the basis for a credible election.
But the Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) held a separate tender for what is known as the ‘de-duplication’ process &#8211; which ensures there is no double entry of voters or other aberrations &#8211; and awarded it to a rival bidder, Ipsidy.
In its legal filing, Laxton accused the ZEC of manipulating costs presented in its bid for the de-duplication contract. It also said the ZEC had given an inexplicably low weighting to Laxton’s favourable rating in a technical test.
“It is submitted that the impropriety of the (ZEC‘s) conduct in awarding the tender (to Ipsidy)&#8230; should be looked at within the context of the whole rationale of regulating public procurement,” Laxton said in the document.
Previous elections in the southern African nation have been marred by allegations of vote rigging, with manipulation of the register of voters frequently at the heart of the controversy.
ZEC officials did not respond to Reuters’ repeated requests for comment on the matter.
Laxton argues it is best-placed to run the deduplication process because the registration data, including fingerprints of every voter, is loaded on its systems.
In its legal filing, Laxton also said U.S.-listed Ipsidy was facing financial difficulties that could harm its ability to do the job properly.
According to its 2016 annual report, Ipsidy has consistently run at a loss, has accumulated debt of $49 million and needs additional finance. The firm is also expected to incur net losses for the “foreseeable future”, it added.
“It is respectfully submitted that this was terribly irresponsible given that a three-year warranty was required,” Laxton said in its filing.
“If a company is unstable or unable to continue operating, it is likely that it will not be in a position to provide these services in three years’ time.”
Ipsidy did not respond to requests for comment.
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Reporting by Ed Cropley; Editing by Gareth Jones
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Zimbabwe election body accused of tender “impropriety”

Zimbabwean opposition parties demanded on Wednesday that presidential elections next year be conducted by a committee set up by the United Nations and African Union because they had lost confidence in the neutrality of the local election agency.
President Robert Mugabe, 94 and in power for 30 years, is due to run again.
Leaders from several political parties, including Movement for Democratic Change&#8217;s Morgan Tsvangirai, told a few hundred supporters during a protest rally in the capital that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) had failed to be partial and should be disbanded.
Police deployed water cannon and anti-riot officers on the streets of the capital throughout the day after confining the protesters to an open space on the edge of the city centre.
The opposition parties, who were united under a National Election Reform Agenda (NERA), were protesting against changes to the voter registration process and said they would rally behind Tsvangirai to face Mugabe in the presidential vote.
Anti-government protests in August descended into some of the worst violence seen in the southern African nation for two decades as anger over economic hardship boiled over.
NERA chairman Farai Mbire said the United Nations, African Union and the Southern African Development Community &#8220;must immediately establish an independent, tripartite election management body to take over the full functions of ZEC.&#8221;
The opposition parties also said Mugabe&#8217;s government should back off from its decision to take over the purchase of biometric voter registration kits from the United Nations.
They fear this will make it easier for Mugabe&#8217;s ZANU-PF to skew the list of eligible voters in its favour.
Mbire did not say what would happen if Mugabe&#8217;s government rejected their demands. ZANU-PF legal secretary and Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa told the state-run Herald newspaper that it was ZEC&#8217;s constitutional right to run elections.
Anti-riot police allowed a handful of NERA officials to present a petition to the offices of ZEC.
Zimbabwe is due to hold its next presidential and parliamentary election by July 2018. Mugabe has been endorsed as the ruling party&#8217;s presidential candidate.
(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Ed Cropley/Jeremy Gaunt)

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Zimbabwe top court dismiss MDC Alliance poll petition

Opposition party questions poll as Mnangagwa’s ZANU-PF wins majority in Zimbabwe parliament

Zimbabwe election body accused of tender “impropriety”

Zimbabwe opposition demand UN-conducted vote

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Zimbabwe top court dismiss MDC Alliance poll petition

Opposition party questions poll as Mnangagwa’s ZANU-PF wins majority in Zimbabwe parliament

Zimbabwe election body accused of tender “impropriety”

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