SW Radio Africa news - The Independent Voice of Zimbabwe
There will be no consensus court application between ZANU PF and the MDC formations, calling for a delay in elections, ZANU PF politburo member Jonathan Moyo has revealed, as the dispute over the elections between the coalition partners continues.
Moyo told SW Radio Africa that Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and MDC President Welshman Ncube presented their arguments to the recent SADC summit in Maputo as part of a coalition with other opposition political parties, calling for an extension of election dates.
Moyo said ZANU PF was not part of this. “You cannot go to SADC alone and you choose the political parties, in this case they chose Mavambo, ZANU Ndonga and Dumiso’s (Dabengwa) ZAPU. And the presentations they made are then attached to a report.
“And they attack ZANU PF inside the summit, they attack the court judgment and they come out celebrating claiming they have humiliated the president in the summit, claiming Chinamasa has given the president wrong advise and when we are here they want to go to the constitutional court and speak with one voice. That is totally unacceptable.”
The development comes as President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF negotiators failed to turn up at a scheduled meeting at State House on Friday, that the MDC parties say would have conclusively discussed the way forward following last weekend’s regional summit. Tsvangirai and Ncube and their lead negotiators Tendai Biti and Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga, waited in vain for three hours at the State House for Mugabe to pitch.
MDC spokesman Nhlanhla Dube said Mugabe did not have the courtesy to tell his other Principals that he would not be coming or contact them. “We hope that this is not a deliberate delaying ploy to render the SADC recommendations unachievable.”
However Moyo said: “The reports that there is a consensus application by the three parties in the inclusive government is a figment of the imagination of someone who is not creative at all and there is no such a thing.”
The Tsholotsho MP said Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa had already filed an application on Tuesday and then on Wednesday, “he followed on that application by lodging an application for the matter to be held on an urgent basis. On Thursday there was a hearing on the urgency and a determination was made that all the parties cited in the case, including the applicant, should file their papers on Monday and that the case has been set down for a hearing on Wednesday.”
The ZANU PF member said during the Thursday hearing on the urgency of the matter, the Prime Minister sought to introduce a “letter claiming that the parties in the inclusive government were still seized with the matter and the matter should be withdrawn until the parties agreed on a consensus application.”
He said the MDC formations have drafted an application which they say is a ‘consensus’ application and which they hoped would replace Chinamasa’s application, but Moyo said this was not done with the participation of anyone in ZANU PF, including Mugabe.
He accused the MDC leaders of “lying” that Mugabe agreed that ZANU PF will be part of a document that will be given to Chinamasa to resubmit.
According to Moyo: “They made the proposal in the form of an alternative application alone. It was delivered to Minister Chinamasa. They did not sit with him, and they presented him with a draft application which was treating Chinamasa as the applicant and them as the respondents – therefore creating a situation where they were going to respond to their own application, which is an unacceptable arrangement.”
The president is accused of illegally using the Presidential Powers Act to by-pass parliament to fast track amendments to the Electoral Act. But the MDC formations believe ZANU PF is now stalling the process until it’s too late to take the amendment bill to the House of Assembly, which comes to the end of its five year term next week.
Moyo revealed that the Electoral Amendment Bill will not be sent to parliament, since the president has already dealt with this issue.
He said: “There is a Constitutional Court judgment that says elections should be held by 31st July and the president has complied with that matter. The court found that elections should have been held by the 29th of June and that the calling of those elections had run out.
“And therefore there was no rule of law as regards the electoral process and that in order to restore the rule of law in connection with the electoral process the president had to issue a proclamation fixing a date for the elections to be held no later than July 31st. We cannot have a situation where people now resort to turning government institutions into their instruments for political parties,” Moyo added.
The MDC formations accuse Chinamasa of deliberately filing a court application that is designed to fail. In the court papers submitted by the justice minister he says Mugabe is happy with the 31st July ruling but its Tsvangirai and Ncube who want an extension. Chinamasa further says he is only making the application because of a directive by SADC.
The MDC parties say no court, anywhere in the world, would grant an application worded like that, which implies that foreigners are influencing when the elections should be held.
But Moyo lashed out saying Chinamasa signed the affidavit under oath and cannot lie. “It is common cause that President Mugabe is happy about the judgment, why should he lie about that. In order to appease the MDC formation? It is also true that he had complied with it.
“It is also a fact that the MDCs lobbied Zuma, lobbied SADC and Welshman Ncube went there and behaved as if the SADC summit was a court, making legal arguments before people who are neither judges nor lawyers and thinking that he has dazzled them with legalities.”
The Tsholotsho legislator said it was foolish to expect the minister of justice, of all ministers, to ignore the truth.
Chinamasa is also accused of not pointing out in his court application that constitutional problems will arise if election are held in this short period, such as the need for a 30 day voter registration and inspection exercise and that there can only be a voters’ roll once this is done. The MDCs say there also has to be 30 days between the nomination court and elections and that it is impossible to lawfully do all these processes before July 31st.
Moyo asked why Chinamasa should have pointed that out to the ConCourt adding: “This is a ridiculous view. He cannot point to things which he is not aware of because the president has complied with the court and his compliance is in accordance with the constitution and in accordance with the electoral law.”
He said the MDC parties are not bystanders but are respondents in this case and have ample opportunity to make their own case in court.
The full interview with Jonathan Moyo will be broadcast next week.
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