Harare (New Ziana) – The Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) on Friday appealed to the Supreme Court against a High Court ruling barring its candidates from contesting in weekend by-elections.
Earlier this week, the High Court barred several CCC aspiring parliamentarians from taking part in the poll on Saturday because they were ejected from the party.
All the aspirants were recalled from parliament by the party’s interim secretary general, Sengezo Tshabangu, leading to the weekend by-elections.
But CCC deputy spokesperson, Ostallos Siziba said the Nelson Chamisa-led opposition party had appealed the High Court ruling at the Supreme Court, and served the appeal papers on the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s chief elections officer, Utoile Silaigwana.
“There’s no way we can have an election without candidates that were legitimately nominated. ZANU (PF) is afraid of an election; they were rejected even in a flawed election (on August) 23rd. We will not accept this, we will fight!” said Siziba in a post on X. “We have just been to @ZECzim and have served the Chief Elections Officer Slygwana (sic) with our Supreme Court Appeal accompanied by a letter demanding the assurance that our candidates (be) on the ballot for tomorrow.”
The opposition party lawyers, Mbidzo, Muchadehama and Makoni, in an accompanying note list the eight CCC candidates affected by the order given by High Court Judge, Justice Never Katiyo as Prince Dubeko Sibanda of Binga North, Vanya Bright Moyo of Lupane East, Rapheal Pashor Sibanda of cowdray Park, Jane Nicola Watson of Bulawayo South, Ereck Gono of Lobengula-Magwegwe, Morgan Ncube of Beitbridge West, Obert Manduna of Nketa and Desmond Makaza of Mpopoma-Mzilikazi.
The situation was not clear about the CCC candidate for Tafara-Mabvuku Constituency, Phibion Munyaradzi who was excluded from the list, having not been cited in the High Court judgment.
ZANU (PF) was already celebrating the uncontested victory of its candidate in that constituency, Pedzisai Scott Sakupwanya, according to a number of online publications.
The CCC lawyers contended that the lodging of the appeal suspends the High Court judgment by Justice Katiyo, but lawyers for Tshabangu insist that the order by Justice Katiyo was a declaratur, hence stands despite the appeal.
Justice Katiyo’s judgment followed an application by Tshabangu for a declaratory order preventing the affected candidates from contesting the by-elections and trying to reclaim their seats.
The legal twists and turns of the matter has put ZEC in an awkward position as regards printing of ballot papers for the by-election.
Before the High Court ruling, it had included the CCC candidates on the ballot papers, but announced in a notice on Friday that these were no longer eligible to contest, implying new ballot papers needed to be printed, minus the party’s aspiring legislators.
With the appeal, the matter has taken another turn which leaves ZEC in a quandary as to who to include and exclude from the ballot papers, and time is not on its side.
In the August general elections, voting was delayed by a day in some places due to delays in printing ballot papers as a result of related legal tussles.
New Ziana
