ZEC to fill vacant Parly seats

Harare (New Ziana)-The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) on Monday said it will proceed to fill the proportional representation seats in Parliament which arose from recalls by the opposition MDC-T.

The MDC-T recalled at least 13 legislators from Parliament following a Supreme Court ruling that Nelson Chamisa had not followed party procedures when he ascended to the helm of the party in 2018.

The court installed Thokozani Khupe as the interim leader pending the holding of a congress to replace the late founding president Morgan Tsvangirai who succumbed to colon cancer in a South African hospital.

The Supreme Court ruling, instigated by Chamisa himself, effectively handed control of the MDC-T back to Thokozani Khupe, the third and only party vice president to have been elected by congress.

Soon after taking over, Khupe wrote to Parliament recalling some of the legislators saying they “no longer represented the interests of the MDC-T.”

Out of the 13 recalled legislators, 7 were elected in terms of the 2013 amendments to the Electoral Act which gave birth to proportional representation in the allocation of seats in the Senate, National Assembly and provincial councils.

Some of the advantages of the system are that it is simple and can also avoid a by-election if an elected member vacates the seat or dies.

The system also ensures better representation of women.

ZEC has since said by-elections for vacant constituencies and wards would be held after the government has relaxed lockdown restrictions.

In a statement, ZEC chief elections officer Utoile Silaigwana said filling of vacant seats in the legislature was in line with the provisions of the Electoral Act.

“The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) would like to inform the public that it is proceeding with filling in the proportional representative vacant seats which arose from recalls by the MDC-T party in line with provisions of section 39 of the Electoral Act (Chapter 2:13).

“It is important to note that the Commission is not the arbiter of who may or may not recall a Member of Parliament. It merely facilitates the filling of the resultant vacancy in the confidence that Parliament has conformed to its governing procedures and to the law in notifying it of the vacancies. If there is an objection to the vacancy itself, the remedy for that lies not in an attack on the performance of peremptory statutory functions by the Commission but elsewhere,” he said.

Silaigwana said ZEC’s stance of filling proportional representation seats had been taken noting that the process of filling these seats did not pose a threat to public health nor would it violate regulations put in place by Government to curb the spread of Covid-19.

“All other electoral activities which involve gathering of people with the potential to fuel the spread of Covid-19, however remain suspended,” he said.

ZEC suspended all electoral activities in March when the country recorded its first case of Covid-19 as a precautionary measure to protect its employees and the general public from infection.

New Ziana