DEPUTY Information minister Omphile Marupi is set to retain his Gwanda South parliamentary seat after his main challenger lost a High Court bid to have him removed from the august House.
Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) Gwanda South aspiring
candidate, Patrick Dube, approached the court seeking an order overturning
Marupi’s victory in the August 2023 polls citing a number of electoral
malpractices.
Dube argued that the polls were marred by vote rigging,
vote buying and intimidation of his supporters.
Dube said he was stunned to see Zanu PF branded tables
within 300 metres of the polling stations on polling day.
He submitted that Zanu PF deployed activists to mount
tables outside polling stations with a view of intimidating voters against
voting for the CCC.
He also said some voters were being told that they would be
killed if they voted for the opposition or that they would be removed from
social welfare programmes.
Marupi, however, opposed the application saying the
election was conducted in a fair and peaceful manner.
High Court judge Justice David Mangota ruled in favour of
Marupi saying Dube failed to give a proper notice to the respondent.
“The rules of court never envisaged a situation where a
petitioner would challenge the results of an election in an entire constituency
but would, in all probability, challenge the voting process which his agents
and him were able to observe as having occurred, contrary to the law of elections, at some polling stations within
a constituency,” Mangota ruled.
“For a petitioner to challenge the whole voting process
which took place in a whole constituency, he would have to allege that his
agent(s) and him were at every polling station observing the manner of voting
by the voting public as well as the conduct of other interested persons who
were at those stations.
“Short of that, the petition runs the risk of inviting the
court to upset votes which were taken at polling stations which the
petitioner’s agent(s) and he did not visit and/or observe on the day of
voting.”
The judge said Dube also failed to comply with mandatory
provisions of the Electoral Act and the Electoral Court Rules.
“The long and short
of his stated conduct is to invite me to go on a fishing expedition with him,
so to speak,” he said.
“The clear message which comes out of the observed position
is that the petitioner is certain of what he wants to achieve but is not sure
of how he should go about to achieve it.
“He cannot be allowed to approbate and reprobate on one and
the same matter as he is doing.
“The petition is, accordingly, dismissed with costs.”
Newsday
0 comments:
Post a Comment