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By Goodwell Kazingizi
The coordinator of the Youth Empowerment Management and Protection Trust (YEMAP), an affiliate of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CiZC), Pride Mkono has dismissed the results of the elections recently announced by the Elections Resource Centre (ERC) as botched.
The disputed elections which were held virtually on the 12th of January this year declared Peter Gift Mutasa as the new CiZC boss. The CiZC is an 89-member organization.
According to Mr. Mkono, CiZC held its annual general meeting in Bulawayo and it was disrupted before the elections to elect a new board were held.
“On the 12th of January, ERC conducted an election without the full consent of all the CiZC affiliate members. The said elections were marred by a lot of irregularities. The election results should be dismissed as null and void.
“I intend to file an urgent legal challenge to the results you purportedly announced in the said zoom meeting”, Mkono charged in a letter addressed to Solomon Bobosibunu, the ERC representative.
He said the elections were not held in line with the Constitution of the CiZC. He (Mkono) argued that on the said date there were internet disruptions that were experienced during the voting process. As a result, he argues that the election process could not proceed smoothly.
Mkono wrote to Mr. Bobosibunu (ERC) seeking clarity on the way the elections were conducted. Noticing that there was no response from the ERC, he took the matter to his legal team.
This publication is possession of the letter that was served to the coordinators of ERC and CiZC in which the YEMAP coordinator was requesting election residue for all the 49 voters, copies of results signed by agents of the candidates, registration forms signed by members who contested, and a copy of the voter’s roll used in the said elections.
Efforts to get a comment from ERC were fruitless at the time of going to press.
