THE Electoral Court will today (Tuesday 05 June 2018) preside over the hearing and determination of an application filed by some Harare residents seeking to stop their clandestine transfer from voting in Mt Pleasant constituency to Mazowe South constituency under some opaque circumstances, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) has reported.
According to a statement by ZLHR, the Electoral Court Judge Justice Neville Wamambo will preside over the determination of the application at 2: PM on Tuesday 05 June 2018.
The residents Warship Dumba and Celine Eunice Nyakutsikwa through their lawyer Kossam Ncube of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights recently petitioned the Electoral Court seeking a reversal of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC)’s decision to clandestinely transfer them from voting in their traditional constituency of Mt Pleasant constituency to Mazowe South constituency.
In their application Dumba, a former Harare City Council councillor and Nyakutsikwa said at all material times and in the past two general elections held in 2008 and 2013, they had cast their votes under Mt Pleasant constituency, only to be were shocked when some ZEC officials advised them that their Mt Pleasant Heights suburb had been moved to Mazowe South constituency from Mt Pleasant constituency.
Dumba and Nyakutsikwa argued that ZEC Chairperson Justice Priscillah Chigumba and the elections management body did not gazette the delimitation of the new constituency to indicate the shift of boundaries and by so doing ZEC violated section 37A of the Electoral Act.
The Mt Pleasant Heights residents said repeated efforts to engage ZEC to rectify the anomaly proved fruitless as the elections management body remained adamant that electoral and constituency boundaries had not been altered.
Dumba and Nyakutsikwa want the Electoral Court to compel ZEC to reverse its decision to shift Mt Pleasant suburb from Mt Pleasant constituency to Mazowe South constituency so that they can vote in Ward 17 of Mt Pleasant constituency in the impending general elections set for Monday 30 July, which is the constituency where they have voted during polls held in recent years.
