A second legal challenge seeking to bar 12 Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) parliamentary candidates from running in the August 23, 2023 election brought by members of a political party called the Elected Early Democrats is set to be heard at the Bulawayo High Court on Wednesday.
Elected Early Democrats party members are alleging that the nomination papers of the 12 CCC MP candidates were accepted illegally by Zimbabwe Electoral Commission(ZEC), Bulawayo Provincial Elections Officer (PEO), Innocent Ncube after the deadline of 4 pm on June 21, 2023, when Nomination Court sat.
The applicants are represented by Messers Maseko Law Chambers and want an order declaring that the actions of the ZEC PEO were illegal.
The applicants also want the opportunity to submit their nomination papers.
Elected Early Democrats party members named the 12 CCC candidates as the first respondents by the party, while the ZEC PEO, ZEC the body, and its Chairperson are listed as the second, third, and fourth respondents respectively.
On Monday, lawyers representing the respondents appeared before Judge Justice Evangelista Kabasa at her chambers in the Bulawayo High Court for case management.
Lawyers for CCC included Professor Welshman Ncube of Mathonsi Ncube Law Chambers and Tinashe Runganga of Tanaka Law Chambers, while Charles Nyika of Nyika, Kanengoni and Partners represented ZEC.
The parties agreed that the case would resume on Wednesday.
This case comes after a previous case in which 12 registered voters challenged ZEC, CCC candidates, and other opposition candidates, alleging that their nomination papers were accepted illegally after the deadline of 4pm on June 21, 2023, whose judgement was reserved by Bulawayo High Court Judge Justice Bongani Ndlovu.
Read: Legal woes mount CCC Byo MP candidates – #Asakhe – CITE
A reading of this new application reveals that the litigants addressed the concerns and technicalities raised last week when the High Court heard the case of the registered voters from Wednesday to Thursday.
Elected Early Democrats members filed this application with the Electoral Court while in the previous case, the respondents’ lawyers contended that the High Court has no jurisdiction over election matters.
The new litigants also address the “hearsay” concern presented by the respondents’ lawyers, claiming to have been present at the Nomination Court on June 21, 2023.
