Saviour Kasukuwere is refusing to concede defeat in his ambition to be in the 2023 presidential race despite his disqualification by the courts.
On Friday, 28 July, the Supreme Court upheld the High Court’s decision to remove him from the ballot.
A three-panel Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Antonia Guvava, Chinembiri Bhunu and Felistus Chatukuta ruled that Kasukuwere’s appeal lacked merit but did not give full reasons for the judgment.
Speaking soon after the ruling, Kasukuwere’s lawyer Method Ndlovu, said they will be appealing at the highest court, the Constitutional Court. He said:
As a nation, we are on the eve of a constitutional and electoral crisis. Because we have the apex court which is the constitutional court and we have received instructions from our client to take up the next available step in order to make sure that he remains on the ballot paper.
So I wouldn’t say we are out of time in order to protect the best interests of our client. We didn’t sleep. We have papers in our bags and they will be filed.
Kasukuwere’s spokesperson Jacqueline Sande expressed disappointment that the judges did not give reasons for their verdict. She said, as quoted by NewZimbabwe.com:
We had expected the court to go into the full reasons for finding that the appeal lacks merit and we are disappointed that the reasons were not availed despite the fact the counsel spent a long time yesterday delivering their submissions we expected that the court with those submissions would be able to give us sufficient reasons why they found the appeal lacks merit.
This is definitely not the end of the road. We are still persisting to fight to be included to see President Saviour Kasukuwere included on that ballot.
There is no such thing as running out of time when you are fighting for justice and fighting for democracy.
It is President Saviour Kasukuwere’s constitutional right to stand as a presidential candidate as well as the right of citizens of the multitude of Zimbabweans who also want to vote for him.
If Kasukuwere’s social media posts are anything to go by, he is confident that his name will be on the presidential ballot on polling day.
More: Pindula News