The Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC) led by Nelson Chamisa has urged voters to turn out in their numbers and vote for the party’s candidates in by-elections scheduled for Saturday, 09 December.
In a statement, CCC spokesperson Promise Mkwananzi said a High Court ruling barring recalled CCC candidates from the poll, and an announcement by ZEC Chief Elections Officer, Utoile Silaigwana to withdraw ballot papers from the constituencies, have been nullified by the party’s appeal against the ruling at the Supreme Court. Read the statement:
Our legal team has successfully served ZEC through the Chief of Elections Mr Utoile Silaigwana with our court appeal and a letter of all our legitimate candidates to be included on the ballot for tomorrow’s by-election.
The statement by Silaigwana that he has removed our candidates is therefore nullified by the court appeal.
Accordingly, by-elections are proceeding as scheduled tomorrow with all our candidates on the ballot paper.
We urge all citizens to turn out in their numbers to re-confirm our legitimate candidates by electing them back.
This whole debacle of going back and forth in the justice system has exposed the following:
a) ZANU PF has contaminated and corrupted our justice system through the criminal abuse of the courts.
b) They are afraid of proper elections and are using a nefarious, albeit failed, attempt to remove legitimately nominated candidates from the ballot paper.
c) They have tried without success to use the needless by-elections to divert our attention from claiming and pursuing our victory of the harmonised elections of August 2023.
The regime is afraid of our momentum and the huge and genuine political support that President Nelson Chamisa and the CCC have accumulated in the country.
This has been exposed by the clandestine use of named rogue elements to abduct, torture and assassinate our candidates and activists.
In Mabvuku-Tafara for example, they abducted and murdered Bishop Tapfumanei Masaya.
Although the perpetrators of these heinous acts are known and have been recorded on camera, no single arrest has been effected.
While seized with senseless and unlawful by-elections, government business has collapsed and resulted in Zimbabwean citizens being denied proper representation, their right to vote and the sanctity of their vote.
An opportunity to adequately debate, dissect, interpret and ensure that the national budget remains pro-poor has been lost.
All this mis-prioritisation is happening at a time when the nation is faced with unprecedented drought that will severely expose the fallacy of a bumper harvest through ill-conceived pfumvudza looting scheme leaving the majority of the citizens facing starvation.
The August 2023 elections were rigged as confirmed by all observer mission`s damming reports, making Mnangagwa’s government illegitimate and operating on a defacto and caretaker basis pending the final resolution of the electoral dispute.
As we grapple with finding a lasting political solution through SADC and other avenues, we urge the citizens of Zimbabwe to turn out in their numbers tomorrow to make an unequivocal statement by voting back their representatives as elected on the 23rd of August 2023.
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