The ZANU PF candidate for the Mabvuku-Tafara National Assembly constituency in the 09 December by-elections, Pedzai Sakupwanya, has reportedly won the seat uncontested.
According to ZimLive, on Thursday, 07 December, High Court judge Justice Never Katiyo withdrew an order he earlier issued barring 8 recalled Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) MPs from running in Saturday’s by-elections.
The order excluded the CCC candidate for Mabuku-Tafara Munyaradzi Kufahakutizwi who was among the first batch of the party’s MPs and councillors recalled by Sengezo Tshabangu in October.
Tshabangu is CCC’s self-proclaimed interim secretary-general who recalled the elected officials saying they had “ceased to be members of the party”, which triggered the by-elections.
A new order by Justice Katiyo adds Kufahakutizwi to the list of nominated candidates disqualified from contesting in the 09 December by-elections on the basis that he was cited as a respondent in Tshabangu’s founding affidavit, although lawyers excluded him as a respondent in the draft order.
Tshabangu had said that Kufahakutizwi’s recall was an error. Tshabangu did not field a candidate in the constituency despite Kufahakutizwi having been sponsored by the Nelson Chamisa-led CCC faction. Read the new court order:
Whereupon after reading documents filed of record and hearing counsel, it is ordered that: the decision of the Nomination Court sitting at Harare, Bulawayo, Gwanda, Lupane and/or any other location around the country on 7 November 2023 to accept the nomination papers and candidature of 1st to 23rd respondents for election in the by-elections set to be conducted on 9 December 2023 is unlawful, of no force and effect and hereby set aside.
That 1st to 23rd respondents are not candidates for election in the by-elections scheduled to be conducted on 9 December 2023.
That 24th and 25th respondents shall not include the names of 1st to 23rd respondents in the preparation of ballot papers to be used in the by-elections scheduled to be conducted on 9 December 2023. 4. That the 1st to 23rd respondents are interdicted from representing or holding themselves out to the general public and electorate in the constituencies concerned or any other place in Zimbabwe, whether physically or through any form of media, as candidates for election in by-elections scheduled to be held on 9 December 2023.
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