Innocent Gonese

• Innocent Gonese of MDC–T with 9 085 votes or 63.61 percent,
• Trinity Munowenyu of Zanu PF with 4 732 votes or 33.13 percent,
• Sondon Mugaradziko of MDC–N with 466 votes or 3.26 percent,

Total 14 283 votes

Gonese retained his seat in 2018 when he contested on an MDC Alliance ticket. Below are the results as announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC):

• Innocent Tinashe Gonese - MDC Alliance (11 950)
• Nancy Saungweme - ZANU PF (5 684)
• Chitaka Patrick - Independent (192)
• Gonese Innocent Tinashe - MDC Alliance (11950)
• Mauya Emmanuel - NCA (106)
• Mundembe George - Independent (251)
• Mushunje Appross - ZIPP (62)
• Mutasa Musiyiwa - ZDU (20)
• Porunobva Vengai Allan - Coalition of Demo (11)
• Rumhungwe Marvin - MDC T (210)
• Simpindi Brian Tendai PRC (50)
• Saungweme Nancy - ZANU PF (5684)
• Zimbudzi Nathan - Free Zim Congress (33)

Gonese is a senior partner at Gonese and Ndlovu law firm. He joined the MDC in 1999 and was elected Member of Parliament for Mutare Central in 2000 and re-elected in 2008, 2013 and 2018.

He was the MDC provincial secretary for legal and parliamentary affairs for Manicaland before assuming the same position in the party’s national executive between 2006 and 2011. He was a member of the Constitutional Parliamentary Committee on Constitution making (COPAC) from 2009 to 2013.

Gonese was a member of the specialist committee, the Parliamentary Legal Committee, which examines the constitutionality of laws presented to Parliament by the Executive.

He was also a member of the Parliamentary Liaison Co-ordination Committee and the Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Portfolio Committee.

Gonese was the Movement for Democratic chief whip in the 8th and 9th Parliament of Zimbabwe.

CCC Nomination

In April 2023, Gonese and Mutasa Central MP Trevor Saruwaka stepped down from contesting in the general elections despite being nominated.^[1]

The Citizens' Coalition for Change (CCC) opted for a citizens-centric process to produce the party’s candidates as opposed to the traditional model of primary elections.

The nomination stage was the first of the four stages in the party's candidate selection process.

Gonese said he decided to decline the nomination and chose to back another nomination candidate Brian James to contest for the seat.

Quitting Active Politics

In October 2023, Gonese announced that he was quitting active politics to focus on his law practice.^[2] In a private message sent to relatives on 14 October 2023, Gonese said:

I am reverting to being a private citizen and full-time legal practitioner and human rights activist. In a normal country, I would be going into real retirement, but I still have to put food on the table and what I trained to do is to practice law and so be it. It also gives me more time to spend with the family and do my long-distance running and occasionally hit the small white ball. In the future, time permitting, I will try to do a PhD and take up Arthur Mutambara’s challenge and write a book. But first things first, try to survive under challenging and difficult times.

References