afrol News - Court can rule on Zimbabwe polls

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Zimbabwe
Politics | Economy - Development | Agriculture - Nutrition | Society | Human rights
Court can rule on Zimbabwe polls

Morgan Tsvangirai
Š MDC
afrol News, 7 April - A High Court judge on Monday maintained that his court has the jurisdiction to preside over a petition filed by the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) demanding the immediate release of Zimbabwe's recent election results from an official source.

The judge dismissed the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's resistance that his court lacked jurisdiction to preside over the case.

He is expected to rule on Tuesday as to whether the case should be "urgently heard."

"I think ZEC [Zimbabwe Electoral Commission] just wants to delay this whole thing," Alec Muchadehama, a lawyer of the MDC, told reporters.

Zimbabweans went to the polls on 29 March, yet no single results have been made public on the presidential election, raising fears of rigging in favour of President Robert Mugabe. The MDC claimed that its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, had swept a little over 50% of the votes. But some observers believed a re-run must take place.

In a separate development, three Zimbabwean judges declined to hear an application seeking the release of two foreign correspondents arrested and detained for entering the country without accreditation.

"Three judges have declined to hear the matter," Beatrice Mtetwa confirmed. Her next job is to look for another judge to hear the case.

The duo, a correspondent of New York Times, Barry Bearak and a British were arrested last week after a raid on their hotel in Harare. They have been charged with covering Zimbabwean election without accreditation.

President Mugabe, who is seeking a sixth term in office, has called on blacks to make sure that white farmers did not regain lands seized under his government's land distribution program, believing that black Zimbabweans would not afford to "retreat in the battle for land."

"Land must remain in our hands. The land is ours, it must not be allowed to slip back into the hands of whites," 'The Herald' newspaper quoted Mr Mugabe as saying.

"We cannot afford to retreat in the battle for land."

The leader of the war veterans, Jabulani Sibanda, also accused white farmers of threatening to reoccupy farms allocated to blacks ahead of the installation of an "incoming MDC government."