Opposition Movement for Democratic Change Alliance presidential candidate, Nelson Chamisa, who is also MDC-T leader, has said his party is giving the country’s election body, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), one week to meet its demands on the printing of ballot papers or the party will take unspecified action.
Chamisa said they were taking the matter to the Southern African Development Authority (SADC) to intervene in what he described as a stalemate through an Extraordinary Summit.
Addressing a press conference Tuesday at the party headquarters in Harare, Chamisa dismissed violence as an option of forcing the elections body to comply.
Chamisa said, “As far as we are concerned, we have a dispute, we have a stalemate, we have a crisis. We cannot possibly have an election if we do not know where the ballot paper is, the texture of the paper and who printed the ballot paper and the quality of the paper. Infact, I have already indicated in other spheres we don’t have any evidence that the paper was printed in Zimbabwe.”
He said this makes it a serious crisis, adding that they were mobilizing the people and civic society, their structures, war veterans and churches to get their views on the way forward.
Asked when they were going to take action, he said they were giving ZEC till the end of the week to come out clean on this issue.
“We are utilizing the whole of this week. If this issue is not resolved we will not boycott the elections we will seek recourse from the law. It is Zanu PF who will boycott the election, winners don’t boycott an election,” he said.
The MDC Alliance has protested over postal voting saying police and other state security agents were being forced by their bosses to vote for President Mnangagwa and Zanu PF.
ZEC has dismissed the allegations as untrue, noting that the people who are currently voting applied for postal balloting.
Zimbabwe will hold council, parliamentary and presidential elections on July 30th. There are 23 presidential candidates and hundreds of council and parliamentary aspirants.
Source: VOA
