By Paul Nyathi
Leader of the People’s Rainbow Coalition Dr Joice Mujuru has legally challenged the electoral reforms agreement entered into between the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and three political parties currently represented in parliament.
In a letter to ZEC from her party’s lawyers Hamutendi and Nyandoro legal practitioners, Mujuru challenged ZEC to immediately cancel the agreement because it did not include her political outfit.
According to Mujuru, ZEC erred in only engaging the three political parties ignoring all other opposition parties in coming up with the agreement.
The letter by the lawyers claims that ZEC promised that it will involve the PRC in all its engagements when it registered the party in it’s data base in January which makes the reforms agreement invalid as it excluded her party.
The three political parties represented in Parliament, ZANU PF, MDC-T and MDC on Tuesday agreed on electoral reforms that have since been submitted to the Ministry of Justice and Parliamentary Affairs for consideration.
Parliament is in the process of amending the Electoral Act ahead of the country’s elections to be held by August this year.
Zanu-PF, MDC-T and the Professor Welshman Ncube led MDC, the only parties whose members are legislators, have been working on an electoral code of conduct that they want to be part of the Electoral Act.
The political parties tentatively agreed on a roadmap that will provide tolerant and violent free elections. The parties agreed to disclose to the public details of the agreement when the agreement is crafted into law through parliament.
“We have submitted our agreement to the Ministry of Justice. We want the code of conduct to be made part of our electoral laws. There is an amendment before Parliament and we are hoping that the electoral code will be included in the electoral law amendment,” said ZANU PF Secretary for legal affairs Paul Mangwana in an interview after the meeting.
“We resolved that there should not be any political violence during our elections, that there should be peaceful campaigns and that the political parties undertake to respect one another,” Mangwana said.
MDC secretary general Ms Miriam Mushayi said the Ministry of Justice and Parliamentary Affairs guaranteed them that their submissions would be taken on board.
“We are happy with the code that we have produced but remember these documents are living documents and are determined by the current context, current political environment. We’re cognisant of the fact that documents of this nature will always remain living documents to an extent that there is a need to have a relook at them. But at the moment we’re really happy with contributions that we have made,” said Ms Mushayi.
She said the code of conduct calls for equal access to the media for political parties as well as objective reporting on elections.
Ms Mushayi said as political parties they recommended that the electoral code should also govern other institutions including traditional leaders and civic society organisations as they are actively involved in political processes.
Mujuru has given ZEC a week to reverse the agreement or risks having the issue taken to court.