A raging row pitting Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) boss Justice Priscilla Chigumba and President Emmerson Mnangagwa over delimitation enters a critical week on Monday.
ZimLive has heard fresh details of Chigumba’s February 3 meeting when she presented Mnangagwa with what she called her final report on the delimitation of ward and constituency boundaries ahead of elections in August.
There has been confusion since, with official government spokesmen insisting that Chigumba had only presented a second draft, and not the final delimitation report.
Now, we can reveal the mistrust and tense exchanges between Mnangagwa and Chigumba which has left the country on the cusp of a constitutional crisis.
Mnangagwa and his allies have been suspicious of Chigumba after a preliminary delimitation report, in their view, undermined Zanu-PF’s chances of a sweeping majority in parliament and left nearly a dozen of the Zanu-PF leader’s loyalist MPs in the cold following the dissolution of their constituencies.
A source briefed on Mnangagwa and Chigumba’s February 3 meeting revealed: “When Chigumba went to present her final delimitation report and her comments on earlier submissions by parliament and the president, Mnangagwa was first taken aback by the presence of journalists who had been invited to witness the handover of the final delimitation report.
“Mnangagwa told Chigumba that ‘this report is not final’. He further informed her that he would study what she had presented and make further comments which would be ready by February 13.
“The president’s expectation, therefore, is that Chigumba will return on Monday and pick up his further comments before she wraps up her delimitation report. On the other side, however, Chigumba stated after leaving the same meeting that she presented her final report which she said Mnangagwa should publish in the government gazette within 14 days, which sets a deadline of February 17.”
The source said if Chigumba does meet Mnangagwa on Monday, that would be a suggestion that she is still open to amending her delimitation report – a development likely to trigger protests from the Zanu-PF leader’s rivals.
“The other side of viewing it is that if she doesn’t (got to the meeting), then you can safely conclude that she stands by her February 3 report and the deadline of February 17 for its gazetting has not changed. That would be clear and open defiance of Mnangagwa, quite unprecedented between the head of a constitutional body and the state president,” the source said.
Lawyers have been united in their analysis that Chigumba has submitted her final report, based on constitutional provisions she cited as she handed Mnangagwa the final report. Some warn of an impending constitutional crisis, with ZEC itself split after seven of the nine commissioners rejected the reports submitted by Chigumba to Mnangagwa on behalf of the elections body.
Leading constitutional law expert Professor Lovemore Madhuku told ZimLive: “”There is a problem relating to what it is that ZEC can give to the president. It must give to the president a final report. The constitution does not have provisions for anything else after ZEC has received comments to its preliminary report.
“Its next interaction with the president is final, that is what the constitution contemplates. As we stand now, there are now two versions: the ZEC chairperson says she gave the president a final report which would mean that the president must now go to the next stage within 14 days and gazette that.
“But the president’s office says that they have not yet received the final report. They have received what they are calling a revised preliminary delimitation report. I must make it clear that there is no provision for what is called a revised preliminary report.
-Zimlive