A court in Zimbabwe has ordered the government not to destroy or tamper with ballot papers used in a disputed poll which returned President Robert Mugabe to power in March this year.
According to the court order, dated September 12 but only made available to AFP on Thursday, the Registrar General has been ordered not to ”destroy and instead shall keep in his safe custody and not alter or amend in any way all the documents referred to.”
In March, Mugabe won a disputed presidential poll against his main opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The MDC rejected the result of that election, and in April Tsvangirai filed a petition in the High Court challenging Mugabe’s victory. That case is still to be heard.
High Court Judge Antonia Guvava ordered the documents from the disputed poll to be kept safe until the outcome of Tsvangirai’s petition is known.
Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede this week made an urgent application to the court saying he required the ballot boxes from the presidential election for a local election due to be held this weekend.
”It is impossible to conduct the impending rural district council elections scheduled for 28 and 29 September 2002 without opening the sealed ballot boxes containing the presidential election residue,” Mudede said.
He accused the MDC of seeking to ”frustrate and delay the impending local authority elections.”
On Thursday a High Court judge ruled that Mudede could use the presidential ballot boxes in the weekend poll, but upheld the order for him not to destroy the ballots, a lawyer for the MDC said.
The lawyer, who asked not to be named said: ”He (the registrar general) wasn’t allowed to destroy the ballot papers.” Mudede was ordered to keep the ballots in sealed packets, the lawyer added.
On Wednesday the MDC filed a petition to postpone the local elections, citing intimidation of their candidates before and after nomination, as well as unfair nomination procedures it alleges have barred many of their candidates from contesting.
The petition is due to be heard in the High Court on Friday. – Sapa-AFP