August 2013

HARARE – In 2008, they dominated all urban local authorities countrywide with the majority to appoint mayors, chairpersons and all their deputies. They were the darling of the masses but with no power to make executive changes that translated into service delivery. Allegations of corruption topped the list. Luxury living and driving top-of-the-range vehicles was…

HARARE – MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has withdrawn his presidential petition, citing doubts on prospects of getting a fair court ruling after the Electoral Court reserved indefinitely his request to get poll material from the election body. Tsvangirai was contesting the July 31 election result, which saw president-elect Robert Mugabe winning by 61,09 percent, while…

HARARE – Outgoing Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said he won the election with a landslide, adding the only solution to the current crisis was to have another election. In an address to Provincial Council delegates at Queens Hall in Mutare yesterday, Tsvangirai said real legitimacy of the election will come from the people of…

HARARE – Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC has admitted to have participated in a “sham” poll knowing “all is not well” but was shocked with the extent of the electoral fraud, the party’s spokesperson has said. Douglas Mwonzora told a public debate on Thursday that his party went into the July 31 poll well aware that “Zanu…

HARARE – Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) chief election officer Morgen Komichi yesterday made another bail application citing changing circumstances, but ruling on his fresh application will be handed down on August 26. His defence counsel Charles Kwaramba said since elections were over and the president-elect was due for swearing-in, the court should reconsider Komichi’s…

HARARE – MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai is taking his poll grievance to southern African leaders gathering tomorrow in Lilongwe to review elections in Zimbabwe, amid high tension between President Robert Mugabe and the former. The summit of the 15-nation Southern African Development Community (Sadc) in the Malawian capital comes two weeks after Mugabe was controversially…

HARARE – Political analysts say MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai is in a quandary as to whether he should join President-elect Robert Mugabe in a hybrid government or face the reality of joining opposition ranks. Tsvangirai, who lost to the 89-year-old Zanu PF leader in the just-concluded harmonised plebiscite, has claimed that the revolutionary party is…

HARARE – Southern Africa Development Community Lawyers Association (Sadc LA) has produced a damning report on Zimbabwe’s disputed July 31 election saying it was “unsatisfactory”. The  body of lawyers and law societies from 15 Sadc member states said in an analysis of the electoral legal environment for the 2013 Zimbabwean harmonised elections that the poll…

HARARE – Chitungwiza municipal employees have slammed government’s directive to write-off debts owed to local authorities at a time they have gone for more than seven months without salaries. The municipality, which owes its employees in excess of $6 million in unpaid salaries, yesterday became the first among the big local authorities to write-off debts…