Prior to today’s Nomination Court meeting, President Mnangagwa and other contenders for the nation’s top job filed their papers for review, paving the way for the harmonised elections on August 23.
Today, the Nomination Court will review and approve candidates for the presidential, parliamentary, and local government elections.
The Nomination Court will assess presidential candidates at the High Court in Harare, while parliamentary candidates will be considered at each of the ten province capitals. The Nomination Court will assess candidates for local authority elections in council posts all around the nation.
President Mnangagwa’s papers were submitted some time ago ahead of other candidates.
Opposition political parties have also submitted their papers before the sitting today.
Nelson Chamisa also confirmed submitting his nomination court papers.
Taking to social media he said;
“PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE NOMINATION PAPERS FILED!!
Have just successfully filed papers at ZEC. It’s all systems go!
A New Great Zimbabwe is loading.”
In an interview yesterday, Justice, Legal, and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi confirmed President Mnangagwa’s submission of nomination papers.
“Yes we sent his papers for verification and have already completed all formalities.
“We just await the opening of the Nomination Court and finalisation of the processes,” he said.
In the same breath, opposition CCC leader Mr Nelson Chamisa and MDC-T leader Senator Douglas Mwonzora also filed their papers.
Speaking at a press conference in Harare yesterday, Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) chief elections officer Mr Utoile Silaigwana said all was set for the Nomination Court sitting.
“Nomination Court sitting is June 21 and June 22 will be a day reserved for the inspection of the nomination papers by anyone who wants to do so.
“We are happy to announce that we are set for tomorrow (today), the voters roll for the Nomination Court is ready and is now at the various court centres and there will be search facility to check the nominees and nominators.”
He said party leaders had been free to file their papers pending due diligence today.
Mr Silaigwana said names of successful candidates would be made public by the end of this month.
“You can file papers well before the Nomination Court sits and then there is a process to confirm whether you qualify so we can only officially say so once the Nomination Court has closed and processed and made the announcements.
“Soon after the sitting of the Nomination Court we will establish the multi-party liaison committees.
“We will then publicise a list of the nominated candidates by June 30, all polling stations will be made public 21 days before polling day,” he said.
Mr Silaigwana revealed that anomalies that had been identified by voters during the voters’ roll inspection exercise had been corrected.
“We had established 11 337 inspection centres across the country and we are happy to say the turnout was good.
“Indeed during the inspection of the voters’ roll, some anomalies were recorded, we can assure the electorate that the commission has rectified those anomalies that were identified by both the voters themselves and administratively by ourselves,” he said.
