In the filed petition, Chamisa challenged the declaration of Emmerson Mnangagwa as the winning Presidential candidate of the July 30 elections. The Constitutional Court dismissed petitions of other presidential candidates on the basis of inappropriate submissions of their petitions. This is in line with Section 68 (3) of the Electoral Act. Issues of concern raised in the MDC petition among others include, discrepancies in the voter register, some missing V11, V23 forms, ghost polling stations and ghost voters. Further, through his lawyers Chamisa claimed that the results announced by ZEC which proclaimed Emmerson Mnangagwa leading by 50.8% (which was later adjusted to 50.7%) of the total presidential votes country wide, while Chamisa’s votes are 44. 3% (adjusted to 44.2%) were not consistent with the figures the MDC Alliance had. Taking into consideration Section 171 (1) of the Electoral Act, which provides for an open court hearing, the Constitutional Court allowed the proceedings to be covered live on the ZBC and other different social media platforms. The nine (9) judges led by the Chief Justice, Justice Luke Malaba presided over the court case on Wednesday 22nd August, 2018. The court proceedings started at 10 a.m. and adjourned around 7 p.m. reserved judgement to Friday, 24th August, 2018 at 2.p.m. On 24 August 2018, the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe resumed to give ruling on the MDC Alliance petition. Before rendering their judgment, the Chief Justice, Justice Malaba made among other issues the following observations: (i) (ii) (iii) That Chamisa failed to make use of the Constitutional provisions which allowed the aggrieved party to make an urgent application within the stipulated 48 hours after the announcement of results. However, in the interests of all concerned, the court deliberated on the matter. That instead of using primary evidence, Chamisa opted for secondary evidence which was did not convince the court of the alleged concerns. The lawyers could have used information in the ballot boxes, which could have necessitated a recounting but chose not to exercise that option. That the applicant failed to put a clear, direct and sufficient evidence to convince the court of the case of malpractice in the manner the elections were held by ZEC. Citing Section 93 (4) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, the Constitutional Court dismissed Chamisa’s petition with costs and upheld ZEC’s presidential results which declared Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa of Zanu PF the winner of the 2018 Presidential Elections. Chamisa refused to accept the ruling and maintained that he had won the Presidential elections and that justice was not served. In a press statement, Chamisa said that there are other avenues his alliance can use such as peaceful demonstrations to show their discontent. President Mnangagwa on the other hand called for peace, love and unity among Zimbabweans and extended the same to Chamisa mentioning that his door was open and that his hand was stretched to accommodate him. He further reiterated his commitment to institute a commission of inquiry into the shooting incident which caused the death of 25

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