A "Doctored" Delimitation Report To Be Gazetted On 23 February | Report
President Emmerson Mnangagwa is set to gazette the final delimitation report on 23 February, a report by The NewsHawks claims.
Mnangagwa received the final delimitation report at State House from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) chairperson Priscilla Chigumba on 3 February.
Section 161 of the constitution says the report should be published within 14 days of its receipt from ZEC.
This means that the final delimitation report was supposed to be published on 17 February since the President received it on 3 February.
The NewsHawks quoted an insider as saying Mnangagwa did not gazette the report primarily for two reasons. Said the source:
The President did not gazette the delimitation report because the government is not counting weekends and holidays, if any, in its 14 days deadline since 3 February.
So their deadline is 23 February. He will gazette it on 23 February, but this is unconstitutional.
The other reason Mnangagwa did not gazette the report is that they are still fiddling with it. They have been changing the report to suit their political agenda.
That is why they are claiming it is not final so that they can create room and justify changing it to accommodate their partisan issues.
There is political subterfuge underway on this issue.
Mnangagwa reportedly had a long meeting with ZEC officials at State House on Sunday, where he made his demands known and this resulted in further changes to the delimitation report.
The report further claims that the officials want to produce their own final report —different from ZEC’s — and then hand it over to Mnangagwa to gazette on 23 February.
