Nomination Court Results

Nomination courts sat across Zimbabwe yesterday to receive nominations of candidates for next month’s presidential, parliamentary, senate and municipal elections. It was my first ever experience of nomination courts. For me it was a double bill commencing at 3:45 pm at the High Court ending at 9:40pm at the Magistrate’s Court. The first part was an attempted nomination for the presidential elections that went wrong. Fortunately I had submitted nomination papers for both presidential and parliamentary elections. The latter was successful.


The nomination courts sat exactly three weeks after our launch of the CDP, so we acknowledged that the forthcoming elections are not ours. Accordingly, we decided to use them for learning the ropes and warming up only in preparation for the election after that. That entails limited participation. Initially we had eight potential candidates but many fell by the wayside as the moment of truth approached. Some had good reasons but in some cases it appeared fear loomed very large. Yesterday only two CDP candidates secured nomination. I am contesting the Harare Central constituency parliamentary seat while CDP Treasurer Arthur Chaora is contesting the Mount Pleasant constituency parliamentary seat.


I wanted to stand for president even if only for the kicks of confronting the dangerous. So I put in a lot of effort preparing for it. In the end my bid collapsed because of poor quality nominators as well as a suspect voters roll. For a start some voters’ rolls were hard to get hold of. One opposition party had to seek a High Court order just to secure access to a voters’ roll!

With no provincial Party branches or similar infrastructure in place yet, it was a herculean task to obtain nomination signatures from outlying provinces. I spent colossal amounts of time and effort begging for nomination signatures from total strangers at bus termini as well as in remote districts. Needless to say the quality of signatures so obtained was inherently low. Even though I collected more signatures than necessary, there were enough failures to invalidate my presidential nomination papers. A consolation is that I saved $1billion. This was the deposit payable by presidential candidates. So I can afford to buy toilet paper now. In terms of The Electoral Act, the deposit is refundable where a candidate gets more than a certain minimum number of votes. However, in a hyperinflationary environment the value of a refund after six weeks is largely academic.

At the nomination court for parliamentary candidates, the same problem threatened again but in the end I only just scraped through. One of my nominators there had definitely registered to vote earlier in the week but her name was still not on the voters’ roll! I was so relieved when I got through. The last thing I needed was further bruising while I was still licking my wounds from an earlier let-down.

The anxiety of it all and the relief afterwards were reminiscent of school examinations, complete with the laxative effect.

One thing I discovered this week is that politics inhibits romantic streaks. I spent the 14th of February in the bowels of Matabeleland collecting nomination signatures. While I was out there it never occurred to me that it was Valentine’s day! I suppose the hard work involved as well as the flat tyre were not exactly conducive to affectionate tendencies.

Back in Harare yesterday, the condition of the High Court was an interesting microcosm of the state of Zimbabwe as a country. Structurally it is a robust majestic colonial building. However the internal finish has seen better days. My disappointment with the High Court dates back to 1991. I was with a firm of accountants then working on a liquidation. Then I had to attend a creditors’ meeting at the High Court. The paint was already peeling as far back as then!
Now it is not only the paint that is falling apart. Last month I was sitting in a lawyer’s office when their assistant came to report that the Master of the High Court had run out of bond paper. So he was not in a position to produce the report he was supposed to do.


Ironically, the Magistrates court (a lower court) was in much better shape. There was only one problem though, no power. So the parliamentary nomination court had to be held by gaslight. Maybe that is why they struggled to find my nominators’ names on the voters’ roll.

Polling day is six weeks away. So the campaign trail starts here.