16 Parly seats vacant

According to the parliamentary watchdog Veritas, the number of vacant constituency seats rose to 16, six in the Senate and 10 in the House of Assembly, during the 7th session of Parliament that adjourned last week until October.

The failure to hold by-elections to fill the vacant seats is in breach of the Constitution and the Electoral Act, says Veritas, a voluntary grouping of respected lawyers. The excuse of first having to update the voters rolls is not a valid one as the law currently limits voting at a by-election to those on the roll when the vacancy occurred; and some of these vacancies arose in 2008.

There are a further four vacancies in non-constituency seats: one chiefs seat, still to be filled by the Matabeleland South Assembly of Chiefs; two Zanu (PF) seats in the Senate; and one Zanu (PF) seat in the House of Assembly.

The discredited former Zimbabwe Electoral Commission claimed it had no money to hold by-elections.

Under section 39 of the Electoral Act a by-election proclamation must be gazetted within 14 days of the President receiving notification of a vacancy. Parliament has stated that all vacancies were promptly notified to the Presidents Office. This is not a matter in which the President is free to act as he thinks fit; he must act in accordance with Cabinet advice.

Veritas says the government has put forward no satisfactory explanation for its failure to call the by-elections. If the Electoral Acts requirements for calling by-elections are not complied with, the High Court can order compliance, provided an interested party takes the trouble to go to court; that happened in Bulawayo last year when a by-election was unduly delayed.

Suspended Members

At the beginning of the 7th parliamentary session last year, four MDC-T members of the House were under suspension in terms of section 42 of the Constitution, having been convicted of various offences and sentenced to more than six months imprisonment.

During the session one of them had his conviction overturned on appeal and was automatically reinstated. The other three remain suspended pending the determination of their appeals. They continue to hold their seats, but while suspended cannot vote or participate in Parliamentary business and receive no remuneration. If they win their appeals, they will be reinstated; if their appeals are unsuccessful, their seats will fall vacant. Meanwhile, MDC-T voting strength is reduced by three.

As things stand the MDC-T and Zanu (PF) each have 96 parliamentary votes, while the MDC-M has seven. In the upper house MDC-T has a voting strength of 27, Zanu (PF) has 56 and MDC-M has eight. The Zanu figure is made up of 25 elected senators, four appointed by Mugabe, 10 provincial governors and 17 chiefs, who have always traditionally voted Zanu (PF).

Veritas reports that arrests and/or prosecution of MDC-T parliamentarians continued throughout the session. Charges of insulting the President featured in several of these cases. No convictions have yet ensued. The then MDC-T Deputy Minister of Youth, Thamsanqa Mahlangu, was arrested, spent time in custody and after weeks of court hearings was acquitted of theft of a cellphone.

MDC-T Deputy Minister-designate of Agriculture, Roy Bennett, spent weeks in remand prison and then at the end of a protracted trial was acquitted of terrorism and banditry charges, whereupon the Attorney-General applied for leave to appeal. The Chief Justice heard legal argument on the application on July 28, then said his decision would be handed down later, but warned that this would not be soon, given the lengthy trial record.