LITTLE known United Zimbabwe Alliance (UZA) has approached the High Court seeking to stop the Mbizo parliamentary by-elections over a ‘darkened and unrecognizable picture’ of its parliamentary candidate.
Zimbabwe will tomorrow hold by-elections for the 28 parliamentary and 105 local government seats that fell vacant following either recall or death of candidates elected in the 2018 harmonised elections.
In its High Court application filed Friday afternoon, UZA wants ballot papers for Mbizo parliamentary elections to be reprinted because their candidate Gladys Mutunami’s photo has blotches and is overly darkened and unrecognizable.
“Upon inspecting the ballot papers, I noticed a serious anomaly to do with my photo image as it appeared on the ballot papers, I noticed the following;
“Unlike others, my face was and or is darkened so as to make my known image difficult to recognize
“Unlike others my face has blotches that further distort my known image, to the extent that my recognition by voters is difficult to achieve in an unfair manner as compared to other candidates
“Unlike others, the distortions in my photo image appearing on the ballot papers, make it difficult to even recognize my gender. The whole picture makes my recognition extremely difficulty as compared to the other candidates appearing in the ballot papers,” reads part of the UZA High Court challenge.
Meanwhile, the High Court has today dismissed an application filed by LEAD President Linda Masarira to stop elections in Harare Central on the basis that she had not been availed with a copy of the voters roll.
The Nelson Chamisa led Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) has also complained over the appearance of its party logo on the ballot papers which hey said is blurred.
CCC said the blurring of its party logo will disadvantage its supporters who may not be able to identify it when voting.
