By Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu

SOME Zimbabwean political commentators are still trying to question the legitimacy of the country’s Government in spite of the Constitutional Court’s August 31 unanimous ruling that President Emmerson Mnangagwa won while Nelson Chamisa and some 21 others lost.
An article by Cyprian M. Ndawana in the NewsDay of September 12 said, among other things: “Although the ConCourt ruled that Mnangagwa was the duly elected candidate, this verdict, nonetheless, did not guarantee him legitimacy.
Like the military intervention which initially catapulted him to the presidency, he knew well enough that the prerogative to bestow legitimacy rested with citizenry through credible elections.
Confirmed reports of votes exceeding the number of registered voters, ghost polling stations producing thousands of votes for Mnangagwa and duplicated votes are contrary to the spirit of free, fair and credible elections.”
Ndawana went on: “Indeed, ZEC abrogated its constitutional mandate to diligently manage electoral processes, thereby dashing hopes for Mnangagwa for legitimacy.
The manner in which ZEC went on a spree to revise the results it had initially published rendered the election suspect.
No one, including ZEC, can confirm with absolute certainly that the harmonised elections were free, fair and credible.
Also, it cannot be ascertained that Mnangagwa garnered the required 50 plus one threshold.”
Ndawana wrote, of course, as an individual expressing an individual opinion and not that of a particular social class or organised group.
His article was neither informative nor persuasive, let alone didactic.
And here is why:
– There are two aspects to the Zimbabwean political development as from November 2017 — the legal aspect and the factual aspect;
– The July 30 harmonised elections and their results, consequences and effects.
When dealing with the legal aspect of any development, it is usually necessary to use legal language, the most important characteristics of which is precision.
Legal terms are not ambiguous.
The truthfulness of a statement should be provable.
Actually, empty assertions are not considered but are dismissed, usually with contempt, by most law courts.
An example of such a statement in Ndawana’s article is: “Confirmed reports of votes exceeding the number of registered voters, ghost polling stations producing thousands of votes for Mnangangwa….”
Who made the reports and by whom were they confirmed?
Why were such voters’ registers not submitted to the ConCourt as evidence?
Why were names of ‘ghost polling stations’ and the precise number of the ‘…thousands of voters for Mnangagwa and duplicated votes are contrary to the spirit of free, fair and credible elections’ not presented as evidence to the ConCourt?
The ZEC published countrywide figures of votes from each ward and constituency, but those contesting those results did not submit figures they considered or perceived to present their actual situation.
Why?
One can reasonably conclude that such statistics were not submitted because they were non existent as facts, but only as illusions in some people’s very ambitious minds and fertile imagination.
Ndawana said in his rather openly biased, (one could add that it was also a rather poor piece of argumentation) article that ZEC did not ‘diligently’ manage the recent electoral process, ‘…thereby dashing hopes for Mnangagwa for legitimacy.’
He, that is to say Ndawana, is obviously not aware that his statement implied that the whole electoral exercise lacked legitimacy, an obviously legally and factually erroneous opinion, not just because the elections were based on the country’s fundamental law, its Constitution, but also because the process was confirmed by the country’s highest law court, the ConCourt.
Virtually, all international observers concluded that the elections were free, fair and credible and the ConCourt verdict did not contradict this position.
Ndawana added:“It cannot be ascertained that Mnangagwa garnered the required 50 plus one threshold.”
The reader will note that Ndawana refers to ‘50 plus one’ instead of ‘50 percent plus one’.
The two statements mean two different things, of course.
For instance, when dealing with, say 200 votes, 50 plus one is simply 51; but 50 percent plus one of 200 votes is 101 votes. The two expressions mean the same only when the figure is 100. In that case, 50 plus one is 51 just as 50 percent plus one is also 51.
His strange conclusion that ‘…hopes for legitimacy for President Mnangagwa were dashed…’ is based on the fact that ZEC announced and later revised the presidential vote figures twice or thrice.
That, to a legal mind was, persistent and steady application to work by ZEC and not the opposite.
How would Ndawana and those who share his sentiments have taken it if ZEC had said there was a numerical error of, say, one million votes in favour of Chamisa, and then accordingly reverse the presidential election results?
Referees and umpires can, and do, change their decisions following convincing visual or aural evidence, some of which may be got from the electronic media.
So, there was nothing strange about ZEC revising some of the vote figures in the recent elections.
ZEC is, first and foremost, in a management position vis-a-vis Zimbabwean municipal, parliamentary and presidential elections.
That simply means that ZEC is in a stewardship relationship with the ownership of the Zimbabwe electoral organisation, which is the whole nation of Zimbabwe.
When it comes to its practical role, ZEC is the country’s technical electoral administrator and its final responsibility is to oversee the actual voting process which includes the announcement of the results.
Should there be a contest of the results, the country’s judicial system actually comes into the matter if approached.
That was what the ConCourt did and its verdict was not only final, but binding on everyone directly or indirectly concerned with or involved in Zimbabwe’s affairs.
The ConCourt’s pronouncement confirmed the ZEC announcement that President Mnangagwa won the Zimbabwe presidential election ahead of Chamisa.
How could that conclusion and verdict have been made without first ascertaining that President Mnangagwa had garnered the constitutionally required 50 percent plus one threshold?
Ndawana and those of like mind had better realise that it is not optional but legally compulsory for all Zimbabweans as well as de jure residents of Zimbabwe to acknowledge that those recently elected as councillors, MPs, senators and, of course, the President are legitimate official national leaders, differing only in their status as they range from councilors, MPs and senators to the president.
It should be emphasised that legitimacy of a constitutionally defined position is absolute, and that there is a difference between legitimacy and popularity; the former being absolute, and the latter relative.
Ndawana’s article does not notice these two very important aspects of President Mnangagwa’s presidential position.
President Mnangagwa may probably not be as popular to as high a level as Ndawana would have expected, but he is as legitimate as would have been a national president elected by all of the country’s 15 million plus people.
He is the legitimate or de jure President of Zimbabwe.
Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired, Bulawayo-based journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734 328 136 or through email at sgwakuba@gmail.com