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The leader of the MDC, Douglas Mwonzora, has announced his withdrawal from the August 23, 2023 general elections.
Addressing journalists in Harare at the part’s headquarters on Tuesday, a disgruntled Mwonzora accused ZEC and the ruling Zanu Pf of targeting and frustrating his party. Mwonzora also said the electoral playing field was far from conducive to hold free and fair elections.
The opposition leader also said the irregularities within the delimitation report and the recent electoral court move to affirm ZEC’s rejection of his party’s 87 candidates’ nominations were the root cause of his decision to quit, adding that it was impossible for his party to participate in this year’s general election with just 24 candidates.
After annoucing his withdrawal, Mwonzora implored ZEC to remove his name from the ballot.
Below is the full speech of the MDC president, Douglas Mwonzora:
“Ladies and gentlemen, members of the press welcome to this press conference. I want to thank you for coming at such short notice. I know that today should be a very busy day for all of you, because a lot is happening in our country. With me is the Chairman of the party, Mr. Chikovero, organizing secretary of the party, Mukunguma, of cause, you know, doctor Tapiwa Mashakada, our secretary general.
“In December 2022, the Zimbabwe electoral commission produced the most objectionable delimitation report. This report was condemned by parliament, it was condemned by all parliamentarians across the political divide. The MDC, being the contentious vanguard of the people, challenged this report in the constitutional court. However, after clear interference with the judiciary, the constitutional court refused to hear our matter, and the MDC could not get justice for the people. On the 22 of June, ZEC made it impossible for the MDC to pay nomination fees for 87 of its parliamentary candidates as a result our candidates were unfairly disqualified on failure to pay nomination fees, although the ZEC extended the deadline by one day, they made it clear that the deadline did not apply to the MDC.
“This was politics discrimination and partiality at its worst, no legal or factual basis existed on this time of political discrimination as a results of the actions by ZEC there was mass disqualification of our people and therefore mass disfranchisement of mass of thousands of Zimbabwean people, the MDC had no choice but to seek justice in the courts of law, in this regard the MDC was acting as a law abiding patriotic and responsible party despite the fact the electoral cases are taken as urgent our matter was only finalized after more than month.
“The MDC is the first party to take the matters to court and it took it’s matter to court on the 23 of June the matter was only finalized on the 1 of august , other matters by other parties that came after the MDC matter were finalized earlier, whilst similar or worth cases were favorably treated with the courts the MDC case as usual was thrown out on mere technicalities were as the ZEC in some cases sided with candidates and political parties seeking enfranchisement, in the case of the MDC they put a spirited performance, a spirited fight against the inclusion of the 87.
“For that reason our people are disenfranchised for that reason 87 constituencies have been denied the right to vote, now some time ago the high level political platform secured funding for training of polling agents the high level political platform is a platform which is brokered by the Zimbabwe institute and it is made up of 3 political parties represent in parliament that is the MDC, CCC and Zanu PF these parties secured funding for the training and deployment of polling agents and it secured funding to the tune of 3 million euro that was supposed to be used in this regard.
“The training and deployment of polling agents is important to ensure transparency in an Election as you know in 2018 about 2000 polling stations did not have MDC polling agents and we had thought that we were going to cure this problem and the money was actually secured from some of the philanthropic donors.
“However, the Zanu PF has blocked this money with, the net result that the MDC and the other parties are unable at least to fund their election agency. This is intended to make sure that rigging an election is expedited or is enabled. Our constitution provides that once the election has been declared they must not be a change in electoral law.
“But contrary to all this just last week there was promulgation of a statutory instrument to govern postal votes to govern an aspect of this election and this is totally illegal, there is no doubt ladies and gentlemen that this election is not free and fair, the election management body has not displayed the requisite partiality and fairness expected of it. It has acted vindictively and in a partisan manner against the MDC.
“There is no doubt that the ZEC has decided on who should contest this election. The ZEC has decided on who should not be part of this election, now l find myself as a president without 87 of my candidates. This is the first time in the history of the country that we have seen mass in franchisement, mass disqualification of this number of people. There is no doubt why the MDC is being treated in a different manner from other political parties, it is because the MDC took ZEC to court over delimitation. The delimitation that we fought against is now in force and its effects are now clear on this election.
“ZEC right now as we are speaking is busy checking boundaries of electoral constituencies.it has added l think more than a thousand more polling stations because the delimitation report was itself by nature invalid. Having seriously considered this and being a patriotic Zimbabwean I love my country. I took part in the crafting of the constitution of our land l believe that the constitution is not there for the decoration.
“I believe that there is a minimum standard of integrity required in our electoral system and l believe that the mass disenfranchisement, of our people, the discrimination of one party in a country by the election management body is unacceptable for that reason. Ladies and gentlemen in terms of section 107 of the electoral act, with the concurrence of my party have withdrawn my candidature in this election.
“We are boycotting this farce. We are boycotting this shame we are boycotting this presidential election. We come to this conclusion after serious consideration. We come to this conclusion after looking at our founding fathers. Our aim as the MDC is to take over governmental power through peaceful democratic and constitutional means. Govern differently and change the lives of the Zimbabwean people for the better.
“We are left with only 24 constituency candidates. Even if our presidential candidate were to win, he will be a one week president, because he will not be controlling parliament, he will not be the majority in parliament. So ladies and gentlemen, that is the decision of myself as the presidential candidate and the decision of the national council of the party sitting yesterday.
“ZEC was advised of my decision and we expect it to act in accordance with the law. The law says they have to gazette this withdrawal and l have specifically asked them that they should not include my name on the ballot paper. Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen.”
