Source: Court upholds police ban on NERA demo | The Financial Gazette March 23, 2017
THE High Court yesterday upheld a police ban on the National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA) demonstration meant to press for electoral reforms.
Hundreds of supporters of opposition political parties who had hoped to demonstrate in central Harare were confined to the capital city’s Robert Mugabe Square in compliance with a High Court order upholding a police ban on the protesters not to march into central Harare.
NERA, a union of more than a dozen opposition political parties, ended up only managing to hand in a petition tabulating their demands to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).
The court had ruled that only 10 people were to present the NERA petition to ZEC.
Heavy police presence thwarted an attempt by the crowd to march en-masse to ZEC offices.
NERA’s petition called for the disbanding of ZEC, which it alleges has failed to carry out its constitutional mandate of being an independent elections body that would ensure an election process that is in tandem with regional guidelines. The petition also demanded media access to all parties during election time.
After being addressed by their leaders who included Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) president Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe People First’s Didymus Mutasa and Tendai Biti of the Zimbabwe People’s Party, the seemingly agitated crowd of about 2 000 people headed for the central business district, marching along Robert Mugabe Street. The MDC-T dominated crowd sang and danced denouncing the ZANU-PF government.
Shops along Robert Mugabe Street, west of Kaguvi Street, briefly closed after some youths in the crowd started being rowdy.
But, immediately, two anti-riot police trucks with heavily-armed personnel, accompanied by a water canon truck appeared forestalling possible violence.
(Visit www.fingaz.co.zw for full story)Police surrounded the protesters who tried in vain to stand their ground.
And upon noticing that they had been sandwiched, the intimidated crowd started to disperse.
NERA has vowed to organise more protests as the year progresses.
“We are planning plenty more demonstrations until our demands are met,” said NERA’s legal secretary, Douglas Mwonzora.
Addressing the crowd, Tsvangirai said only through unity can opposition parties dethrone ZANU-PF.
“We have suffered under this system for a long time. We may be different, but we have a common enemy which is ZEC. ZEC has abandoned its mandate to be a referee during elections and chose to side with the ruling party,” said Tsvangirai.
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