Ksukuwere appeal bar to contest 2023 rat race - HC judge was compromised - to equally compromised SC judges. It's muddle! W Mukori

 Saviour Ksukuwere was one of the late dictator Robert Mugabe’s key players in the creation and retention of the de facto one party state in Zimbabwe. He (Kasukuwere) never imagined even for a minute that one day he will be caught in the lawless spider’s web he helped to weave.  

“In a High Court application filed last Friday, Kasukuwere wants Justice David Mangota's ruling barring him from the election declared a nullity because it was made by ‘a compromised judicial officer who had received a house from the state three working days before rendering his judgement’,” reported Bulawayo 24.

"I am advised that at law, a judgement given by a biased judicial officer must be treated as pro non scripto (as not written) and the same cannot be appealed against but rescinded at law as the same does not appear in the record," Kasukuwere said in an affidavit.

Justice Mangota granted an order sought by Lovedale Mangwana, a Zanu-PF activist, who argued that Kasukuwere had been out of the country for 12 months leading to the filing of his nomination papers on June 21, and was legally ineligible to vote and run for public office.

Kasukuwere has appealed the judgement at the Supreme Court and the matter is set to be heard on July 27.

If Kasukuwere’s appeal is based on nothing else other than that Justice Mangota was compromised then he should not even bother attending the Supreme Court hearing because the judges there are equally compromised! 

All Zimbabwe’s high ranking judiciary officials including the judges received a US$ 400 000 housing loan from this Zanu PF government. It is not part of their renumeration package and many others individual such as chiefs, CIO, ZEC and many others with a key role to play in these 2023 elections have too received similar generous gifts. 

In ancient Rome bribing public officials was considered a serious crime. In Zimbabwe is the government itself that has made corruption the norm. We call it political patronage. As a former Minister and Zanu PF national Political commissar, Kasukuwere knows only too well that Zimbabwe’s state institutions are captured by the party and they are all department of the party in all but name. And the party has used political patronage to corrupt and control all these institutions. 

Whether the house Judge Mangota received three days before the High Court hearing was part of the US$ 400 000 or over and above that is neither here or there. What matters is the house is just part of the political patronage all the judges, as far as I know received the bribe. All the judges including the three judging hearing Kasukuwere’s appeal. 

It is a great pity that Comrade Saviour Kasukuwere will not the attending the Supreme Court hearing in person, “passenger 34” has remained in outside Zimbabwe throughout all this drama. If he had attended: it would have been very interesting for one of the judges to ask passenger 34. “I took received the US$ 400 000 housing loan. Are you saying I too am compromised?”

“Since when have you known the judiciary in Zimbabwe is compromised, passenger 34?

“Can you repeat your answer under oath, passenger 34?”

Of course, Kasukuwere has knew ever since joining Zanu PF that this was a party of ruthless thugs, a quality he showed in his youth and that served him well hence his meteoric rise through the Zanu PF party ranks. As a seasoned Zanu PF thug, bribing a public official was nothing we are talking to passenger 34 who had no qualms harassing, beating and even killing in the naming of Zanu PF! 

Still, how are the Supreme Court judges going to deny Justice Mangota is compromised when he clearly received the US$400 000 bribe at the beginning of the election cycle? And yet who are they to point the accusing finger at Mangota when they too received a similar bribe? 

“Look how this ha’ growen an’ growen sir, bigger an’ bigger, broader an’ broader, harder an’ harder, fro year to year, fro generation unto generation. Who can look on’t sir, and fairly tell a man ‘tis not a muddle?” Stephen Blackpool, Hard Times by Thomas Hardy

Well, Zimbabwe is indeed in a muddle and one of our own making.