By Adv Thabani Mpofu
I NO not remember the exact date in 2023, but I remember the moment with painful clarity. It was the day the Nomination Court sat for the 2023 general elections. I was in Chambers, minding my own business, when Nelson Chamisa walked in, darkening my doorway. He had just met Tendai Biti, who came in with him.
Nelson looked at me and said, in that familiar, earnest way of his:
“My brother, if you are able to assist, I would love for you to lead the legal team going into the elections. As usual, and as you know, we are unable to pay you.”
I have always regarded service to the people of Zimbabwe as an honour, not a burden. So my answer was immediate, plain, and resolute: I would do it.
My first public duty as leader of the legal team came that very instance, I was to accompany Nelson to the High Court, to ensure the presidential nomination process was proceeding properly and to satisfy ourselves that all was well. As we walked, my mind was alive with questions. What structure would I have? Who would form part of it? How would we run the operations? And how, pray, would this all be funded? Because the truth is this: my team received not a single dollar for everything it did.
The rituals at the High Court where the nomination court for the presidential election was held went by without event. We had to make our way back to Chambers. By then the day was already far spent. It must have been around 6PM.
That was when I received my baptism of fire.
The Nomination Court sitting at Rotten Row had rejected the Proportional Representation CCC parliamentary nominations. It was a mess. A stinker. A rotten, humiliating, dangerous mess. It was not of my making, but it had landed on my head all the same, and I had to clean it up.
Fortunately, I knew the Electoral Act as intimately as the prayer we recite at home before dinner. I had to rely on that knowledge, on my oratory, and on my presence. When I arrived at Rotten Row, the atmosphere shifted. The sullen faces of the candidates lifted. They may lack in many respects but these opposition stalwarts command a belligerent presence.
Within minutes, the Harare problem was solved. The things I said impressed me but I can’t even remember them. I then had to return to Chambers and continue working for my family, or so I thought.
On the way back, I received a call. I cannot remember from whom. Twelve Bulawayo MPs were having problems with their papers. This was after the cut-off time. A disaster was brewing.
The idea that an election in which the traditional opposition stronghold would simply be handed over to ZANU PF was not something that could happen under my watch. But at that point, I did not yet have all the facts.
After a flurry of calls, I had at least gotten on top of the facts. But I still had no legal team in place. My mission was becoming a storm. I had nothing to do with the original problems, but if I was not careful, I would end up wearing them like a mask. And as so often happens in these moments, everyone was now looking at the lawyer.
I called David Coltart. I needed someone to go to the Nomination Court and advance an argument I had crafted. He sounded exhausted; he had had a difficult day and could not assist. I then tried Welshman Ncube and struggled to reach him. I searched high and low until I finally got Tinashe.
Tinashe was honest with me: the Electoral Act was not his terrain. But at that point I did not need his technical mastery. I needed his heart. My own expertise could be channeled through another person. On that score, I was calm and confident. I assured him that all would be well.
He was willing to serve the motherland, and so he drove to the Nomination Court. All the while, I was on the phone with him, breaking down both the legal argument and the strategy. Tinashe is a clever lawyer. Before long, he was making my points as though they had come from his own mouth.
But there was resistance at first. They did not want to hear him. He handed the phone to the person in charge, and after I softened that heart, they agreed that he would be heard.
Long story short: Tinashe did not leave until 2AM. That was when we finally solved the problem of the twelve.
I was awake throughout, cleaning up someone else’s mess and fighting on an uneven field with the lights of justice flickering uncertainly overhead.
A few days later, after the usual high-fives and the brief relief that follows a crisis, twelve applications were filed against the candidates. By then I had a legal team in place—twenty formidable minds ready to defend the motherland.
The candidates remembered Tinashe as the face that had saved them, and they all agreed to take their papers to him. Tinashe himself, now a full member of the team, was prepared to assist with the administrative work. That left me to draft twelve defences. I did it overnight. I prepared the heads of argument and shared them with the team. Then I had to fly to Bulawayo, and because of an exchange that has left me bitter and upset to this day, I paid all my expenses.
At the Bulawayo High Court, the twelve people who were under threat of disqualification were not even present.
I told Tinashe to read the riot act and make it clear to them that if they were not in attendance, I would not represent them. In fairness, I had expected to arrive in a boiling, anxious Bulawayo. Instead, I was met with indifference and capitulation, and that shocked me deeply. In fact, it upset me gravely to this very day.
Long story short, Welshman Ncube and I argued the matter. To my sweet surprise, ZEC fought in our corner. It fought as though it meant it. I realised it was a matter of honour, Zanu PF having abused it all this while was effectively questioning its integrity. The vulgarity was even supported by that Tshinga fellow who was in attendance. That was a dim and disappointing sight.
Notwithstanding ZEC’s defence, we lost.
And let me be clear: it was not the loss itself that drove me mad. It was the circumstances under which the news was delivered.
My wife and I had travelled to England for an important family engagement. We arrived at Manchester Airport, where my father-in-law was waiting for us. I was tired as I had worked the entire flight and so I slept on the long drive to Yorkshire. Meanwhile, disaster had struck in Bulawayo. The High Court had barred the twelve from contesting. The whole of Bulawayo.
I only received the news when I walked into my in-laws’ home. I could not bathe. I could not eat. My mind was on fire. I was beside myself. But I was determined to reverse the injustice, and so I set to work drafting a notice of appeal.
I understood the political sensitivities, and I knew the narrative had to be changed quickly. The judgment had to be neutralized by an appeal. The appeal would also suspend the effect of the judgment and ensure that ZEC did not do anything underhanded, like printing ballot papers that excluded the twelve.
In no time at all, I was done. I asked my team to file the appeal. They delayed. It was a slight delay but which no mad man could take.
My in-laws had never seen me that angry, that agitated, that belligerent. I threatened to dissolve the entire team. I was losing control. I was screaming at everyone. Perhaps I was unfair to them. But they responded like mature men and the appeal was filed. Only then did my mother-in-law greet me in her traditional Manyika way. Yes it was the other way round. Until that moment, I had not formally “entered” the house, and there I was, behaving like a man possessed by her hearth.
The elections were fast approaching, and there were further processes that had to be pursued, so the appeal had to be finalized. I had to prepare the application for the urgent hearing of the appeal and the heads of argument. There was a reason these processes fell on me but those do not matter for now. My trip was a nightmare. I spent all my time working on these legal processes. I was also working on the Polling Agents Manual.
I must pause here and say that for purposes of the appeal, I suggested that I and Paida Saurombe would represent six candidates, while Welshman Ncube and Runganga would represent the other six. The heads prepared by Welshman were a thing of beauty. I am angry with Welshman over many things, but whenever I remember those heads of argument, my heart softens.
I then had to travel back to Zimbabwe, and in accommodating me, the Supreme Court set the matter down for 2:30PM a departure from the traditional 9:30AM. I arrived in the country just after mid-morning and was on my feet in the Supreme Court by 2:30PM.
Once again, Welshman was brilliant. Our appeal was allowed, and the twelve were restored to contest—and all of them won the election.
I think only about six attended the Supreme Court hearing. They had to share cars from Bulawayo, or some other pitiful excuse.
I personally went through a great deal for these people. If I had charged them, not even the Zanu PF bribe money some of them have now received would have discharged their indebtedness.
My official position is that they owe me nothing. They never forced me into this and my foolish heart must not leave them in debt.
But today, my broken heart and shattered soul sank as I watched some of them vote in favour of an indecency that even sacrifice cannot cleanse; a vulgarity that cannot be atoned. I found myself asking questions I never thought I would ask. I reviewed my sacrifices. I cursed. I swore. Anger gave way to rage, rage to bitterness, and bitterness to frustration.
My blood pressure rose through the roof.
And in the end, I said to myself only this:
It is my turn to feel the pain.
Advocate Thabani Mpofu is a lawyer
