A top South African lawyer who once advised Nelson Mandela will join a team helping Zimbabwe opposition leader Nelson Chamisa to overturn the results of last month's presidential poll.
Jeremy Gauntlett will join a team comprising Zimbabwean lawyers and high-profile South African advocates Dali Mpofu and Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, reports the private Daily News.
Chamisa claims the results of the July 30 poll were manipulated to favour President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who won the election with 50.8% of the declared vote, compared to Chamisa's 44.3%.
'We won't block them'
Writing on Twitter, opposition MDC Alliance politician David Coltart tweeted over the weekend that Gauntlett had on Friday applied to the Zimbabwean authorities "to argue a portion of the Chamisa case".
"We trust the application will be granted urgently. Anything less will be a travesty," he said.
See tweet below
In an interview with the private NewsDay, Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi said the authorities would not block Chamisa’s foreign lawyers from working.
"We have their (MDC Alliance's) application for their advocates to operate and we will process it. We don’t want to be seen to be blocking what they are trying to do," the minister said.
Wednesday’s election petition in the Constitutional Court will be closely-watched to see if the nine-member bench will fairly handle the matter.
An application was made in Friday for Advocate Jeremy Gauntlett SC QC to argue a portion of the Chamisa case. We trust that the application will be granted urgently. Anything less will be a travesty. pic.twitter.com/ApmZQ8ffH5
— David Coltart (@DavidColtart) August 19, 2018