Zimbabwe: Voting in the presidential election starts
Police officers and soldiers who will be on duty during the presidential election on the 31 July 2013 started to vote on Sunday July 14, 2013.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) requested the High Court to stop this special two days vote. The leader of the MDC and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai alleged that the police numbers were inflated pointing out that 69,000 police officers were lined up to vote compared to 44,133 on the Ministry of Finance salary schedule for the whole country.
The High Court heard the case on Monday July 15, 2013 and it will make a ruling on Wednesday July 17, 2013 whether to nullify the special vote.
The exercise was peaceful and the security forces voted in public polling centres monitored by foreign observers a departure from the 2008 exercise where security forces were forced to vote in front of their superiors in camps or barracks.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) which failed to deliver adequate voting materials has come under heavy criticism from MDC which is concerned about ZEC’s preparedness for the July 31, 2013 election.
Kenya: The International Criminal Court (ICC) rejects the request of Ruto and Sang to move their trial to Kenya or Tanzania
18 ICC judges voted in a plenary session against the request by Deputy President William Ruto and his co-accused radio journalist Joshua Sang to have their trial moved to East Africa. After extensive discussions the judges voted on Monday July 15, 2013 against the application to move the trial to East Africa.
The accused had requested the ICC to hold at least a part of the trial in Kenya or in Tanzania to enable the President and his Deputy to combine their political duties with attending the hearings.
According to the statement from the court, even though the judges understood the concerns and wanted to bring the proceedings closer home, they arrived at their decision after assessing the opinion of all parties and participants. The judges cited several factors such as security, the cost of holding proceedings outside The Hague, the potential impact on victims and witnesses, the length of the proceedings to be held away from the seat of the Court, the potential impact on the perception of the court and the impact on the court’s ability to conduct and support other proceedings that are taking place simultaneously at the seat of the Court as some of the reasons behind the rejection of the application.
There were judges who were in favor of the opening session of the trials held in Arusha or Kenya, but the number fell short of the requisite two-thirds majority to change the seat of the court.
In the foregoing, Ruto’s and Sang’s trial will commence in The Hague on September 10, 2013 in the presence of the accused.
The ICC is yet to rule on a similar application by President Uhuru Kenyatta.