Harare — THE Supreme Court may order a rerun of last month's presidential election this afternoon when it considers a constitutional application brought by the leaders of two minor political parties.

A full bench of 10 Supreme Court judges will consider whether the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) violated the constitutional rights of Justin Chiota and Daniel Shumba, who head the Zimbabwe Peoples' Party and the United People's Party respectively, when it refused to admit their nomination papers at the sitting of the nomination court on February 15.

A draft order dated April 15 and lodged at the Supreme Court seeks to declare Chiota and Shumba duly nominated as candidates in the presidential election.

The effect of a ruling in the duo's favour will be significant; it would mean the presidential election would have to be rerun.

Chiota has told the court that on nomination day, he arrived at the nomination court at 1330 hours and attempted to lodge his papers as a presidential candidate. But constituency registrar, Ignatius Mushangwe, advised him that his papers were soiled and could not be accepted.

Chiota was advised to fill in new papers, and informed that he could still lodge them even after the 4pm deadline, because "as long as I was within the nomination court I would be entitled to present the papers once I had filled them in", he submits in court papers.

Shumba, who arrived at 1545hours, was advised to wait until Chiota had completed his papers.

However, after the deadline had passed, Mushangwe declined to accept the two aspiring presidential candidates' papers.

"If the relief sought in this application is not granted on an urgent basis we will suffer irreparable harm as the process of the election will be completed with the announcement of the results. We have no alternative remedy, which would achieve the same result as the order being sought in this application.

"In the circumstances, we ask that our application be determined on an urgent basis. The matter is also urgent because the 1st respondent (ZEC) has already announced the results for the House of Assembly. Unless this order is granted, nothing will stop the respondent from announcing the results for the Presidential election."

ZEC's non-acceptance of their papers "constitutes violation of our rights to freedom of expression and association, which are protected by Sections 20 and 21 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe respectively", the two argue.

They made the application to the Supreme Court in terms of Section 24 (1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe for "a declaration that Sections 20 and 21 have been contravened in relation to ourselves."

Results of the presidential election have been delayed for close to three weeks, prompting a standoff between ZANU-PF and the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which claims its leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the election outright.

The stalemate has attracted wide international attention, and saw Southern African Development Community leaders call a special summit last weekend.

But today's Supreme Court ruling would add a shock new twist to the entire saga.