Zambian authorities closed the country’s top courts on \u200bMonday, blocking access to the premises on the last day that \u200cthe opposition could file a challenge to this month’s disputed election.<\/p>\n
A memorandum from the chief administrator of the judiciary, which was seen by Reuters, said that “for security reasons, all members of \u200bstaff are advised not to report for work today”.<\/p>\n
Police spokesman Godfrey \u200bChilabi told Reuters that security assessments were ongoing, and declined to \u2060give details. A spokesperson for the judiciary could not be reached.<\/p>\n
Opposition leader Brian \u200bMundubile said last week that he was planning to file a petition at the \u200bConstitutional Court to\u00a0challenge the results\u00a0of an August 13 election in which he came second to\u00a0President Hakainde Hichilema.<\/p>\n
The deadline to file such a challenge is seven days after the result was \u200bannounced, which would be in the early hours of Tuesday.<\/p>\n
OPPOSITION STILL AIMING TO <\/strong>\u200b<\/strong>FILE PETITION<\/strong><\/p>\n At the Supreme Court premises in Lusaka, which also includes the Constitutional Court, all \u200cof the \u2060gates were closed and police could be seen inside.<\/p>\n Hichilema\u00a0won re-election with about 60% of votes in the Southern African copper producer, but two reports by independent observers found indications the that Hichilema’s vote count was inflated. Hichilema has denied any \u200bfraud.<\/p>\n Following the arrests of \u200bseveral of his \u2060associates, Mundubile was\u00a0summoned by police\u00a0for questioning last week in connection with alleged national security threats, which he says are \u200bfabricated.<\/p>\n Analysts and human rights lawyers said they suspected he might \u200bbe prevented \u2060from filing his petition, though Hichilema’s party said that Mundubile was free to use the legal routes available to him.<\/p>\n “We are trying our best to ensure that the \u2060petition \u200bis filed but we will see how it \u200bgoes,” said New Heritage Party President Chishala Kateka, whose party belongs to Mundubile’s opposition alliance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zambian authorities closed the country’s top courts on \u200bMonday, blocking access to the premises on the last day that \u200cthe opposition could file a challenge to this month’s disputed election. A memorandum from the chief administrator of the judiciary, which was seen by Reuters, said that “for security reasons, all members of \u200bstaff are advised […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":21782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,30],"tags":[394],"class_list":["post-21862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-southern-africa","tag-zambia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21863,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21862\/revisions\/21863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}