Use of tippex, fake and duplicate tally sheets take center stage in Chilima’s re-examination
Efforts to dispute the use of tippex, fake and duplicate tally sheets by the first witness and petitioner UTM party president Saulos Chilima during re-examination by his lawyer Dr Chikosa Silungwe in the ongoing presidential elections case were marred by objections from the respondents.
The re-examination Wednesday morning in the Constitutional Court was affected by objections from the first and second respondents legal team mainly on the questioning line and use of a new table as a guide for the witnesses which had some statistics.
The development forced the Judge President Healey Potani to adjourn the hearing to afternoon so that the five judges panel can deliberate and make a ruling on the objection.
Earlier, Silungwe asked Chilima to look at the selected 25 results sheets, which the witness said “they were unsigned by presiding officers through the procedure manual as per the electoral rules.”
“In some sheets, there are no signatures by the monitors while not all results sheet were signed as per the procedure manual which the first responded issued,” said Chilima.
He further observed that there were duplicates, alterations which were not signed for, presiding officers having not signed some results sheets and some without even monitors as well as presiding officers signatures.
The objections brings doubt whether Silungwe will be done with re-examination on Wednesday as he earlier indicated on Tuesday afternoon.