'Extremely excessive': Zim opposition can't pay its legal bills from election challenge

Zimbabwe’s main opposition party says a $3.2 million bill charged to them by President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s lawyers in the election challenge is “extremely excessive”.

Movement for Democratic Change Alliance Secretary General Douglas Mwonzora told the state-run Sunday Mail: “Our lawyers are going to contest it.”

The MDC and its leader Nelson Chamisa have to foot Mnangagwa's legal bill because Chamisa lost a Constitutional Court challenge to the July election result.

Property to be attached?

The Sunday Mail says that failure to settle the bill could see Chamisa's property being attached. The 40-year-old lawyer still insists he won the elections, which took place less than a year after longtime president Robert Mugabe was forced out in a military takeover.

The MDC Alliance launched a crowdfunding initiative after it lost its case in August. But by Sunday, just over 22 000 British pounds had been raised out of a target of 100 000 pounds. 

'Grossly malicious'

Said Mwonzora: "The bill we have at the moment is grossly malicious."

Under Zimbabwe’s laws, if the bill is contested, it has to go for arbitration before the registrar of courts.

In August, the High Court ordered its sheriff to attach property at the MDC headquarters worth more than $260 000  owed to an ex-employee, according to the state-run Herald newspaper.