Former Zec chairperson Justice Simpson Victor Mutambanengwe dies

Retired High Court judge and Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) Justice Simpson Victor Mutambanengwe died in Namibia last night. The circumstances surrounding his death are unknown but we will update you as soon as we get the information.

Mutambanengwe was a London trained lawyer who briefly practised on the bar in London, United Kingdom from 1963 to 1964 and was later admitted as an advocate to the then Rhodesian Bar in 1964. He then practised as an advocate and later as a legal practitioner in Zimbabwe from 1979 to 1986.  In 1986, he was appointed a High Court judge in Zimbabwe and later, in 1994, was appointed High Court judge in Namibia; on secondment by the Zimbabwean Government, where he also served on the Namibian Supreme Court bench.

Justice Mutambanengwe was appointed ZEC chairperson on March 31, 2010 in terms of Constitutional Amendment Number 19 (Act 1 of 2009), which was a result of the Global Political Agreement. He took over from Justice George Chiweshe who was later appointed Judge President of the High Court. He resigned from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission on 11 February 2013 a few months before the referendum on the draft Constitution and harmonised elections slated for that year. Mutambanengwe resigned on health reasons. However, Government sources interviewed at the time of Mutambanengwe’s resignation said that he was allegedly pushed out of ZEC for his outspokenness and independent views by a Zanu-PF faction that viewed him as a danger to their political survival ahead of the 2013 elections.