BY BLESSED MHLANGA THE opposition MD C Alliance and MDC-T will have an opportunity to take their power struggles to the court of public opinion after the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) announced yesterday that all pending by-elections would have been held by December 5. Several by-elections are in the offing following the death of incumbents and the controversial recalling of half-a-dozen MDC Alliance MPs and councillors by the rival MDC-T party. Appearing before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice together with Election Resource Centre, Zec chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba said the commission requires a supplementary budget of US$18 million for the by-elections. “We are due to publish the lifting of the suspension of by-election sometime this week or sometime over the weekend … We are looking for a possible date of by-elections of December 5,” she said. “As you know, we have not been operational, so, we need time for procurement and time for implementation of certain things, so there is a draft electoral roadmap.” The broke Zec, which said it would not be able to pay September salaries if it did not get more money from government, said it had approached Finance minister Mthuli Ncube with a US$18,5 million or Zimbabwe dollar equivalent request to be able to perform its mandate. “Zec was allocated $37,7 million for compensation of employees in 2020, as at August 31, we had spent $39,6 million. So we have spent $1,9 million which was unbudgeted, so you probably know that in order to conduct the by-elections, we will submit a supplementary budget which we expect you will approve because we would not have budgeted that there will be all these recalls. “The projection of salaries shows that the commission will not be able to support the September 2020 wage bill and the months thereafter to December 2020. The projections are based on current salary levels, with no provision of increments till year end,” she said. “With regards to the filling of PR vacancies … the commission has been alerted of the names forwarded by the MDC-T as nominees to fill their PR vacancies in terms of section 39 of the Electoral Act, and they have 15 PR vacancies, we have since received 10 340 objections, whose validity is being checked in terms of the Electoral Act,” she said.