MORGEN Komichi, who was the MDC Alliances chief elections agent and was arrested for publicly challenging the 2018 presidential elections, has made a U-turn and endorsed President Emmerson Mnangagwa as the countrys legitimate leader. BY BLESSED MHLANGA/NQOBANI NDLOVU Komichi is now backing acting MDC-T leader Thokozani Khupe after the Supreme Court ruling ordered her to convene an extra-ordinary congress within three months. The Supreme Court ruling which ruled that Nelson Chamisa was unconstitutionally elevated to party deputy president by the late MDC founder, Morgan Tsvangirai, in 2016, also ordered the party to go back to its 2014 structures, paving the way for Khupe. Khupe quit the party in a huff after losing the leadership battle to Chamisa in 2018 and formed her own faction of MDC-T, which she ran under in the 2018 presidential elections. After the Supreme Court ruling Komichi and Douglas Mwonzora immediately dumped Chamisa and joined Khupe. Mwonzora fired the first shots last week when he recalled four MDC Alliance MPs as Khupe moved to take full control of the opposition party. Komichi and Mwonzora, both senators, were part of the MDC Alliance that refused to recognise Mnangagwas electoral victory and on several occasions walked out on him in Parliament in protest over what they said was a stolen election. But after crossing the floor, Komichi, who played a huge role over the illegal ascendency of Chamisa to succeed Tsvangirai, said he now recognised Mnangagwa as a legitimate leader. We received advice from a lot of people and organisations telling us that the card of Mnangagwas illegitimacy was no longer viable, Komichi said. The matter of Mnangagwas legitimacy was decided by the Constitutional Court and we accept that ruling. We should respect court processes as a democratic and constitutional party. He added: Democracy is a game of numbers, but now that I have pronounced myself, when he (Mnangagwa) walks in (Parliament), I will stand up for him and respect him. We have to respect decisions that were made by professionals. Komichi, who was also Chamisas chief election agent, also said Chamisas Constitutional Court challenge against Mnangagwas electoral victory lacked evidence. We did not have evidence on whether we had won the election or not, Komichi said. What I can say for sure is that we did not verify the results. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) just announced the results and I stood up to say the results were fake; but after we lost in court, we have to respect the courts. In 2018, when Zec announced Mnangagwa as the winner of the presidential poll, Komichi stormed into the command centre, where the results were being announced and declared that they were fake, claiming he had evidence of Chamisas victory. In an affidavit presented in court, Komichi, under oath, said Chamisa had polled 2,6 million votes for the MDC Alliance party and, therefore, won the elections. He also dismissed a political dialogue to tackle Zimbabwes economic crisis initiated by Mnangagwa, which Chamisa refused to join.