HARARE - Zimbabwe's Supreme Court has thrown out a bid by disenfranchised presidential candidate, Advocate Justin Chiota, to overturn the March 2008 presidential poll.

A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court dismissed the application, and said the full judgement would be available in due course.
Chiota and three other presidential aspirants had their papers rejected by the Nomination Court that sat prior to the March 29, 2008 presidential elections, prompting the electoral challenge.
The four prospective candidates who had had their papers rejected by the court were Daniel Shumba of the United People's Party, Abel Ndlovu of the Peace Action Freedom for All, William Gwata of the Christian Democratic Party and Advocate Chihota.  
Reasons for the rejection of their nomination papers included late submission.  In the case of Shumba and Advocate Chihota it was due to inadequate documents.
Chiota relied on the Supreme Court's August 2008 declaratory order stating that he and Shumba had been unlawfully turned away by the nomination court.
But the Supreme Court in its judgement said the 2008 decision did not entitle him to an order re-opening the Nomination Court proceedings or overturning the election - because there was no basis in the evidence before the court for concluding that the election result might have been different if Chiota's name had been on the ballot paper.
The court challenge by Chihota had portended an interesting scenario in the unlikely event that the case ended in the complainant's favour.
There was a real likelihood of the presidential result being nullified, a scenario that would have meant a re-run of the presidential election.
Observers says Chiota's court petition may have not been treated with deserving urgency because at a point, as proclaimed by President Mugabe at his party congress in December, Zanu (PF)'s political game plan envisaged a fresh round of elections in the then likely potential of a failure to the mediation process.
There were fears Zanu (PF) could have then manipulated the Supreme Court to give a judgment that necessitates the nullification of the presidential outcome.
But the judgement completely rules out that possibility, meaning an election has been ruled out in the near future.