PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa’s legitimacy as both national
and Zanu PF leader has been challenged at the High Court by a party official,
who is seeking nullification of the November 19, 2017 central committee meeting
which appointed him leader.
Zanu PF member, Sybeth Musengezi yesterday filed an application
at the High Court citing the ruling party and Mnangagwa as the second and third
respondents, respectively.
Musengezi was secretary for business development and
liaison, Muzinda WaMugabe district, Zone 4, Harare province before the November
2017 coup.
Zanu PF secretary for administration Obert Mpofu, acting
political commissar Patrick Chinamasa, former Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko
and Ignatius Chombo were also cited as respondents.
Mnangagwa was unanimously appointed Zanu PF first secretary
on November 19, 2017 during a special session of the central committee by
senior party members, following a military coup that ousted the late former
President Robert Mugabe.
Then High Court judge Justice George Chiweshe ruled that
the military’s intervention to stop “those around” Mugabe from taking over
power was constitutionally permissible and lawful.
In the High Court
application, Musengezi, who is represented by Mbidzo Muchadehama and Makoni
Legal Practioners, is seeking a court order that Mphoko, cited as the fifth
respondent, should take necessary steps in line with the Zanu PF constitution
to convene and preside over a special party congress to fill top leadership
positions within three months of the
granting of the order.
“Whereupon, after reading documents filed of record and
hearing counsel for the parties, it is ordered that a declaratur be and is
hereby issued that the special session of the central committee of the first
respondent convened on November 19, 2017, at the party headquarters in Harare
from 10:00 to 1600hrs, was ultra vires the provisions of the constitution of
the first respondent and, therefore, unlawful and null and void,” Musengezi
said.
“A declaratur be and is hereby issued that all the
resolutions of the special session of the central committee of the first
respondent passed at the unlawful meeting convened on November 19, 2017, are
unlawful, invalid and are accordingly set aside.”
In his founding affidavit, Musengezi also argues that
Mnangagwa’s leadership of the country was also illegitimate, because he rose to
the post through an “unconstitutional” November 19 central committee session.
“The stakes in the present matter are much higher and cry
out for the corrective intervention of this honourable court as the beneficiary
of chain of events which commenced with the unlawful special session of the
central committee convened on the 19th of November 2017, ‘the second
respondent’ now occupies the position of both president and first secretary of
the party and President and Head of State of the country,” he said.
“His ascension to both those positions is tainted by
blatant illegalities in violation of the constitution of the first respondent.
He cannot derive any legitimacy at all from the catalogue of illegalities which
were committed in furtherance of his ambition to occupy the two offices of the
party and the country.”
Musengezi claims that the meeting was invalid because
Mugabe was not incapacitated as alleged since he managed to preside over a
Zimbabwe Open University graduation ceremony the same day he was ousted.
He claims that the alleged claim of incapacitation of the
2017 top party leaders by other senior members who attended the “unlawful and
unconstitutional” special session of the central committee convened on November
19 was “deliberately false and misleading”.
Musengezi wrote in the court papers that he feared that if
Mnangagwa was allowed to retain the position he acquired illegally, he would
engage in further illegal conduct to retain and consolidate his grip on power. Newsday
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