We will fight back, says Chamisa

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MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa has vowed to fight back following the latest setback for his party where the High Court rejected an application to block Thokozani Khupe’s faction from recalling its legislators.

BY MOSES MATENGA

MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa has vowed to fight back following the latest setback for his party where the High Court rejected an application to block Thokozani Khupe’s faction from recalling its legislators.

High Court judge Justice Tawanda Chitapi on Friday ruled that the MDC Alliance does not exist as a legal person, who can sue in court as he blocked the Chamisa-led party from using the courts to stop Khupe.

Chamisa yesterday told The Standard that President Emmerson Mnangagwa was behind his party’s woes because he was still bitter about the outcome of the 2018 elections.

“He is being vindictive because we defeated him in 2018,” he said.

“He cannot stomach that. We control 28 out of 32 urban councils and he lost in 2018. He cannot decimate us.

“He wants to capture us and give the party to his people. It will not happen. He must leave the MDC alone.”

Chamisa had earlier tweeted a similar message, vowing to fight back.

“Will fight and win Zimbabwe for change,” he tweeted. “[Mnangagwa] will never forgive us for defeating him in 2018.

“All challenges are platforms for major comebacks, renewal and massive resurgence.

“We are on the right side of history. We stand for right, light and truth.”

Mnangagwa’s spokesperson George Charamba said the MDC Alliance could not blame anyone for its problems because it was the one that made the decision to approach the courts.

“I suppose the same president would have advised them to approach the courts, isn’t it?

“When you present your matter in court, you must necessarily respect the outcome, happy or unhappy as the case may be, and that can’t be the responsibility of a non-party to procedures,” Charamba said.

“The president is not a party to the case, so how do you suddenly import a person who is not party to the process, who has not declared an intention to be a litigant?

“How do you suddenly import him to explain your poor showing in the court?”

Charamba said the fact that two judges had different opinions on the status of the MDC Alliance as a political party showed that the judiciary was independent.

Prior to Chitapi’s judgement, High Court judge Justice Munangati Manongwa had observed that MDC Alliance “is a political party with capacity to sue and be sued.”

Munongwa made the observation while granting the MDC Alliance a provisional order to stop the disbursement of $7,5 million under the Political Parties Finance Act to the Khupe-led MDC-T.

“That individual judges will interpret the same law to different conclusions just speaks very well of the bench,” Charamba said.

“Judges are not choristers, they don’t belong to a choral team, they are individuals who weigh facts before them in light of the law and arrive at conclusions, which may coincide or may be at variance.”

Charamba said there was no need to drag Mnangagwa into a fight he was not part of, saying it “will not increase their fortunes neither will it make them any wiser.”

“In future, if they want to blame the president, they can come and brief him before they go to court,” he said.

MDC Alliance accused MDC-T secretary-general Douglas Mwonzora and his colleagues of working with Zanu PF to destroy the opposition after he sided with Khupe following a Supreme Court judgement early this year that said she was the late Morgan Tsvangirai’s legitimate successor.