Bhasikiti seeks to bar Parly from declaring his seat vacant

Target Shumba Herald Reporter
Mwenezi East National Assembly member Mr Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, who was expelled from Zanu-PF recently, has filed an urgent application at the High Court to stop Parliament from declaring his seat vacant if it receives any communication to expel him.

This comes after Mr Bhasikiti on Tuesday took President Mugabe and Zanu-PF to the same court challenging his expulsion from the revolutionary party.

Mr Bhasikiti, a former Zanu-PF Politburo member and former Minister of State for Masvingo Provincial Affairs, was expelled from the party together with several others after their involvement in a plot to unconstitutionally unseat President Mugabe.

Mr Bhasikiti contends that Parliament should not act on any letter from Zanu-PF informing it of his expulsion.

He argued that the Politburo that expelled him had no powers to do so in terms of the revolutionary party’s constitution.

In the application filed through his lawyers Tendai Biti Law Chambers, Mr Bhasikiti seeks a court order to stop the Speaker of the National Assembly Cde Jacob Mudenda from declaring his seat vacant before the conclusion of his earlier application challenging his expulsion from the party.

Zanu-PF, the Speaker of the National Assembly and Parliament of Zimbabwe are cited as first, second and third respondents respectively in the urgent application.

In terms of the Constitution, a Member of Parliament shall lose his seat if the member ceases to belong to the political party of which he or she was a member when elected to Parliament and the political party concerned, by written notice to the Speaker or the president of the Senate, as the case may be, has declared that the member has ceased to belong to it.

“The first respondent has been quick to advise the second respondent that I have ceased to belong to the same. In fact, the second respondent himself is a member of the first respondent’s Politburo and sat in the meeting that expelled me on the 21st of May 2015,” says Mr Bhasikiti in his affidavit.

“In the recent past, the second respondent has been quick to act on declarations by political parties made in terms of section 129(1)(k).”

Mr Bhasikiti said he feared that he would suffer the same fate as befell some Zanu-PF and opposition Members of Parliament who have been recalled by their parties.

“The second respondent has taken action in terms of section 129(1)(k) without investigating the legality of the actions taken by political parties and whether or not those political parties have followed due process. I believe that the failure by the respondents to so act is wrong,” argued Mr Bhasikiti.

“I thus fear that the second respondent will thus act to expel me from Parliament in terms of section 129(1)(k), when my matter to challenge my expulsion from the party has not been heard.

“The instant application is thus an interdict, barring the respondents from acting upon the first respondent’s communications to him unless and until my challenge in Case No. HC5285/2015 has been heard.”