adminMashudu Netsianda Senior Court Reporter
MDC-T Senator Matson Hlalo yesterday filed an urgent chamber application at the Bulawayo High Court seeking an interdict to stop his rival, Gift Banda, from executing his duties as the party’s Bulawayo provincial chairman following his victory in the party’s provincial elections.
Hlalo, who is the applicant in the matter, is seeking a court order that overturns the MDC-T Bulawayo provincial elections in which he lost to Banda, who is the city’s deputy mayor.
The respondents were cited as the MDC-T, the party’s president Morgan Tsvangirai, the party chairman Lovemore Moyo and Banda.
Justice Maxwell Takuva reserved judgment to tomorrow.
Hlalo through his lawyer, Godfrey Nyoni, is seeking the nullification of Banda’s election as provincial chairperson arguing that internal party processes challenging the election outcome could not afford him a fair hearing. He alleged that the elections that saw Banda winning by 707 votes against his 413 were marred by violence, vote-buying and reports of ballot-stuffing.
Hlalo accuses the elections’ presiding officers of creating parallel structures in order to rig the polls.
He dismissed the results as a sham and accused Tsvangirai of personally accrediting delegates to deliberately rig elections in favour of Banda.
However, Douglas Mwonzora who is representing the respondents, argued that the elections were conducted in a fair and transparent manner.
“In terms of Clause 5.5,2 of the MDC-T constitution, a person is eligible to stand for provincial chairmanship if they have been in the party for five years. The same clause also states that a person is eligible to be elected a councillor after having been a member of the party for two years and five years if one wants to be a mayor.
“Banda has been a card carrying member of MDC-T since 2004 and he automatically qualified to be elected provincial chairman of the party because he had already served the required number of years,” said Mwonzora.
He said by citing Tsvangirai and Moyo, Hlalo sought to discredit the name of the party.
“A loser of an election cannot stop a winner from working just like in the case with parliamentarians. Banda is the winner and therefore remains provincial chairperson of MDC-T in Bulawayo until the court nullifies his chairmanship,” argued Mwonzora.
He said all appeals on irregularities from the party’s provincial congresses would be determined on Saturday by the national executive.
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