SEVEN former Members of Parliament (MPs) from the Nelson Chamisa-led MDC Alliance have dragged MDC-T leader Douglas Mwonzora to the High Court challenging his decision to have them expelled from the National Assembly.
Mwonzora last year recalled the seven — Lynette Karenyi-Kore together with Dorcas Sibanda, Concilia Chinanzvavana, Susan Matsunga, Prince Dubeko Sibanda, Unganai Dickson Tarusenga and Erick Murai — on the basis that they had ceased to be members of his political party.
In their High Court application filed last Friday, the seven, who also cited MDC-T, Speaker of the National Assembly Jacob Mudenda and the Parliament of Zimbabwe, as respondents, argued that Mwonzora had no power to recall them as they were MDC Alliance members.
“The fact of the matter is that we are a different organisation. We are the MDC Alliance. We are not members of the MDC or the MDC-T. We ceased to be members of the MDC or MDC-T in May 2018.
“The 1st and 2nd respondents’ (Mwonzora and MDC-T) action in purporting to notify Parliament that applicants were no longer members of the MDC-T party and no longer represented MDC-T in Parliament was wrongful, unlawful and invalid.” reads part of the application.
In her court affidavit, Karenyi-Kore argued that Mudenda’s decision to rule in Mwonzora’s favour constituted a fraudulent act as he literally converted the public’s vote from MDC Alliance to MDC-T.
“The 3rd respondent (Mudenda) cannot make the decision to merge the two political parties. There is already in Parliament a party known as the MDC-T. It has members of parliament. The 3rd respondent cannot, therefore, conflate two independent organisations.
“He cannot make the 1st respondent the leader of our party, the MDC Alliance when they lost the elections with their own party,” she said.
She further said that they had not been given an opportunity to make arguments against the claim.
“The 3rd respondent could not have descended into the political arena and made a judgment on a clearly contested matter….
“The 3rd respondent could thus not exercise quasi-judicial functions in making a finding that we belong to the MDC-T without affording us protection of the law, the right to a fair hearing and the right to administrative justice.”