MDC-T Acting Secretary-General, Abednico Bhebhe, says he will file an urgent interdict at the High Court Friday to stop the party from conducting presidential nominations ahead of the Extra Ordinary Congress.
Bhebhe is in the race for the party’s presidency to replace the founding party president Morgan Tsvangirai who passed on in 2018.
But he was expelled last week from the party over allegations of “grossly violating the Constitution of the party by supporting another political party other than the MDC-T”.
Bhebhe, however, claims he knew Thokozani Khupe and company would pull such a stunt in order to elbow him out of the party presidency race, which was why he had prepared an Application for Review to deal with his suspension.
He already filed this application in court after he was suspended from his position as national organising secretary in October 2020.
Therefore, in order to contest in the recent provincial presidential nominations after his initial suspension, Bhebhe argued MDC-T could not stop him from participating in the elections as an ordinary party member.
“Khupe and her hangers-on thought I was not going to win the provincial nominations and allowed me to participate but were surprised after I won that election. They decided to suspend me using the party constitution but they still breached the section which reads, ‘two thirds of all members of the National Council have to be present,” he said.
During the first round of MDC-T’s nomination process in Bulawayo last week, Bhebhe reportedly received an overwhelming 170 votes, Khupe (35), Mwonzora (seven) while Komichi and Mudzuri received zero nominations.
But, the Independent Election Management Body that handled the nomination process said Khupe had emerged victorious with 59 votes while Bhebhe pulled 45 votes.
Bhebhe alleged ‘Khupe and her hangers on’ failed to inform him there would be a National Council meeting to dismiss him.
“I was not told about this meeting, as no one wrote to me. No one phoned me and no one has ever accused me of what they are saying. If they wanted to suspend me, they had to tell me I committed a crime, then confront me. What follows next is for them to call me and tell me what I did wrong before suspending me according to the party constitution,” he said.
Bhebhe maintains the National Council had no power to suspend him before the courts had dealt with his Application of Review he had filed earlier.
“This means the court has to determine the application review where they tried to suspend me first. Before this matter has been dealt with by the courts they do the unthinkable and expel me again. It is for this reason that I have engaged my lawyers for a court interdict against the continuation of the provincial nominations,” Bhebhe said.
“The court interdict will say ‘no, they cannot suspend me’ before the Application of Review has been finalised as it is pending in the court,” Bhebhe said.
