Sengezo Tshabangu has filed an urgent High Court application seeking to stop the participation of 23 candidates under the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) banner in the upcoming 03 February by-elections.
The 23 CCC candidates successfully filed their nomination papers at the Nomination Court on 18 December 2023.
This was despite the fact that a previous High Court order had barred fellow party members from contesting under the party name on the basis that they had ceased to be party members ahead of the 09 December 2023 by-elections.
In his application, through his legal representative, Nqobani Sithole of Ncube Attorneys, Tshabangu, who claims to be the CCC Interim Secretary General, cited the 23 members and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) as respondents.
Tshabangu argued that the recalled candidates are no longer CCC members hence should not contest under the party name. Part of the application reads:
The application is made on the grounds that: On the 18th of December 2023, the Nomination Court sat consequent upon promulgation of the date for by-elections set down on the 3rd of February 2024.
First to twenty-third respondents submitted their nomination papers before the Nomination Court to be accepted as candidates in the by-election as “members” of a political party called Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC party.
This was despite the fact that in a prior and extant judgment, they had been found by this court to have ceased to be members of that party. The Nomination Court accepted the nomination papers.
The decision of the Nomination Court is unlawful in that it is contrary to an extant judgment of the High Court and was at any rate procured through an apparent act of defiance of that judgment.
The application seeks the court to set aside the Nomination Court’s decision to accept the 23 members’ nomination papers.
Unlike at the sitting of the nomination court for the 09 December by-elections, some recalled CCC members filed their papers as independent candidates for the 03 February by-elections to avoid being disqualified.
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