Lawyers of the two factions of Zimbabwe’s splintered opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party are locked up in a tug of war over rights to the MDC brand, in what appears a preliminary to a long and damaging legal wrangle over the party’s name, symbol and assets.
The first formal step to break up the MDC into two rival political parties was completed last Saturday when popular former student leader Arthur Mutambara was elected to head a faction of the opposition party opposed to founding leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
Although both Mutambara and Tsvangirai have openly called for a united opposition to confront President Robert Mugabe, the situation on the ground is different. Their camps’ lawyers have written to each other in the past week insisting that only their client is the legitimate MDC and therefore has sole right to the party’s name, open-palm symbol and assets.
Harare law firm Dube, Manikai and Hwacha, representing Tsvangirai’s faction, last week wrote to the lawyers of Mutambara’s group insisting that Tsvangirai is the only legally recognised leader of the opposition party after his rivals failed last year to get the High Court to endorse their attempt to suspend him from the party.
Refusing to uphold Tsvangirai’s suspension, High Court Judge Yunus Omerjee found that Mutambara’s faction — represented in the court application by the then party deputy secretary general Gift Chimanikire — did not have authority to raise such an application on behalf of the MDC.
The lawyers for Tsvangirai’s faction say Omerjee’s ruling effectively means that their client’s rivals cannot conduct any business on behalf of the MDC or use the party’s name or symbol. The lawyers say Mutambara’s faction — then co-led by secretary general Welshman Ncube and deputy president Gibson Sibanda — accepted Omerjee’s ruling and all its implications because they did not appeal against it.
In a letter last week to Coghlan and Welsh law firm, which represents Mutambara’s camp, Tsvangirai’s lawyers accused the rival faction of having “continued to act in defiance of the logic and principle of the High Court” by continuing to call themselves the MDC and using the party’s symbol.
The lawyers for the Tsvangirai camp also pointed out that Omerjee had found that an MDC national council meeting that overturned Tsvangirai’s suspension was properly constituted and had acted in accordance with the rules of the party.
But Coghlan and Welsh’s Nicholas Mathonsi promptly responded, insisting that their clients (Mutambara’s faction) are the only ones entitled to use the MDC name and symbol despite Omerjee’s refusal to uphold Tsvangirai’s suspension.
Mathonsi said Mutambara’s faction had felt no need to contest Omerjee’s ruling because it was based on a technicality and not on merit.
He wrote: “Justice Omerjee concluded that Gift Chimanikire had not placed evidence before the court that he had locus standi to bring proceedings on behalf of MDC and dismissed the application on that basis.
“The court’s decision to that extent could not be faulted, hence there was no need to appeal against it as it was decided on a technicality and not on merits.”
Mathonsi said his clients regard Tsvangirai as irrelevant to the MDC with or without Omerjee’s judgement. The lawyers also dismissed the national council meeting that sought to reverse Tsvangirai’s suspension as a “kangaroo court” whose decisions, he said, were not binding on Mutambara’s wing of the MDC.
None of the squabbling sides has as yet said whether it may resort to the courts to assert its rights. But such a court battle between the factions seems more likely to become reality once the process to break the MDC into two parties is completed when Tsvangirai’s faction holds its congress in about three weeks’ time.
A protracted battle in the courts will sap the energy out of both opposition factions, while analysts say Mugabe will use to the opportunity of a divided and wrangling opposition to strengthen his grip on power that until the MDC split had appeared under serious threat from the opposition party. — ZimOnline