Ncube, Judge in cahoots – Mutambara

Zimbabwean

Written by Chief Reporter

Wednesday, 2 March 2011

HARARE – Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara (pictured) has accused MDC-N President, Welshman Ncube, of conniving with High court Judge Justice Nicholas Ndou to prevent him from “masquerading as the party’s president”. Mutambara lodged opposing papers in the Bulawayo High Court challenging the interdict. He said Ndou had worked in cahoots with Ncube in granting the order.

“I submit that the applicants pulled a fast one on the court for it to grant such an undesirable provisional order,” he said.  “I am not clear what seized them to suddenly file the application in Bulawayo relating to a matter which is pending in Harare,” Mutambara’s court papers say. “I hate to think that the applicants were forum shopping. I hope they were not.”

MDC president Welshman Ncube was granted interim relief by Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Nicholas Ndou two weeks ago after lodging an urgent chamber application apparently seeking to forestall an impending Cabinet reshuffle planned by Mutambara in which he was reported to be planning to fire Ncube, his main rival who is also Industry and Commerce minister, and ministers Priscilla Misihairabwi Mushonga and David Coltart.

“Respondent is interdicted from ‘purporting’ to be the president of the Movement for Democratic Change,” Justice Ndou said in his ruling, which also prevents Mutambara from “exercising any function vested in the president of the MDC, or interfering with structures and organs of the party.”

Mutambara said in his opposing papers, lodged by his lawyers Mbidzo, Muchadehama and Makoni, that the interim relief stopping him from masquerading as MDC president, ought not to have been granted in the first place because it interfered with the doctrine of separation of powers.

“An application where the purpose is to interfere with my work as Deputy Prime Minister, will involve the courts in the determination of intricate and complicated matters of the executive arm of government,” Mutambara’s notice of opposition says.

He has serious suspicions that Ncube is trying to hide behind the courts in dealing with a politically sensitive matter that he says Ncube has failed to deal with within the appropriate political domain.

Ncube had approached the court seeking to stop Mutambara from shuffling party ministers. He also wanted Mutambara to stop representing the party at the meeting of Sadc Organ on Politics, Defence and Security, at which President Jacob Zuma will present his report on the outstanding issues in the implementation of the GPA.

Justice Ndou did not grant that relief, but ruled that Mutambara was no longer MDC president because he had stepped down at congress and handed the baton to Ncube.