Tinashe Sambiri|Zanu PF leader Emmerson Mnangagwa, illegally assumed power following the removal of Robert Mugabe from power in November 2017…

Zanu PF member Sybeth Musengezi is challenging Mnangagwa’s appointment as party leader by the Central Committee.

In court papers, Musengezi argues Mnangagwa should relinquish the leadership, as he was installed illegally through a Central Committee meeting on 19 November 2017 at party headquarters in Harare.

Musengezi is challenging Mnangagwa’s legitimacy at the High Court.

“I am fortified in my quest for a remedy to my grievance against the respondents (Zanu-PF, Mnangagwa, Obert Mpofu, Zanu-PF secretary for administration, Patrick Chinamasa, Zanu-PF secretary for finance and acting national commissar, Phelekezela Mphoko, former vice-president, and Ignatius Chombo, ex-secretary for administration) by a recent judgment of the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe handed down on the 31st of March 2020 in the matter of the Movement for Democratic Change & Others v Mashavira & Others Sc 56/20, wherein the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe made a corrective intervention in the internal affairs of the Movement for Democratic Change party and made an order for the regularisation of

As things stand, Mnangagwa has no mandate to be the leader of Zanu-PF and President of Zimbabwe, the application suggests. He came in through a string of illegalities which have not been cured, meaning he is an illegal President of the republic,” argues Musengezi.

According to legal experts, Mnangagwa is illegitimate because of the following reasons:

• first, he came in through a coup, which means unconstitutional seizure of power;
• secondly, he did not follow the national constitution on how he should have come in; Mphoko did not act as required;
• Thirdly, he was installed as Zanu-PF leader by an illegal central committee meeting;
• Fourth, he was elected through a disputed election with a wafer-thin margin in 2018; and
• Fifth, he did not hold the 2019 Zanu-PF congress which was due, as he feared defeat amid raging battles of unsettled leadership question.