by Staff reporter
The stressed former MDC leader, Nelson Chamisa has turned his axe on his top lawyer, Advocate Thabani Mpofu following the historic Supreme Court ruling which outlawed his party presidency.
A source within the MDC who is also Mr Chamisa’s confidante, said the beleaguered politician had lost confidence in his long time attorney following successive losses in legal battles that Advocate Mpofu has been handling.
Advocate Mpofu represented Chamisa in the 2018 Constitutional Court election petition challenging the presidential election results announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) in which he lost to President Emmerson Mnangagwa. The Constitutional Court went on to endorse ZEC’s results and dismiss Chamisa’s challenge after Advocate Mpofu failed to produce credible evidence to support the rigging allegations.
Soon after the Supreme Court ruling, the source revealed that a team of five senior MDC members, most of them lawyers, approached Chamisa and impressed upon him that he was losing court cases because of poor legal representation. The five reportedly told Chamisa that it was high time he engages human rights lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa in high profile cases.
“As you know, president Chamisa has lost two high profile cases which were handled by Advocate Mpofu and Silvester Hashiti. It is this worrying trend that has forced some of our senior members to convince the president to dump the two, especially Mpofu.
“The name of Beatrice Mtetwa was suggested as the new legal defender of our president on the basis that she has a record of winning cases with effortlessness. She won the case she represented (Job) Sikhala who was facing subversion charges for threatening to remove (President) Mnangagwa from office before 2023. She has provided cutting-edge legal services to journalists and human rights defenders triumphantly. So riding on that successful path, the team agreed that she replaces Advocate Mpofu whom some of the delegates kept on referring to as ‘garrulous lawyer,’” said the source.
He said Chamisa bought their suggestion but asked the team to give him a bit of a time so that the process is done without offending Advocate Mpofu. The embattled politician reportedly tasked the team to also consider Advocate Lewis Uriri for the job. Although the team promised to talk to Advocate Uriri, concerns were raised over his association with ZANU PF, the contact said. Chamisa reportedly reminded the team that Uriri was part of the legal team that represented Morgan Tsvangirai in his petition against the election in 2013.
Advocate Uriri successfully represented President Mnangagwa at the Constitutional Court against a petition filed by Chamisa, who was seeking to overturn the latter’s presidential victory in the July 30 election.
The source said the meeting also raised disquiet over Advocate Mpofu’s alleged confliction.
He said: “It was also suspected that Advocated was conflicted. A case that was raised to support the confliction allegation is when Advocate Mpofu led a court appeal to declare the military coup legal and to declare (President) Emmerson Mnangagwa’s rise to power as legitimate.”
Chamisa, the source said, also urged the team to look at the possibility of “forging an alliance with judges.” He is said to have promised that the resources for that project were available.
The source said it was then resolved to have another meeting after the team had talked to the earmarked lawyers.
