High Court nullifies Lipumba faction’s appointment of trustees

Dar es Salaam. The leadership dispute facing the opposition party CUF took a new twist yesterday when the High Court in Dar es Salaam handed the first defeat to party’s national chairman who is backed by the Registrar of Political Parties, Prof Ibrahim Lipumba.

The Court ruled in favour of the faction led by the party’s secretary general, Mr Seif Shariff Hamad, yesterday when it nullified the appointment of members of the board of trustees who were appointed by Prof Lipumba.

CUF has experienced a leadership crisis since August, 2016 when Prof Lipumba announced that he had decided to withdraw his 2015 resignation letter and assume the party chairmanship again.

Although Lipumba claimed that he had the right to withdraw his resignation letter, the majority of the party’s leadership, under Mr Hamad, strongly opposed the move. It was in the middle of such wrangles that Lipumba dissolved the board of trustees which appeared to support Mr Hamad and installed his own.

The Registration Insolvency and Trusteeship Agency (Rita) also went ahead to register Prof Lipumba’s new board of trustees, prompting the other faction to go to court whose ruling was delivered yesterday.

Delivering the judgment yesterday, Judge Dr Benhajj Masoud said he was convinced that the appointment of the new CUF board of trustees and subsequent registration of the same by the Rita did not follow the right procedure.

Judge Dr Masoud said even the CUF members -- who had been proposed to become members of the board of trustees by the Hamad faction – did not meet the qualifications for being appointed into the positions.

The case

Judge Masoud’s ruling followed a case filed by the Member of Parliament for Malindi (CUF), Mr Ally Salehe, who belongs to the Hamad faction, against a decision by Rita to register the members of the board of trustees recommended by Prof Lipumba in contravention of the party’s procedures.

The faction was represented by lawyers, Mpale Mpoki and Fatma Karume.

The members, who were also defendants in the case included Peter Malebo, Hajira Silia, Azizi Dangesh, Amina Mshamu, Abdul Magomba, Asha Suleimani, Salha Mohamed, Suleiman Issa and Musa Kombo.

The judgment comes four days before another one that will be held on Friday this week in which the Court will rule on the legality behind Prof Lipumba’s decision to assume the party’s chairmanship in 2016 after resigning in 2015.

Though the Court ruled that even those members that had been proposed by the Mr Hamad’s faction did not qualify to become members of the board of trustees, the ruling was more in favour of his political camp, according to Mr Hamad’s lawyers,, Mr Juma Nassoro and Mr Daim Khalfan.

“What we were opposing was that those who had been picked were not bona-fide members. Since they are the ones who had been registered and the Court now says they were not legitimate and this is exactly what we were looking for,” said Mr Halfan.

According to Mr Nassoro, the ruling means that the members of the old board of trustees will continue with their tasks until such a point when a legitimate new board is appointed.

Reported by James Magai, Bakari Kiango (Dar) and Muhammed Khamis (Zanzibar)