Muzila loses BDP primaries appeal

PATRICIA MAGANU
Staff Writer | Thursday September 18, 2008 00:00

The appeal was dismissed because the appellants applied in a group and all of the applicants except Muzila had accepted the results.

'If you are going to appeal you do not accept the results, but all of these applicants except Muzila had accepted the results of the primary elections,' said the source.

Further, 'even though Muzila had not accepted the results, she proceeded to write a joint letter with some of the people who had accepted their results,' the source said.
'When you become a candidate, you do so individually, so you cannot turn around and write a joint letter of appeal with other candidates if you are dissatisfied with the results,' added the source.

All in all, the appeal was dismissed on the basis of faulty tabling by the appellants.
About a week ago, Masisi responded to the appeal by requesting the regional committee to dismiss the appeal as the applicants had sent the same appeal to the regional committee and the central committee at the same time.

Sources say that even though that was one of the reasons for the dismissal, it did not carry as much weight as the first two grounds for throwing out the appeal.

Masisi won the August 30 primary elections by 1,263 votes against Muzila who got 824 votes and Ngoma 774 votes.

After the election, the losers decided to come together and file an appeal with the central committee and the regional committee, which they are believed to have also lost.
Secretary for the Francistown regional committee, Wynter Mmolotsi, declined to comment because the concerned people have not yet been notified.

'We cannot disclose the ruling yet because we have not released the results to the concerned candidates, so it would not be good for them to find out the outcome in the papers,' he said.

He said that the concerned candidates are yet to receive letters regarding the outcome of their appeals.