Kanjabanga waits as Court decides Boko's fate

EDWARD BULE
Correspondent | Thursday July 15, 2010 00:00

 

Boko's eligibility to contest the post has been challenged by BNF members Thuso Mogorosi, Sekgopi Bogatsu, Moses Kajane and Chalido Madome. Dumezweni Mthimkhulu for the applicants said in court yesterday that Boko should be interdicted from contesting the BNF presidency because at one time he was a member of the National Democratic Front (NDF). He produced documents from the Registrar of Societies, which bear Boko's signature to prove his claim that he was a member of NDF, a now moribund splinter party of the BNF.

Mthimkhulu contended that if Boko was wrongly associated with the NDF, he could have approached the party officials and asked them to remove his name from the records. He said the fact that there is no evidence that Boko ever resigned from the NDF is evidence that he is still a member of the party and should therefore be disqualified from standing for the BNF presidency. He described Boko as being less than candid with the court.

Mthimkhulu said that when Boko was interviewed by the BNF central committee to provide answers regarding his links with the NDF, after the issue had become public, he denied having ever been a member of the party.

He further denied knowledge of the documents bearing his signature. It is the applicants' contention that the moment Boko became a member of the NDF, he ceased to be a BNF member. They challenge the authenticity of the BNF membership card currently held by Boko, saying that it has discrepancies.

They say the card was issued in 2003 and should reflect the telephone number of the party office at the time. But Boko's card bears a telephone number of an office occupied by the BNF from 2007. Mthimkhulu cast aspersions on the membership card and maintains that the  BNF officials who submitted the affidavits in support of Boko are dishonest.

He said Boko rejoined the BNF in 2007, which time is way short of the mandatory minimum requirement of five years before a member can contest for the presidency. He explained that the mandatory five-year probation period is meant to protect the party from being hijacked by strangers which, in his opinion is what Boko is.

Mthimkhulu said that not even the congress has the powers to allow Boko to stand as that would be contrary to the BNF constitution.

Lawyers Boingotlo Toteng and Mboki Chilisa for Boko conceded that their client was a founding member of the NDF. They stated that Boko and others in the BNF had agreed to form a communist organisation within the BNF to give ideological direction to the party and not to oppose it. They submitted that their client's involvement ended with the formation of NDF as he never took part in its activities although he was the founding publicity secretary and subsequently elected secretary for legal affairs at its congress albeit in absentia.

To prove that Boko never left the BNF, the lawyers revealed that he was in 2003 called to a disciplinary hearing, which he honoured. The fact that he submitted to the jurisdiction of the BNF is evidence that he was a member even in 2003 having joined the party in 1984. The lawyers maintained that even if it can be found that Boko ceased to be member of the BNF when he formed the NDF, the five-year requirement does not have to immediately precede the congress.