Sengezo Tshabangu, the self-appointed Secretary General of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), has responded to a warning from party President Nelson Chamisa, who instructed him to stop using his image or face legal consequences.
Earlier this week, Chamisa formally asked the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to refrain from registering Tshabangu’s candidates if they feature his face as a logo.
In the letter, Chamisa threatened legal action, claiming he had not given permission for Tshabangu to use his image.
In an interview with Zenzele Ndebele on CITE’s The Breakfast Club, Sengezo Tshabangu explained that he suggested using Morgan Tsvangirai’s face in a palm as the party’s symbol during an MDC national council meeting. According to him, the proposal was accepted, and Tsvangirai’s image was subsequently registered as MDC property. Therefore, Tshabangu argues that using Chamisa’s image is legitimate since it is registered as the intellectual property of the CCC, not Chamisa’s personal property.
“Well this is interesting. I gave a proposal in the national council of the MDC that we should use President [Morgan] Tsvangirai’s face and it was resolved in that meeting and agreed. So Morgan Tsvangirai would not come and turn around and say this is my face. It was a company property. A party property. Intellectual Property. So I have got no doubt at the back of my mind that President Chamisa presented his face as a symbol for us to use and we registered that face. So he can’t claim today that is his face. That’s the face of the party and we are going to continue using it. Nobody is going to use that face. We will stop anybody who is going to use that face save for the party. He cannot use that face outside, unfortunately, the CCC,” Tshabangu said.
Tshabangu added that Nelson Chamisa is free to leave the CCC and form another party, but he cannot use his face as the party’s symbol because it belongs to the CCC. Tshabangu expressed confidence that Chamisa, being a lawyer, would not be naive enough to form another political party and try to use the face as the symbol, as it would lead to a legal challenge in court.
“He will leave. That’s a company property. He will leave that lokuzeni and we will challenge him in court. I don’t think he will be so naive to do that because he knows. He is a lawyer and we don’t anticipate that he is going to form another political party,” Tshabangu confidently added.
Source iHarare.com
