Mayor Zenaida Moya may be facing the prospect of expulsion from the UDP, but she’s not going down without a fight. And that fight will be in a court of law. Today, Moya’s attorneys Dr. Elson Kaseke and Godfrey Smith asked the court to decide whether the UDP National Party Council’s decision to remove her was lawful.
Moya’s attorneys are also asking the Supreme Court to declare that the party council’s decision to send her case up to the Central Executive was unlawful because she never got a chance to defend herself. And with that, they are asking the court to declare that the decision taken on October third is null and void and that she is still in fact a member of the UDP’s National Party Council.
Now, as we’ve told you - our sense is that the UDP is moving straight ahead with its plan to expel Moya. No date for a hearing has been set but Moya’s attorneys have filed for an urgent injunction to halt the proceedings against her. We will wait and see whether that injunction will be issued in time to stop the UDP from appointing an Ethics Committee which will be set up to review a charge that will be brought against Mayor Moya. The expectation is that the injunction will be granted.
Chairman of the UDP Doug Singh this evening told us that he was unaware that anything had been filed against the party and had no comment.
Now, we don’t have to underscore how absolutely odd it is that someone is basically suing to stay in a political party. We can safely say it’s never been done and that’s because it seems practical that no one would want to stay in a political party that doesn’t want them. Unless – as we suspect is the case with Ms. Moya – she has said that she feels the executive of the party may want her expelled – but the rank and file membership does not. It will also be a first to see the high court having to decide the membership of a political party. And of course, now that Mayor Moya is suing her own party, we expect that public hostilities between both sides will escalate.
It’s interesting to note that in the various entanglements that have beset her since September, so far the Mayor has retained at least four attorneys for separate actions. They are Michael Peyrefitte for her criminal charges, Hubert Elrington for a constitutional case relating to those charges, and now Elson Kaseke and Godfrey Smith for this action against the UDP’s National Party Council.
