Journalist Hopewell Chin’ono comments on the High Court judgement nullifying the nomination of recalled CCC candidates to contest in the 23 December 2023 by-elections:
What does today’s High Court judgement mean to Zimbabwean politics if it is not reversed?
Today’s High Court judgement against the recalled CCC Members of Parliament stopping them from using the party-political name “CCC” was predictable for those with a discerning political eye, and for those who fully understand the treacherous Zimbabwean political terrain and how ZANU PF has mastered it against its political opponents using a scary array of tools like State capture, repression, corruption, violence and even murder to retain power.
ZANU PF understands two things too well, Power and how to use it corruptly against its opponents and the ordinary citizens.
It sits down and strategies, and it executes using captured institutions that it ruthlessly controls through patronage or coercion.
Unlike the opposition CCC, people in ZANUPF work across factions for the survival of their corrupt project and ZANU-PF because they understand that politics is business and not necessarily personal, ZANUPF uses its best brains to execute its corrupt agenda.
Political decision-making is not about emotions but strategy, politics requires strategic thinking and decision-making grounded in practical political considerations rather than emotional impulses and reactions.
It involves navigating around complex political scenarios, anticipating contrived political and legal consequences, and formulating plans to achieve specific political goals, and in this case, legal outcomes too.
Embracing a strategic political mindset helps political parties respond effectively to political challenges thrown at them by their crooked and corrupt political opponents, and it also helps political parties to pursue their objectives in a well-calculated manner.
This is what is called SCENARIO PLANNING in organisational management, something that every political party should do when faced with a political crisis of monumental proportions like CCC faces today.
Balancing the importance of party names and the practicalities of navigating around a repressive and captured political system like what we have in Zimbabwe underscores the complex challenges faced by CCC and its legitimate leader, Nelson Chamisa.
The Rhodesian era historical context of these issues that I mentioned in the attached tweet which I put out on November 7, 2023, advising and warning the recalled CCC MPs to run as Independents in the December 9 by-election, highlighted the adaptive nature of political movements and parties when faced with suppression.
The most logical route for CCC to take was for its recalled MPs to run as Independent candidates because as I said in the attached tweet, what matters most are the principles you carry in your political heart, and not a political party name when you are in the middle of a mortal fight for your survival against an oppressive and crude opponent who controls the State and wants to destroy you.
After Sengezo Tshabangu illegally but successfully recalled the CCC MPs, I mentioned that CCC as a political party was finished.
It was clear to any average political thinker that there was a third hand taking advantage of the CCC leadership disharmony created by Nelson Chamisa’s so-called strategic ambiguity, the third hand is facilitating the destruction of CCC to the third hand’s advantage.
It therefore boggles the mind why someone would gift that third hand, which we know to be ZANUPF, a penalty kick instead of making things harder for ZANUPF by making its moves look more ridiculous even if it succeeds in its nefarious actions.
It is the equivalent of a thief coming to your home and asking you to open the door and you oblige arguing that you are doing so because you have done nothing wrong instead of fortifying your door.
Yes CCC is yours, yes the MPs are also yours and yes Tshabangu is playing a game, but don’t you have a logical obligation to protect the people’s right to democratic representation in councils and parliament at any cost including for you to run as Independents so that you block ZANUPF parliament capture?
What is the point of holding on to a name when you will lose it anyway, why play games as if you are on X-Box when it involves people’s lives and democratic political representation?
I have told you twice, I will tell you again for the third time, many in the diplomatic community and many important regional political actors are now asking if CCC is not a front for ZANUPF to calm citizens down.
They ask this pertinent question because of CCC’s many school-boy mistakes that it has continued to make since its formation last year.
Astounding, ridiculous and shocking mistakes one must add if you are going to be genuine and logical in your analytical discourse about the situation!
One of the senior team members of a Western election observer mission team said this to me; “I have covered more than 60 elections across the world, I have never seen a presidential candidate who has done everything possible in the book to lose an election like Nelson Chamisa has done.”
The election observer continued: “We went to see Nelson for a meeting, and yet he was alone, it has been the same with other observer missions,” the election observer said to me in astonishment.
If CCC is not a front for ZANU-PF, then its leader is thoroughly incompetent for having made all these avoidable but now talked about mistakes and for making traditional allies of the democracy movement in Zimbabwe doubt CCC and his political sincerity through his commissions and omissions.
This behaviour speaks to Nelson Chamisa’s disdain for teamwork, and his overreliance on advisors who are and were taking instructions before, during and after the sham elections from counter-intelligence folks who many believe deliberately misled them.
How can you get advice from your opponent under the guise of having so-called “insiders in the system?”
This has been a running joke in the diplomatic community, a community which has almost given up on Chamisa and is now saying that they will try and make things work with the Harare regime, a rogue regime now being seen as an alternative to what was supposed to be a democratic movement.
Diplomats come to Zimbabwe to represent the interests of their countries, if the opposition has failed to prove to them that it is a genuine alternative to the current ZANU PF corrupt order, that is a serious indictment on the opposition leadership.
The concerns about Nelson Chamisa and CCC’s actions and their potential implication for CCC’s credibility both at home and abroad are now extremely serious and shouldn’t be ignored by those genuinely fighting for change in Zimbabwe.
You can’t continue making catastrophic political mistakes and relying on only blaming your opponent for your continued self-evident failures to read the political terrain and get some gains here and there instead of always being on the receiving end of comical political failures.
Chamisa’s ardent supporters point towards CCC’s ability to stop ZANUPF’s two-thirds majority goal during the shambolic August 23 elections, but was that really citizens voting for CCC or it was fed up citizens voting against ZANUPF?
The delusional declarations reflect a tragic understanding of Zimbabwean politics, any main opposition leader would have made things tougher for ZANUPF during a general election, he just happened to be Nelson Chamisa.
Zimbabweans are suffering, Zimbabweans have no jobs, they have no healthcare, they have no clean drinking water, they have potholed roads, they have 20-hour electricity load shedding, they don’t have pensions, neither do they have savings, they only have ONE TV station, they have a captured judiciary and a corrupt government. So Why Would They Vote For Anyone Else Except The Main Opposition?
What has upset many serious Zimbabweans is the astounding move by CCC and Nelson Chamisa of not going into the by-elections as Independents, when they knew too well that all odds were stacked against them in captured courts, something that they correctly sing about daily.
When you know that the judiciary is captured, and when you know that the election board ZEC is also captured, why do you make decisions that play into the regime’s hands like insisting on going into by-elections using a contested name whose dispute will be adjudicated by your adversary’s judiciary poodles?
You can’t expect a Praise and Worship one-man decision-making outfit to remove a military-assisted political party like ZANUPF when it makes such ridiculous decisions and grand political delusions scaffolded by Bible verses and inspirational tweets.
ZANU PF is a corrupt political machinery, it controls the judiciary, it controls the elections management body ZEC, so the best thing which was a no-brainer was to remove any need for CCC to go to captured courts by simply running as Independents.
But someone’s ego was more important than a political strategy that would stop the desired ZANUPF two-thirds majority.
You can’t keep forming political parties and abandoning them and forming more new political parties because you say you are popular, and yet your popularity is leading to nothing except economic survival for yourself and a few others around you.
There are now serious apprehensions in the region about the political credibility of Nelson Chamisa and his ability to bring about any meaningful change to Zimbabwe, his leadership is questionable to many in the region.
Nelson Chamisa and his supporters can ignore those apprehensions at their peril, but he knows that they exist and many have told him face to face.
Only sycophants continue to pretend that there is no political crisis around his leadership style and skills.
Zimbabweans can continue cheering on this one-man decision-making muppet show at their own political cost, they will deserve the outcomes and consequences of such a political muppet show whose failures are now too many to mention in one sitting.
There is no doubt in my mind that Chamisa continues to be the best foot forward in terms of galvanising public support, but you need more than support to remove ZANUPF’s corrupt rule, you need a strong team with a cogent political strategy, and more importantly a political vision.
Sadly many serious regional political players are no longer feeling sorry for struggling Zimbabweans because they say that we are supporting the schoolboy antics of Nelson Chamisa which have emboldened ZANUPF, and that we insult those who call for reason and a sensible political approach to dealing with ZANUPF’s corrupt rule.
Now that Nelson Chamisa has predictably lost this battle to hold on to CCC against the captured political charlatan Tshabangu, there is no longer anything called CCC as Tshabangu can now do as he wishes.
It is sad to watch people’s democratic electoral rights being washed away illegally like what has just happened, but until the same people accept that Nelson Chamisa’s unbridled desire for absolute power has contributed to this, the same people will have learnt nothing at all and will deserve what they are getting.
As French philosopher Joseph de Maistre said, A People Get the Leadership That They Deserve.
Zimbabwe needs an opposition leader who is secure with himself and his talents, and who is not scared of the abilities of his colleagues.
It is in the nature of politics that some will be more talented than others, such talent differentials should not be the reason to shut the door on those more talented than you are.
Zimbabwe needs an opposition leader who is a team player, and not one who relies on advice from shadow and compromised characters, it needs an opposition party which is rooted in constitutionalism, and not Chinhu Changu Chete politics.
The later Dr Alex Magaisa warned the CCC on 24 April 2022 when he said: “I conclude by urging the CCC interim leadership to hasten the pace to establish the set of rules called the constitution, even on an interim basis. These debates and accompanying noises are a reflection of the unsureness that results from a constitutional void.”
This advice fell on deaf ears, and it is the reason that CCC finds itself in this mess, ZANUPF will always take advantage of any created own goals, it is a predatory political animal.
Today Zimbabweans have a choice, to either continue following the Alice in Wonderland opposition fairy-tale politics that define Chamisa, and always blaming ZANUPF, or to start demanding the opposition to be serious and to constitute itself into a solid and respectable alternative to the corrupt and incompetent ZANUPF regime.
Zimbabwe has many educated people whom regional leaders and the diplomatic community look up to, these regional leaders and diplomats have failed to understand why so many smart Zimbabweans remain under the spell of a failed opposition political leader whose signature is Bible verses and inspirational quotes every Saturday morning.
Human beings seek spiritual guidance from churches and not from politicians, they seek economic redemption from politics and not to be told that Joy is coming and given empty promises that are never fulfilled.
Zimbabweans have been stripped of their human and economic dignity, how about putting them first ahead of this unbridled desire for absolute power that has now come to define both the main opposition leader and Emmerson Mnangagwa to the detriment of the suffering citizens living in penury?
Mnangagwa wants a two-thirds majority to be followed by a third term, and Chamisa wants to get rid of all colleagues who are perceived to be competitors to be his crown.
It is all Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me! When will these leaders put people ahead of their desire for power, and when will they choose to lead instead of rule?
ZANU PF is the pits on any given day, but it remains emboldened by CCC’s failures. The sycophants will not want to hear this truth, but they will realise the truthfulness of these cols facts after another shambolic 2028 election.
P/s
I encourage the youths to leave and better their lives elsewhere through good education or better jobs or both.
