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Nobleman Runyanga

Correspondent

Following President Mnangagwa’s August 23 electoral victory and September 5 inauguration, congratulatory messages continue to come from various parts of the world.

The latest such message was penned by the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres last Friday and dispatched to President Mnangagwa.

This gesture capped a politically eventful week in which CCC councillors and legislators openly defied their leader, Nelson Chamisa, who through the party’s deputy spokesperson, Gift Siziba, had told the world in a media address at the end of August in Harare, that his winning candidates would not participate in swearing in ceremonies to push for fresh elections.

The swearing in kicked off in Bulawayo on Wednesday and culminated in the social media being swamped with images of CCC legislators like Joanna Mamombe, Fadzayi Mahere and Siziba ensconced comfortably on seats in the new Parliament building in Mount Hampden with beaming smiles the following day.

As if to rub it in on the defied and defeated Chamisa, who removed her from the party’s spokesperson’s position a few weeks earlier, Mahere had a picture of her taken against the background of the Parliament of Zimbabwe symbol and posted it on her X social media platform timeline.

Some apologetic legislators were to post later that they participated in the ceremony to protect their wins, but would fight to right the allegedly rigged polls to ensure Chamisa won.

Most of the councillors and legislators scrounged around for resources to mount their election campaigns and when Chamisa held rallies, he canvassed for support for himself only.

Some of them forcibly went through the nomination court process after they were elbowed out by Chamisa in preference for his own candidates in a process which defied the spirit of the much-vaunted community consensus for candidate selection.

They could not throw away their wins to fight for the person who rode roughshod over them during the campaign season.

They know that Chamisa lost the election in part because he imposed unpopular candidates on the party’s grassroots members. They paid back by not voting for him.

By participating in the swearing in ceremonies, the CCC demonstrated that they agreed with the process under which they were elected. In view of this, who needs a fresh poll anymore?

Back to Secretary-General Guterres’ congratulatory message. The gesture and the events of last week have left Chamisa a lonely figure.

The world, Zimbabweans and even his own party members have isolated him. His only source of hope against hope are the Zambian President, Hakainde Hichilema and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Observer Mission (SEOM) head, Dr Nevers Mumba.

When Hichilema was catapulted into power by the Sabi Strategic Group of the United Kingdom two years ago, Chamisa, who is Hichilema’s ally, excitedly and expectantly said that the same “spirit” would cross the Zambezi River and assist him to win the 2023 elections.

The whole world knows that election observers are just that – observers. They observe, record, report and even recommend, but they do not run the elections.

Dr Mumba let the cat out of the bag when he told the media that his brief from Hichilema was to “give Zimbabweans a free, fair and credible election”.

A Martian visitor to Southern Africa would be forgiven for thinking that Dr Mumba was the new Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) chairperson or chief elections officer.

Despite this gross and shamelessly deliberate anomaly, the desperate Chamisa still pins his hopes on Hichilema using his position to force a fresh poll on Zimbabweans who are already moving with developing their country.

Secretary-General Guterres’ message not only recognises President Mnangagwa as the President of Zimbabwe, but also endorses the process through which he was elected.

Yes, challenges were experienced leading to delays in the commencement of the voting process in some areas, but the President ensured that everyone voted by extending the voting time to 24 August.

Secretary-General Guterres’ message recognises progressive Zimbabweans’ right to move their country forward.

It means Zimbabweans should not be kept tethered to the past.

The West is trying to use some African leaders to pursue its interests. The Westerners are trying to remove revolutionary parties from power in the region but the US should be the first to admit that ZANU PF is no pushover.

It will admit that despite pouring millions of dollars into the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in its various factions and formations for the last 23 years, it has failed to dislodge ZANU PF from power because the revolutionary party has a political chemistry with Zimbabweans which sell-outs of the liberation war and the post-2000 eras will never be able to undo.

US-backed abusers of the SADC bloc will not succeed in unseating ZANU PF.

The late Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith also tried for years to fight ZANU PF, but the result is history.

Chamisa’s unenviable situation has presented people like the Southern African Political Economy Series (SAPES) Trust director, Ibbotson Mandaza, who self-righteously thinks that he is Zimbabwe’s kingmaker, with an opportunity to peddle his National Transitional Authority (NTA).

Since 2018, he has been proposing the arrangement to Zimbabweans but no one is prepared to touch the proposal – not even with a long pole. One of Chamisa’s interim deputies, Tendai Biti once showed interest in it, but since he was elbowed out by Chamisa, he will not gain anything from supporting it.

People like the South Africa-based Pardon Gambakwe of Gambakwe Media are equally convinced that a power sharing arrangement is the solution to Chamisa’s baseless political tantrums.

Such people are even using terms like “Zimbabwean crisis” to lend urgency and importance to their proposals.

This strategy was used post-July 30 2018, but to no avail because there was no crisis and there was no basis for the so-called solution they were peddling.

Chamisa is hoping that a SADC intervention, if it materialises, will enable him to get into Government through the NTA back door as he is incapable of winning an election.

Mandaza, Gambakwe and Chamisa spent the last five years driving an illegitimacy narrative against President Mnangagwa, but the world coalesced around the President more than did those who were in the opposition leader’s corner.

Even the US invited Zimbabwe to the US-Africa Summit at the end of last year while Chamisa was screaming himself hoarse about a non-existent illegitimacy.

Even before the polls, most Western institutions such as the US credit rating agency, Fitch Solutions predicted last May that President Mnangagwa and ZANU PF would be victorious.

Chamisa and his backers have learnt nothing from 2018.

The opposition leader is where he is because he learnt nothing from the 2018 elections.

Three days ahead of the 2018 elections, the news website: www.businessdaily.co.zw published an article to the effect that Chamisa had put in place an anti-rigging committee led by his friend and lawyer, Thabani Mpofu to ensure that the polls would not be rigged.

He went on to lose the election and, expectedly, cried rigging.

Fast forward to 2023, the July 24 2023 edition of the NewsDay ran a front page story headlined, “ED has no room for rigging – Chamisa” in which he claimed that he had cornered President Mnangagwa so that he would not rig.

A month later, the opposition leader claimed that the polls were rigged.

As in 2018, he claimed that his party had all the ZEC V11 forms it needed to prove his charge of rigging but developed cold feet when it became public information that CCC polling agents were holding onto the document to protest against non-payment.

Fearing a repeat of his embarrassing Constitutional Court petition of 24 August 2018, decided against approaching the courts.

His propaganda people claimed that the decision was meant to avoid confirming President Mnangagwa’s win through the courts, but the truth is that, as in 2018, he had no evidence.

Chamisa knew right from the outset that he was destined for another defeat. That is why he was calling for UN-supervised polls.

That is why he used his last rally at the Robert Mugabe Square in Harare on August 21, to threaten rejecting results of the elections if he lost.

As expected, he went on to reject the results but that is nothing new.

The bottom line is that he is where he sat post the 2018 elections – a losing opposition leader with councillors and legislators in various local authorities and the Parliament.

He dubbed his last campaign rally the “Victory Rally” or the “Game over Rally.”

To him this meant that it was over for President Mnangagwa but the truth on the ground is that it is game over for the opposition leader.

He is desperately pushing for fresh polls as a face-saver. He will definitely get them – in July or August 2028, of course, when they fall due. For now, it is back to the drawing board for him ahead of 2028.

One cannot help, but thoroughly enjoy Professor Jonathan Moyo’s advice to Chamisa after the polls. The political scientist said Chamisa should mature, shape up and face his defeat or ship out of politics.

And I could not agree with him more.