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Ranga Mataire

Group Political Editor

With the 2023 election drawing closer, the inevitability of the coming failure is driving the opposition CCC into its last refuge – making all manner of unverifiable claims to hoodwink voters into thinking that they are a credible government-in-waiting.

Since its formation, CCC has fashioned itself as an alternative democratic entity. Yet, actions by its leaders point to the opposite. There is ample evidence to show that this is, in fact, a personality cult.

First, they gagged everyone from speaking about the party except Fadzayi Mahere and Gift Ostalos Siziba.

Touted as spokesperson and deputy spokesperson respectively, they are the only two officials with confirmed positions in the organisation, apart from Nelson Chamisa himself.

This means that anyone who has dared to campaign for the party without Chamisa’s approval has been publicly humiliated. 

Chalton Hwende is still licking his wounds after his leader issued a public reprimand for claiming to be the party’s “secretary-general”.

Second, Chamisa continues to claim that he is divinely anointed to lead Zimbabwe. He constantly evades probing questions by quoting Bible verses, reflective of an individual in a permanent religious stupor.

As if this was not incredulous enough, the CCC leader has ensured that anyone aspiring to represent the party in the upcoming local and parliamentary elections fills out a form in which they express loyalty to “The Creator”.

Short of a religious cult, there is no record in the world where members of a political entity have been forced to state their loyalty to God in order to pass as candidates in an election.

Surprisingly, even those who regard themselves as paragons of democracy have remained silent on an issue that clearly curtails freedom of choice in matters of religion.

Never before has Zimbabwe witnessed such religious fanaticism in politics. Yet, we must not be surprised. Chamisa has made it a pastime to mock African cultural beliefs and culture. His comments on the Mbuya Nehanda statue at the intersection of Samora Machel Avenue and Julius Nyerere Way in the capital clearly exposed his thoroughly brainwashed mind.

The statue honours the revered spirit medium who was instrumental in the First Chimurenga of 1896-7 and had to be hanged by the colonial regime that regarded her as a major impediment to colonial conquest.

Yet, Chamisa said this tribute was “idolatry worship”.

Quoting the Bible, Chamisa posted: “But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images. For you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”

Nehanda is one of the country’s national symbols of colonial resistance. Anyone who mocks her statue is either ignorant of the country’s history or suffers from serious colonial brainwashing.

This was not the first time Chamisa poured vitriol for a national symbol. In 2019, Chamisa said of the iconic Zimbabwe Bird: “That Zimbabwean bird symbol is part of our problem. We must deal with institutional idolatry.”

This reminds one of Lucifer in the seminal novel “Waiting for the Rain” by Charles Mungoshi. 

Lucifer disowned his own people and his native land. He even disowned his own identity in favour of something imposed upon him. His level of self-hate was beyond imagination.

I think many people, including Chamisa’s supporters, cringe at the thought of having such a religious fanatic being at the helm of the country’s leadership. 

Zimbabwe is a secular nation with the State and the Church being separate entities.

It is unimaginable to contemplate Zimbabwe being governed by an unstable, stubbornly uninformed and authoritarian religious demagogue. What if he shreds the law because it conflicts with his personal beliefs?

The signs are there. He leads a party, which is not a party. It is all about him. It has not held a legitimate congress or meeting to elect office bearers. 

Without a constitution, pronouncements by Chamisa at rallies are the governing rules.

He says not having a constitution or legitimate visible structures is a new way of doing things. He calls this new way of doing things “strategic ambiguity.” 

Only he alone knows what this “strategic ambiguity” is.

At one stage, after pressure from his Western handlers, Chamisa named a “shadow cabinet”. 

That was the last we heard of it. It faded away as Chamisa felt threatened by colleagues challenging his leadership style. Without structures, Chamisa is unchallengeable, like the founding leader of a cultic church.

With indications of elections being held by August, no one knows what CCC stands for. They have not articulated their policies. Each day they harp about democracy, but their actions are everything, but democratic.

With no policies to sell, their supporters and senior officials spend their days on the internet, trolling Government decisions. This is all the content they have. Who can blame them?

While Zanu PF has started promoting its candidates, the CCC voices cannot do the same. How can they, when they do not even know whom they are going to vote for in the Local Government and parliamentary elections?

Journalists wishing to get the gist of the party’s campaign strategy have come out more confused than enlightened. 

In a recent interview, Chamisa ridiculously claimed without evidence that half of the people who had voted in the Zanu PF primary elections were CCC supporters.

He also claimed his party had thwarted attempts by ruling party supporters to participate in his party’s selection of candidates in the upcoming elections.

It looks more and more apparent that this is sheer incapacity born out of fear of losing the leadership of the entity, which has been a source of his livelihood gotten from Western donors. With so much confusion within the opposition ranks, there are no indications that this coming election will be any different from the previous ones.

In fact, the governing Zanu PF party’s presidential candidate, President Mnangagwa, will again cruise to victory and that his party will likely get the two-thirds majority.

Having elected its elected representatives in open democratic primary elections, Zanu PF looks like the more prepared and more organised political organisation, something that will definitely work in its favour in the impending elections.