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Dr Masimba Mavaza

The CCC members have been left wondering where their party is going to as daggers and battle lines are drawn in blood.

The absence of the opposition party’s constitution has raised a question. 

Are citizens willing to tolerate violations of democratic rules and norms by incompetent political leaders? 

It happened there: how democracy died in MDC and then it is now happening in the CCC. 

A new kind of authoritarianism has been taking root in the opposition and there are warning signs for Zimbabwe and its people. 

Now the party faces uncertainty and it is breaking into pieces as Chamisa gets a deflating blow. Actually he got an axe. 

The CCC’s border runs through a wilderness, tall grass flatlands ringed by imposing history of violence and thickets of dictatorship disguised as opposition.

The world hardly scrutinises the democracy within an opposition. 

Their mentality is to create a willing destabiliser of which Chamisa is a willing participant. This mentality has given the CCC a leeway to trample all walls of democracy. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. 

At the moment the CCC is thrown in the pull of confusion as Chamisa is walking on tight ropes. The strategic ambiguity has become ambiguous. 

If Tshabangu is not the secretary general so who exactly is the SG? 

The CCC has been warned of the dangers of having no constitution, party structures and elected officials. When experts advised Chamisa to transform CCC into a modern democracy he exhibited his stubbornness and refused to listen. This was because he never listens. 

Chamisa refused to modernise his political party. He refused to follow the democratic rules his party purports to follow. Why because he wanted to be president, vice president secretary general and a law unto himself. 

His Convergence of Citizen Confusion has started to lay eggs. Now the lawlessness has caught up with him.

Tshabangu has claimed to be secretary general and, of course, no one can prove that he is not. Chamisa can also not prove he is president. 

This comes as no surprise, of course, we are talking here of a party so corrupt, incompetent and useless. 

The party that has failed to implement even one token democratic change in 23 years – the number one task they were elected to do.

 Columnist Wilbert Mukori in his rare moments of sobriety said “Indeed, even senior leaders like Tendai Biti and Welshman have no clue what the reforms are much less how they are implemented.”

The behaviour of Chamisa as opposition political leader yields bad news for democracy.

To be specific undemocratic behaviour by CCC and political candidates decreases voter support, whereas candidate competence increases support.

There is false successes and great failures of undemocratic opposition political leaders around the world: although these leaders can gain support by appearing to be competent, competence does not make citizens tolerate undemocratic behaviour entirely. 

There is nowhere the Speaker of Parliament can be blamed for doing his work. The Parliament does not keep a register of opposition members or their positions. If a letter coming from a party with no structures signed by a man claiming to be the secretary general who is the Parliament Speaker to question that?

The problem of a party with no constitution is that nobody even knows how party members are dismissed even the party president. Nobody knows how a party president is elected or retired. The whole system is a dog’s breakfast. 

What is happening in the CCC now shows the fruits of dictatorship when another dictator turns against a chief dictator. 

 When one hears the name of CCC the landscape would have been lovely — had it not been for the gigantic barbed-wire fence running straight through the heart of democracy erected by Chamisa under the guidance of Biti whom he ditched as soon as he got the grip. 

Chamisa abandoned the original MDC founders for students activists. Student activism is not politics it is child’s play. 

Most CCC supporters and the democratic loving Zimbabweans have abandoned their hopes in Chamisa after the elections and trekked through the political journey in shock and pain. 

The party which was purported to have been formed on the strings of democracy has decayed in a flash but still clinging to a democratic name. 

Biti bears the marks of MDC violence and now he came face to face with chicanery when Chamisa sidelined him in his way to maintaining the grip on power. 

That power is now elusive. 

The irony of the whole issue is those who prophesy to be the fathers of African democracy are the ones who are burying democracy without any shame. 

Though few cross the border into the reality of democracy they still live just outside the fence to be on call for the authority to abuse those who request the involvement of democratic ethos. 

Chamisa has ring fenced his position and deliberately bribed the youth to preach violence to anyone who challenges him. 

CCC having portrayed itself as a democratic pioneer has failed to live to the expectations of its supporters. Instead CCC has shown that democracy has died long back. 

As we came closer to 2023 elections, the opposition CCC had shown its divisions and the situation in the boardroom represented a dog’s breakfast. Chamisa sanctioned a serious fight which is threatening to tear the party apart. All this is caused by the little money offered to the CCC money seeking MPs. 

Chamisa has shown undemocratic tendencies and stubbornness which has triggered fierce opposition to the fragile leadership of the factious CCC. 

The MP’s fund saga has exposed CCC and set the tongues wagging wondering if the opposition party is a political party or a pressure group.

 It is not constituted as a political party; it has no constitution no principles and no known rules which guide or control the party.

They have lost credibility on the domestic front and foreign front. Nobody is willing to invest in a party which resembles a burial society.

A burial society is mostly well organised with a constitution and rules to be followed. 

We should remember that CCC is an offshoot of MDC which was constituted as a pressure group in its infants. The difference is that a pressure group is a single agenda movement like fighting for some rights.

The CCC is neither a party nor a pressure group.

It has a devastating draught of organisation. It is indeed a virgin to structures.

The opposition democracy is at a dangerous inflection point. The moment requires a step-change in strategy and support. Without such momentum, the CCC faces a democratic setback. 

Many people view this moment with concern, but their worry is measured in reality. The CCC system is creaky. The country’s opposition has no respect for strong institutions and failed to pull through 2023. 

CCC actually triggered a serious defeat. Their destructions of their own party caused confusion to citizenries, whose polarisation leads them to back policies that harm democracy to ensure their side prevails. CCC is on precisely this path.

CCC has entered in the self-destruction mode; it is behaving like a pressure group. 

The difference is CCC does not even have one principle it stands for.

It is not a party that is built around coherent ideology or vision. It is a loose coalition of citizens with no agenda.

They have no coherent ideology, they have no basis of survival, no principles and they stand for nothing.

Politics is a vehicle of statesmanship. You can be sly, pompous but statesman is an aggressively unflinchingly patriotic spirit expected of any politician. 

Being a politician is an order to win power and rule. 

The problem we have with CCC is that it is neither patriotic nor organised almost. It resembles a pressure group.

 Politics and power are only used to work on the best interest of one’s country. But if a political outfit shows its love for money over national interests, then God have mercy on us. 

There is no opposition which sets its own country on fire. 

Even South African Economic Freedom Fighters leader, Julius Malema has never wished evil to befall South Africa. 

He never invites foreigners to squeeze life out of South Africa. No opposition party thrives on inviting hell for its country.

Doing so, will not win the opposition party any credible friends or alliances outside the country. No one respects an entity which does not respect itself. 

Self-respect is a principle which escaped CCC. They are not statesmen. 

The CCC is not patriotic and has no moral right to govern a country. 

Nothing qualifies a party to govern when it is not patriotic. 

Setting the country on fire shows the opposition does not have people at heart.

Government has a duty to defend its citizens. What if? God forbids they had become government. We would be facing impeachment in this early stage of election. Can they defend us against any foreign invasion? 

The CCC has no single documents about the party. How was CCC going to be a government when it cannot govern themselves. 

As events are unfolding, those who had trusted Chamisa now realise they wasted their vote. You cannot trust a fast man running blindly. 

Lack of democracy in CCC is shocking. Chamisa should know that once he fails to win elections he should resign. But his clinging to power is revealing. 

It is shocking that there are still political party members who still support Chamisa despite his short comings. 

Chamisa is a warning of what could happen when a ruthless, populist backed by a political party is allowed to govern unchecked. Zimbabwe needs to pay attention.

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