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Matthew Mare-Correspondent
Political parties are voluntary organisations where people join and come out freely.
In Zimbabwe, people do not put CVs and are not interviewed to join political parties.
The political card alone or being in the cell book is not enough justification to tell whether an individual is a bona-fide member of a party or not.
Chamisa must justify why he believes those who forwarded their names to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission for nomination are indeed not bona-fide CCC party members.
Citizen convergence model is based on the assumption that every national wants change, is fully engaged and is part of the initiative.
If that is the basis for CCC, then Chamisa does not have the locus standi to say those who fielded their nominations resulting in double nominations are not his members.
Since it is a party that has no structures, it means all his followers are equal.
Chamisa cannot evoke structures only when it is convenient for him. He must quote a section of his party constitution which justifies what it means to be a CCC member.
Secondly, he must put facts on his accusation that the double candidates were fielded by Forever Associates Zimbabwe (FAZ).
FAZ is an affiliate of Zanu PF. How is the ruling party involved in the affairs of the CCC party, worse still influence its nomination process?
If that is logically possible, why did Nelson Chamisa not do the same to Zanu PF?
Should Zanu PF blame Chamisa for some of the its parliamentary candidates who lost during primary elections and ended up standing as independents?
Chamisa did not release the nomination list in time and those who felt short-changed had only one remedy, that is to field their nominations under ZEC.
If Chamisa feels that they fraudulently positioned themselves, he must not drag ZEC, but his own members to a court of law.
He can then use the outcome to write to ZEC.
Every person is presumed innocent unless proven guilty by a competent court of law. ZEC looks at whether the required documents needed for nomination are submitted or not.
Zanu PF would have sued Chamisa for interference in its internal primary party election processes.
Chamisa by his own admission, admitted and bragged that some of those who voted during the Zanu PF primary elections were actually CCC members.
If video evidence is admissible, then Chamisa interferes with the functions and operations of another political party.
To demonstrate the level of political maturity, Zanu PF never took Chamisa to any court of law to explain his political statement.
Zanu PF introspected and conducted healing processes and moved on.
However, without any proof, Chamisa went on a rampage blaming FAZ, ZEC and Zanu PF for his own failure to manage the nomination process, resulting in 74 local authority seats uncontested.
This shows lack of organisation.
In Bulawayo, the nomination papers of the senate were in shambles resulting in CCC seeking condonation from ZEC and it was granted.
If ZEC is captured by Zanu PF as CCC alleges, it should have taken a hard-line stance that after the party missed the submission deadline.
When decisions are made in CCC’s favour, systems are not captured, but if its vice versa they cry victims.
Chamisa must apologise to his own party members, which virtually do not exist since it a structureless movement.
He denied them the right to appeal against the outcome of his nomination process.
His major problem is that he is a charlatan and autocratic to the core, all these shenanigans are solely a result of not wanting to be challenged.
He failed to meet the ZEC timelines as Mahere publicly admitted that her party was still vetting the names of those who participated in the consensus process.
He cannot blame his political experiments on others, instead his advisors are leading him astray.
Does he have time for self-introspection and planning or its eat what you kill policy.
A leader must be focused than to live like the epicurean philosophers whose lifestyle was ‘let’s eat and drink for tomorrow we all die’.
If you carry an ant-infested log on your shoulder be prepared to be sting by a scorpion. A whole presidential candidate, a cry baby who blames own weaknesses on others.
Chamisa must demonstrate political consistence, he indicated that, he kept the names of those who qualified for primary elections a secret and that he will only reveal the names after the nominations.
His justification was that he feared Zanu PF infiltration and he has hedged the fear by keeping the list a secret from everyone including his own party ‘structures’.
He used the fear of infiltration as the basis for not having structures and conducting primary elections.
He is becoming a political circus. Mr Cobra, where is your political venom or you are now the tamed snake.
It is political assumption that FAZ is to blame for CCC double nominations.
The basic communication skills at under graduate studies teaches about hedging so that one does not convert and baptise assumption to make it a fact.
Facts are empirically proven and falsifiable. The burden of proof principle, hence Chamisa suffers epistemological deficit in his reckless accusations.
The nomination date came and he was the only person who had the final list and he conducted only those who had qualified on the nomination date.
Thus, his members were only speculating as nobody had facts as to who qualified or not. Having failed in his experimental political strategy, his argument was that, there were people who forged the CCC nomination signature and qualified.
Here is the question that Chamisa must logically answer: If they are not bona fide CCC members as he is alleging, it follows that they will not be voted. Where are his political fears unless he is lying that, they are not CCC members?
Voters are not robots, they make conscious decisions. How are they going to vote for political ‘imposters’?
Why then is CCC wasting resources on legal processes on individuals whom they claim to be political ‘fraudsters’?
The issue is they must get zero votes and if they garner votes then Chamisa lied. In election, no party will vote for people they do not know.
This is kindergarten political logic.
Politics go beyond regalia and symbols to ortho praxis, thus the practical politics of the ground.
Who are they going to mobilise or gather to campaign even if they use CCC name and symbols? I think only publicly denouncing them was enough than all this political hullabaloo of courts and diverting the attention of ZEC.
Deductive reasoning indicates that; these people he is denying are political demagogues who warrantee a whole presidential candidate to panic.
The panic button is so loud that he is politically quacking and trembling.
It is like an individual who is not even a Zanu PF member, forwarding a double nomination to co-contest as Zanu PF presidential candidate against President Mnangagwa.
If you see Zanu PF panicking and not laughing their lungs out it means the person would not be ordinary or unknown.
Double candidates for a parliamentary vote have one presidential candidate, so Chamisa in any way is the sole beneficiary.
Why is Chamisa worried if the output does not affect him personally.
The issue of double candidates is as old as humanity and even in the primitive books of politics it was never recorded as some of material substance.
Zanu PF, for example, had similar circumstances in the past, a case of Munyaradzi Kereke and Elias Musakwa in Bikita. The party had to let the two contest and the electorate decided.
Kereke won the election against both fellow double nominee and also against the MDC candidate.
The modern electorate is enlightened and they know what they want and who to vote for.
Even if they were 50 candidates who filed their nominations, the will of the people still prevails.
The idea is to discredit the election more than a court challenge against an electoral malpractice.
The problem with Chamisa is his appetite to read Machiavelli’s book ‘The Prince’ and forget that, Machiavelli had another copy, ‘The Discourse’.
To be a balanced political strategist, read the two. The Prince teaches you to be a pure dictator and The Discourse teaches you about legacy seeking leadership.
‘The Prince’ is seemingly influencing Chamisa’s political behaviour, it has three pillars of power thus grab power, maintain power and expand power and to achieve the three the leader must do two things; do away with those who help you to grab power and those who saw you getting power.
Chamisa has engaged an overdrive to remove all the old guard that help him, dissolve the structure that may challenge him and all the key stakeholders like ZCTU that saw him grabbing leadership of the party.
Machiavelli was teaching dictators how to evade accountability and political competition.
Chamisa must own up when his strategy backfires and not to scatter blame on others.
He is diverting his own party attention from blaming him to ZEC and FAZ.
Is CCC a hybrid party culture where its leader is pure autocratic and the party is claimed to be democratic citizen movement. Is this a new political culture in Zimbabwe, worth examination by students of politics?
Chamisa, who is the only voice in his CCC party, is now seeking public office to reform the Government.
Charity begins at home, reform first and practice democracy from within and stop blame games.
It is only in the books of logic where in philosophy a person can conclude and provide premises later.
In politics, premises lead to a conclusion because it is based on deductive reasoning.
One does not get into public office as a pure dictator and promise to change while occupying the leavers of power.
Political parties must take parliamentary business seriously either they are cracking jokes, booing, eating and gallivanting in booked hotels, not fully committed, sleeping during Parliament business and manufacturing recalls self-amputating themselves and to punish their political opponents.
Can CCC and Mwonzora account for what they have achieved in parliament other than jokes and recalls.
Parties must send to public office serious and competent candidates who advance their party and national interests.
Zanu PF, like any political parties in Zimbabwe, has its own challenges, but it does not recall its members from parliament like a mad man possessed and is throwing stones recklessly.
Zanu PF is mature enough to know the importance of Parliament and that it preludes petty party differences.
In opposition, after they initiate recalls they do not take re-run electoral processes seriously and as a result they are always a minority voice to push for any meaningful reform.
The opposition now wants to burden the courts with things and reforms that they would have ordinarily solved during the five-year parliamentary tenure.
The Hansard is there; most of the opposition parliamentarians have never uttered a word in Parliament.
Chamisa in his recent post presidential nomination speech, admitted and openly indicated that, his main focus is state power and not Parliament or local authority.
True to his word, 74 local authority vacant post were not filled.
How does he intend to function on his dream to run presidential office without the Parliament and local authority voice.
Unless he still thinks that he can still control the entire bureaucratic system using structureless model. Its only possible on a dictator par excellence, that is why even his erstwhile civil society voice is in a quandary on whether to public support him or to maintain neutrality.
The failure by a leader for whatever reason to field all the candidates mirrors an individual who is not a serious politician.
Why do opposition parties find it fashionable to pay first their presidential nomination fees and reluctant to provide a full list.
Their excessive desire for self-power is destructive and the history of dictators is the history of people who can be easily get drunk with power.
Leadership is a verb, it is a doing word and as such, leaders must walk the talk.
In a devolved state, councillors now occupy a key role in development and yet a party finds it fashionable not to fill candidates.
Political actors must take the electorate seriously than to operate political entities like tuckshops.
All these shenanigans are meant to create a legitimate crisis in the aftermath of the election by keeping their supporters and sympathisers hopeful of the next win.
It is a longstanding strategy by opposition to carry forward their supporters into the next election by arguing that elections were rigged.
This was a key political strategy by even Tsvangirai, he would also argue that he won and was rigged.
A lie repeated several times becomes a fact in the minds and perception of the supporters.
Since 1999 when MDC was formed, it never conceded defeat and the only election results which they did not take Zanu PF to court or discredit in the eyes of election observer missions is 2008 when Tsvangirai got a higher percentage against former President Mugabe, but still not enough to avoid a re-run.
A mature leader accepts the outcome of an election when defeated.
Smith who vowed that he would never allow the majority rule in a thousand years was mature enough to respect the will of the people when he was eventually defeated both on the war front and in the ballot.
Political lies must be criminalised, political actors must desist from accruing support base through lies.
The CCC party, on the eve of the election, is beginning to raise issues around voters roll, ZEC independence, its composition and transparency of the electoral systems, electoral and reforms media reforms and diaspora vote.
Their concerns fit into the puzzle of discrediting the election.
It is a psychological warfare. If they do not win it is not a credible election and Chamisa want to play with the mindset of the electorate.
Dr (PhD), Mare Matthew (War and Security studies)
Online Reporter