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Nobleman Runyanga
During the weekend, media was awash with stories based on CCC senior member and former MDC Alliance co-deputy president, Tendai Biti’s recent statement in which he shrugged off accusations of working with Zanu PF against CCC leader through that party’s interim secretary general Sengezo Tshabangu.
Biti’s statement was a culmination of weeks of accusations against him and former MDC Alliance co-deputy president, Professor Welshman Ncube.
The two were being accused of being the brains behind a hitherto largely unknown Tshabangu’s claim to the party’s secretary general position and his recalls of CCC legislators and councillors.
The reasons for the accusations were the obvious undeclared war between Biti and Chamisa after the latter elbowed the former from contesting in Harare East and replaced him with Allan Markham as well as Chamisa’s systematic side lining of Prof Ncube.
Chamisa knows that Prof Ncube is widely respected in Bulawayo and the Matabeleland region in CCC.
The young opposition leader seems to think that side-lining Prof Ncube would lead to the latter being shunned by the people of the region.
Paradoxically by politically victimising Prof Ncube as a way of fending off competition for the leadership of the CCC, Chamisa is creating a victim that attracts sympathy from both CCC members in the region and ordinary people.
He is aware that the sympathy is potential political capital that Prof Ncube can fully exploit any day and revive his political career if he so wishes.
It is this renewed fear of the professor that is driving Chamisa and his inner circle to besmirch Professor Ncube by accusing him of fighting the beleaguered opposition leader from Zanu PF’s corner.
The fact that Tshabangu has been fighting from Bulawayo has been used by some CCC members like the party’s fugitive spokesperson, Promise Mkwananzi and his deputy, Gift Ostallos Siziba to buttress their accusations against Prof Ncube.
As has become custom in the MDC and its successor factions and formations, anyone who holds contrary views is labelled a Zanu PF project.
MDC and CCC members have labelled Prof Ncube a Zanu PF person for many years with the tacit approval of both Chamisa and Tsvangirai as the label served the two leaders’ interests.
Biti has never hidden his ambitions for the country’s presidency.
This is why in 2014, he and the then MDC-T treasurer general, Elton Steers Mangoma championed the push for leadership renewal in their party after the late former MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai lost to the late former President Robert Mugabe for the third time in 2013.
Tsvangirai argued that strategically it made no sense to change leaders in the middle of a struggle, which Biti refused to accept. This led the splinter group, MDC Renewal before forming the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
Even when Chamisa seized control of the MDC-T from the rightful heiress, Dr Thokozani Khupe in February 2018 following Tsvangirai’s death, he was wary of Biti who re-joined the party ahead of the 2018 elections.
Biti has always been breathing on Chamisa’s neck as he also wants to lead the opposition party.
It is because of ambitious old timers from the MDC-T that Chamisa refused to hold an elective congress following the renaming of the party in January last year.
While the foregoing background helps to understand Biti’s statement, matters came to a head last Friday when lecturer and Chamisa ally, Pedzisayi Ruhanya, took to the social media to accuse Biti of teaming with Zanu PF and Tshabangu against Chamisa.
While many CCC members accused Biti in whispers, Ruhanya was upfront in his submission although he also hid behind the PDP.
Ruhanya posted on the X platform that: “It would be naïve to think that the PDP elements using Tshabangu just woke up and wrote those recalls without prior meetings and negotiations with Zanu PF. Your differences are not the national question. You sold out.”
Ruhanya accused Biti of inviting “Zanu PF into your house to address your issues.”
He accused Biti and other former PDP members in the CCC of attempting to “cover up ZANU PF election theft (and) abductions.” Biti was further accused of “betraying the masses.”
Ruhanya was not a lone player in his onslaught against Biti and other former PDP members in the CCC.
On Sunday, a CCC member, one @maDube posted an image of former PDP member and former CCC Harare Mayor, Jacob Mafume, on the X platform with the caption “Politicians just love positions.”
This was in apparent reference to the word that went round over the past few weeks to the effect that Biti and Tshabangu intended to replace Ian Makone with Mafume as Harare Mayor.
When Tshabangu struck again last week and recalled Makone, his deputy Kudzai Kadzombe and other councillors, sentiment against Biti and Tshabangu rose to a fever pitch.
The whole world knows Chamisa’s shortcomings which include conveniently blaming ZANU PF for his own failures and missteps.
He has perfected the art of convincing as the gospel of truth the blatant lie that ZANU PF infiltrates the opposition.
Zanu PF has weightier matters to attend to such as running this great country for the good of all Zimbabweans.
Everyone knows that he refused to hold an elective congress for fear that people like Biti or Prof Ncube could wrest the leadership of the party from him, but he lamely claimed that Zanu PF would leverage the event to get certain people to lead the opposition party.
What Chamisa’s followers should know is that all the problems that their party is facing are traceable and squarely attributable to their leader’s poor leadership pedigree.
It is not Zanu PF that tied Chamisa’s hands so that he could not craft a party constitution. He took a conscious decision not to. Tshabangu is only taking advantage of a gaping wilful omission to wreak havoc in the party.
During the so-called citizens’ consensus for candidate selection Chamisa rode roughshod over senior party members like Biti and grassroots members who selected their popular candidates only for them to be shoved aside to pave way for the leader’s preferred people.
Biti intended to contest in Harare East but Chamisa elbowed him out in preference for Markham from Harare North. The move was not just about the constituency. It was also calculated to offload Biti from active politics.
Unlike the Zanu PF scenario where President Mnangagwa’s Second Secretaries campaigned for him and other party candidates, Chamisa feared that Biti and Prof Ncube would steal the thunder from him.
This is why Tshabangu is enjoying so much popularity.
The CCC leader has created many enemies within his party.
It is sad to note that despite being a lawyer and a seasoned politician, Biti chose the hackneyed blame — Zanu PF line in his bid to distance himself from Tshabangu. Biti knows the elephant in the CCC room.
He was pushed out of Harare East by Chamisa in broad daylight and is unhappy about it, but chose the convenient scapegoat — Zanu PF.
CCC members should know that their internal issues are not a national crisis.
They are advised to leave Zanu PF out of their Chamisa-authored mess and, for once, face the demons in their party. Blaming Zanu PF will not miraculously solve the constitution, congress and structures issue.
It will not solve Chamisa’s obsession with power to the point threatening internal democracy.
Yes, Zanu PF is powerful, popular and in power but has no business meddling in the affairs of a struggling and poorly-led opposition party.
The ruling party is a modern African ruling party which values the competition and criticism provided by a vibrant opposition that to enable it to meet the needs of the millions of Zimbabweans which it leads through Government.
If anything, the party wishes the CCC well so that it can take its position as the opposition in Parliament.
Online Reporter