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Nobleman Runyanga-Correspondent
Last week must have been a very frustrating one for the MDC Alliance faction.
Nowhere was this more evident than in the utterances and stunts by the embattled faction’s leader, Nelson Chamisa.
First, it was the relevance seeking claim by Chamisa that he still held the key to Zimbabwe’s progress under President Mnangagwa.
As if that was not enough, he irresponsibly used the ongoing clean up exercise in Harare to incite the capital city’s residents to revolt against Government in retaliation.
While these machinations were meant to cast aspersions on President Mnangagwa, Zanu PF and Government, they paradoxically shined a negative spotlight on Chamisa’s poor leadership and lack of tact as a politician.
Useless key
On Monday, Zimbabweans and the world woke up to a Daily News screaming headline: “I still hold the key: Chamisa.”
This was in response to the fact that MDC-T leader, Douglas Mwonzora, had held a one-on-one meeting with President Mnangagwa and Vice President Dr Constantino Chiwenga on Friday, the previous week.
Chamisa has spurned President Mnangagwa’s several invitations for him to join the Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD), insisting on a one-on-one meeting with the President.
Chamisa in his mind thought that his illegitimacy drive against the President, which was not supported by facts on the ground, would push him (President Mnangagwa) into a political corner.
The opposition figure’s fervent, but baseless hope was that the “cornered” President would invite him for a meeting where he (Chamisa) would negotiate for inclusion in Government despite losing the 2018 polls.
Chamisa forgot that Zimbabwe does not have an election dispute.
President Mnangagwa got a clear mandate from the people in 2018 and this gives him the power to meet any Zimbabwean as and when he wishes.
The meeting between the country’s Presidium and Mwonzora sent shock waves in the MDC Alliance faction’s camp and Chamisa was the most affected.
The meeting meant that President Mnangagwa is moving on politically, while Chamisa is hoping that his sabotage politics of a non-existent illegitimacy will someday bring the President grovelling on the ground begging him for a one-on-one meeting.
He thought that the President would use such a meeting to beg him to relent on his illegitimacy campaign and endorse him.
The President got his mandate through a Constitutionally-provided democratic process of an election.
He, therefore, does not require any validation from an opposition quisling to discharge his mandate of serving Zimbabweans.
His validation comes from the electorate who voted him into office.
Chamisa’s claims that he holds the key to President Mnangagwa’s success in turning the socio-economic fortunes of Zimbabwe exposed his panic.
All along he was hoping that the President would approach him, but the meeting with Mwonzora dashed any such continued hopes.
While he continues to nurse the hope of a one-on-one meeting with the President, Zimbabwe and the world are moving on.
President Mnangagwa has registered quite a lot of success in many areas of Zimbabweans’ lives.
He has stabilised the exchange rate using the foreign currency auction system, which, in turn, has reined in the inflation rate.
The President and his team are blazing an inimitable and unprecedented trail in infrastructure development, among scores of many other successes of the new administration.
All these achievements were made without a single contribution from Chamisa and one wonders what kind of key he is talking about.
Whatever key it is, one thing is clear about it – it is an old and rusty key to an old door of an old abandoned house that he attempted to build with the late former President Mugabe, a few days before the 2018 harmonised elections.
It is interesting and very ironical that Chamisa chose a key for metaphor to drive home, the point that he still hallucinates and fancies himself as an indispensable figure in Zimbabwe’s politics. How one who has no office for his small opposition faction thinks that he can be a key to a whole country’s socio-economic progress boggles the mind.
It is this bitter and painful truth that sent Chamisa making the claims of his imagined importance to Zimbabwe out of frustration.
On the same day that the Daily News ran the story on Chamisa’s utterances on the key, at the other end of the capital city, NewsDay also ran a story on another set of Chamisa’s foot-in-the mouth pronouncements.
The common denominators of the two stories were Chamisa’s frustration with his own poor political mettle and his increasing non-relevance on the local political scene.
Government and the City of Harare are clearing illegal traders that have mushroomed on road sides, selling building materials, furniture, garden supplies and even cars among their goods, causing a danger to road users and preventing work needed in many areas to regulate traffic and widen roads to ease congestion.
They were blocking road servitude, which is the full width of the space reserved for a road, from the properties on one side to the properties on the other side.
Some of the properties were built on land granted illegally and corruptly by municipal officials and MDC Alliance councillors on undesignated areas such as the road servitudes.
Instead of condemning his corrupt and inept councillors, Chamisa was quoted by the NewsDay criticising Government for allegedly not providing jobs for the affected traders.
If anyone is cruel, it is not Government which is cleaning up the mess created by the corrupt MDC Alliance faction councillors.
The cruellest political players in Zimbabwe are the MDC Alliance senior members led by Chamisa who travelled to the United States in December 2017 to ensure that the United States illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe would be continued under the new dispensation.
Only cruel politicians travel to several European countries to influence them to punish the innocent people of Zimbabwe and gloat about it at rallies using the cruel and callous “sunga-one-sunga-dozen” language. Chamisa also sought to use the clean-up exercise to cover up for his own poor leadership by inciting the affected residents to plunge the country into anarchy using pointless protests and mindless violence.
It is clear that Chamisa now realises that there is no longer any chance for him to get into Government by the back-door, as he dreamt of and, consequently, he now prefers that the country be thrown into anarchy.
He is now driven by the cruel “if-I-can’t-have-it-noone-will-have it” mentality.
His reaction to the clean-up exercise exposed him to be a poor loser.
His predecessor, the late Morgan Tsvangirai was a mature loser, he would not seek to burn the whole country in political tantrums as is the case with Chamisa.
Chamisa’s irresponsible comments exposed how much of a political opportunist he is.
Lately, he has been receiving quite some flak for failing to provide direction and leadership in the face of failing councillors and mass defections from the party.
Some youths have been suggesting that Transform Zimbabwe leader, Jacob Ngarivhume should take over the leadership of the faction given his pragmatism.
Chamisa used the clean-up exercise to try to regain his supporters’ confidence in him using incitement for anarchy and violence.
If his utterances did not constitute the crime of incitement, nothing does.
Whether or not Chamisa’s inciting statements were meant to just pacify his young, impressionable and excitable supporters, who are getting impatient with him, he should know that Zimbabwe has laws, law enforcement agents and competent courts of law that stand ready to deal with irresponsible politicians like him.
Zimbabwe is a peaceful country and the authorities will not shirk on their responsibility to ensure peace and progress, just to indulge a failed politician who has been cornered by both his lack of leadership qualities and his supporters who are demanding solid leadership.
The MDC Alliance youths who may be seriously considering carrying out Chamisa’s threat of lawlessness should know that when they commit crime and are arrested and stand in court, they will be answering to the crimes alone, with Chamisa nowhere to be seen.
It is them who will get arrested and endure jail should they break the law in pursuit of pleasing their frustrated and confused leader.
Online Reporter