For months now MDC leader, Nelson Chamisa, has been sounding like a broken record trying to convince anyone and everyone that he won the July 2018 presidential election instead of the rightful winner and current President, Emmerson Mnangagwa. Unfortunately Chamisa has not been able to win over anyone outside his inner circle and party and that includes his part’s traditional backers from the Americas and Europe.
Chamisa’s insistency that he won the election has been shot down by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), the country’s Constitutional Court, the African Union, SADC and many other groups who have already acknowledged the legitimacy of President Mnangagwa. The fact that Chamisa is not providing any evidence of his supposed victory has not done his case any good either.
Chamisa has obviously lost the battle of legitimacy but unfortunately that truth seem to be lost to him and him alone as western embassies are not interested in touching this particular subject matter. In all their statements of criticism on the administration of President Mnangagwa, the Americans and European parliament do not mention the issue of legitimacy probably because they know that this is a concluded matter that does not warranty any revisiting.
This then begs the question why Chamisa is using this as an excuse for not taking part in the dialogue talks called for by President Mnangagwa. It is no secret that Zimbabwe is not doing well in as far as the economy is concerned and this point has been acknowledged by the President as he has rightly called for all political and civic leaders to a round table discussion to try and find a way out of this economic quandary that the country is facing.
A true statesman and leader like President Mnangagwa is graced with the wisdom to know when it is time to set aside political differences for the greater good of the country unlike loudmouthed politicians like Chamisa who will not stop playing the political game even if it means the whole country has to suffer until they get their way. What Zimbabwe needs right now is a statesman and not a politician.
As long as we are talking about the issue of legitimacy it is Chamisa who needs to introspect on this one because he is not ticking all the boxes when it comes to his own claim to the MDC throne. When Chamisa forced himself to the MDC helm he gave one flimsy excuses after another as to why he could not hold a congress to legitimize himself as the party leader. To make matters worse when his term expired on 14 February 23, 2019 he still had not announced a date for a congress to legitimize his claim. So before Chamisa starts throwing stones at the Mnangagwa legitimacy house he needs to check his own glass house first.
Mr Chamisa needs to understand that continuing to say that President Mnangagwa is not the rightful leader of Zimbabwe will not make it true and to understand that no one is interested in his politicking. What Zimbabwe needs is to move on and rebuild the economy and not satisfy Chamis’s political ego.
The tune of legitimacy is a tired old tune and no one wants to hear it, it is time the MDC learns this valuable reality and mature politically to know when they have been beaten.
