By Tendai Matunhu
MDC leader Nelson Chamisa has been lambasted by women from across the nation for his careless statements which denigrate them.
Addressing MDC supporters at St Lukes in Lupane on Saturday at a campaign rally ahead of the 3 August Lupane East Constituency by-election, Chamisa promised a retirement package for President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his two Vice Presidents.
“I will give him (President Emmerson Mnangagwa) a farm together with Vice Presidents Constatino Chiwenga and Kembo Mohadi. I want to say sit and be quiet. I will give you whisky and I will give you women. Whatever you want I will give you.
“So professor (Welshman Ncube) uyabona ukuthi ngiyadobhadobha? (I try to speak in Ndebele). Ngifuna ukukhambisa ngesiNdebele (I want to court women in Ndebele),” said Chamisa.
Chamisa also claimed to have won the hearts of local pregnant women who wanted to name their children after him.
Women have come out saying Chamisa is objectifying them and toying with them.
Social commentator Tafara Shumba has tweeted saying, “Please Machinja, advise your leader to sober-up a bit when addressing rallies. How can he say he would give President Mnangagwa a farm and women if he agreed to retire? Once again, women have been staked in a political gamble. Women, where are you when a misogynous politician takes you for a sex object?”
One well known blogger, Charity Maodza tweeted saying, “Hezvoooo, Chamisa really thinks that women are commodities to be traded for sex and politics. That is so medieval and psychotic. Where are the women's rights groups when Chamisa is dragging back by centuries the campaign to empower women?”
President and founder of Labour, Economists and African Democrats party (LEAD), Linda Masarira-Kaingidza has also tweeted saying, “The tragedy of women in Zimbabwe's political terrain is deep. Women continue to be objectified, used to settle political scores and to mobilize support for the misogynistic male chauvinists who have always been at the helm of power in Zimbabwe's political terrain.”
Not only women has castigated Chamisa’s words, Political commentator Ruvimbo Taonezvi highlighted that Chamisa’s immaturity and dictatorial traits are so clear.
“Chamisa is always denigrating women, as previously seen in his previous addresses. Remember he once put his sister up on the market. Who knows what else he will say for his wife. I guess he is forgetting that this is no longer student politics. His words are an insult to women, belittling them. Respect is one thing he lacks and that always costs him,” she said.
Chamisa has developed a bad habit of denigrating women each time he takes the microphone. In his mind he thinks women are a commodity of exchange and can be used to settle political scores. His behaviour has seen him angering women who constitute a sizeable chunk of the electorate.
