By Dr Claver Nyuki
The MDC leader, Nelson Chamisa’s quest to lure the international community, especially the United States (US) to support his regime change agenda mission seems to have hit another snag with reports unearthed by the Harare Post revealing that Washington has refused to meet with the youthful leader, preferring his vice president, Tendai Biti.
Chamisa’s plans to tour the US and Canada in the coming weeks on a diplomatic offensive is now in serious doubt as the White House is set to intensify its efforts to have their preferred candidate, Biti installed as the opposition leader ahead of the 2023 Presidential elections.
A source privy to the happenings at Morgan Richard Tsvangirai House who preferred anonymity, revealed that Chamisa has been left shell shocked as he had hoped to base his 2023 Presidential campaign on support from Washington.
“Chamisa has been planning to visit the US and Canada in the coming weeks on a diplomatic offensive to try and convince the Western governments to support his bid to challenge ZANU PF in the upcoming Presidential elections.
“But his tour now hangs in the balance after the powers that be in Washington snubbed his request for a meeting with insiders insisting that the leaders in the US prefer Biti to lead as opposed to Chamisa,” said the source.
The US preference of Biti over Chamisa is well documented with the former US Senator, Jeff Flake, the then Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations sub-committee on Africa, once openly declared the close relationship between the two, “Tendai Biti is a friend of this Committee and he’s been here a number of times, and I was pleased to see that you had that among your list of things they could do”.
During the MDC congress in May 2019, Washington approved a package of US $50 000 for Biti’s campaign. In 2015, Biti was also awarded a fellowship at the Brookings Institute in Washington DC where he was billed to stay for about 9 months.
To make matters worse, both print and social media have reported that the Western Embassies in the country have increasingly become disillusioned by Chamisa and now prefer talking directly with Biti.
Chamisa is slowly losing grip of the MDC and the open preference of Biti by the West deals a major blow to his ambitions of challenging ZANU PF in the 2023 harmonised elections.
