Taurai Masamba
Self-exiled G40 kingpin Professor Jonathan Moyo has sharply criticised Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) leader, Nelson Chamisa over his recent calls for the United Nations (UN) to supervise next year’s Harmonised General Elections.
Chamisa called for UN-supervised election while addressing a rally in Kariba last weekend. He calimed that this would prevent the possibility of a contested outcome.
Prof Moyo took to Twitter last night to expose Chamisa over the UN calls and a number of election-related issues. The former Cabinet minister proved how Chamisa continued to accuse President Emmerson Mnangagwa of being in office illegitimately yet he (Chamisa) failed to take up an offer of legal representation by a group of South African lawyers to take his poll petition to the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACPHR) if he was convinced that he won the 2018 presidential election.
“On 27 August 2018, following President Mnangagwa’s inauguration, (South African lawyer) Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi confirmed to The Daily Maverick that he and a team of high powered South African lawyers, that included Advocate Dali Mpofu, were preparing to take Chamisa’s failed 2018 Constitutional Court election case to (the) ACPHR.
“Despite the fact that the South African team of senior Advocates was ready to take up his case with (the) ACPHR pro bono, Chamisa blew hot and cold, only to freeze; until the case died an unnatural death. Chamisa just bluffed his way out of the case!” said Prof Moyo.
Pro Moyo described Chamisa’s calls for UN-supervised polls in Zimbabwe as opportunism. He accused the opposition leader of wasting the last four years only to try to make up for the mistake by calling for UN-supervised polls.
“It is thus not just rich but crass opportunism and crude cynicism for Chamisa, within 10 months before the next election, to call for UN supervised polls when he has done absolutely nothing for 48 months, since the Constitutional Court dismissed his poll petition on 24 August 2018!” Prof Moyo commented.
The political scientist described Chamisa’s calls for UN-supervised polls as clutching at straws as he has failed to use the last four years to prepare adequately for next year’s polls. He mocked the opposition leader for trying to use the calls for the UN intervention as a substitute for a sound manifesto, which he lacks, to convince the electorate to vote for him next year.
“Clearly, Chamisa is calling for UN-supervised polls and electoral reforms 10 months before the 2023 poll, as a desperate election manifesto, after he wasted 48 months doing zero, save to form a CCC that still has no values, no ideology, no constitution and no structures!” Prof Moyo said.
Apart from calling for UN-supervised elections, Chamisa and other anti-Government elements have been calling for electoral reforms using mainly the social media despite the fact that his party has legislators in Parliament. For the past four years, all they have been doing in the august house were to warm benches, heckle President Mnangagwa and opposing everything just for the sake of it. None of them has tabled a motion for an electoral reforms bill.
