Staff Writer
A high ranking Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) official has confided in this publication that his party was now in full blown panic mode following the 3 December by-election thrashings in its erstwhile strangleholds.
CCC lost to the ruling party in Gweru, Binga and Mberengwa by-elections with the former garnering aggregate votes of 1446 against 1764 for its rival, ZANU PF.
The CCC official said if the trend went unchecked, his party was likely going to face another thunderous defeat in the 2023 harmonised general elections. Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, the official proffered a number of reasons why his party continues to lose elections.
“The poor electoral performance can be attributed to the absence of formal structures in the party. There is an urgent need to put in place some structures so that the operations become structured as well. The structureless nature of our party has hampered our mobilization strategy. Most of the senior officials are uncertain of their fate in the party, thus, they are not mobilising support with great determination,” said the official.
The CCC leader, Nelson Chamisa has adopted a structureless strategy for fear of infiltration by the ruling party. He is on record claiming that 50 percent of his leadership was compromised and working in cahoots with ZANU PF to frustrate his presidential bid.
“We also have a problem of parallel and conflicting quasi-structures in the party with the dominant ones consisting of political novices and Johnny-come-latelies. These people are just armchair and twitter politicians. The veterans have adopted a wait-and-see approach. They have folded their hands and taken seats at the terraces, watching the greenhorns misleading the president (Chamisa),” he added.
He said there was gross pilferage of donor funds meant for party operations. Most of the money was raised through the GoFundMe, a crowdfunding platform that the party adopted ostensibly to raise money for its operations.
“Unfortunately the money ended up in private pockets. We received a lot of money for campaign in by-elections but that money was never used for the intended purpose. Nobody is still willing to participate in these opaque crowdfunding. For instance, the money that was raised for the president’s armoured car just vanished into thin air. Who would want to pour his money into a bottomless pit?” the official emotionally asked.
He added that the operations of the party had been crippled by Western donor fatigue and waning general support.
“The West used to unconditionally support our cause by exerting diplomatic and political pressure on ZANU PF. Now they appear tired and are rather becoming supportive of ZANU PF yet they know that if we are to achieve democracy in Zimbabwe, we need to campaign on a platform that CCC can unlock Western support for the country.
“Now it appears ZANU PF can also unlock the Western support. How do we then take advantage?” he asked.
He added: “The failure by the West to apply economic pressure on ZANU PF has not done us good. The sanctions screws are loosening resulting in continued economic stabilisation. Obviously, the growth of the economy gives ZANU PF political mileage yet the West had imposed sanctions to make the economy scream so as alienate the electorate from ZANU PF.
“Under these circumstances and unless the West rejoins us in the trenches, our chances of wrestling power away from ZANU PF are very slim,” he said.
The official joins a host of other insiders and sympathizer in casting doubt over the capacity of the CCC to take over power. The party’s activist-cum-journalist, Hopewell Chin’ono recently predicted heartbreak for the opposition in the 2023 elections.
