By Charles Motsi
Spanish football giants FC Barcelona are one of the best well-oiled machines ever to grace a football pitch, they attack from the back and this tactic has proved fruitful to them over the years resulting in national and international success in the form of trophy after trophy. In a single phrase, they use attack as the best defence to great effect.
While this tactic is evidence of a great team in the world of football the opposite is true in the brutal realm of politics as it exposes the attacker as nothing more than a mere scared individual bent on using mostly dirty tactics to stifle their opponent’s potential in an attempt to hide their own weakness and failures.
The relentless Chamisa brigade has been on a crusade to muddy the reputation of MDC Secretary General, Douglas Mwonzora, in a bid to discourage him from challenging their main man, MDC acting-president, Nelson Chamisa, at the upcoming party’s elective congress to be held from 24 to 26 May 2019.
Nightmares of his 2014 defeat at the hands of Mwonzora probably still haunt the youthful opposition leader. Chamisa went into the Secretary General’s race as the firm favourite in 2014 only for Mwonzora to get 2,464 votes against Chamisa's 1,756 votes. This was a shocker to the young naïve man with a gigantic ego who had to be dragged through the back door by then party leader, the late Morgan Tsvangirai, for him to return to the echelons of top leadership in the MDC.
In fact Tsvangirai had to butcher his own party constitution for him to be able to name Chamisa as one of his three vice presidents. The case of the MDC constitution is still a hot subject up to this day with some even going as far as claiming that the party does not have an up-to-date constitution. This has caused confusion on how long Chamisa was supposed to serve as the party’s acting president and whether he should have been president in the first place. That is why some MDC stalwarts like vice president Elias Mudzuri have confessed that the party has lost its way and have vowed to return it to constitutionalism.
With his 2014 scalping still fresh in his mind and not wanting to let history repeat itself Chamisa has exposed how scared he is of Mwonzora by launching attack after attack on the secretary general who has on countless occasions denied having his sights set on embarrassing his president in another race for the party’s top position.
What scares Chamisa about Mwonzora is not only the aforementioned walloping in 2014 but also the fact that the elder barrister is a tried and tested cadre with a thicker dossier of achievements stretching over decades. While on the other side Chamisa only has his smooth talking abilities to brag about and no real accomplishments to talk of.
Therefore, by attacking Mwonzora the Chamisa brigade is attempting to conceal the public secret that their own general has no real hands-on experience and is only armed with insults and political banter. Aside from failing to land the SG’s post, Chamisa was also responsible for the MDC’s 2013 humiliating loss to Zanu PF as it was his duty as the National Organising Secretary to deliver election victory to his party. As an MP Chamisa failed to complete a library project which is more evidence of the man’s trail of failure after failure.
On the flip side, one can write a book on Mwonzora’s successes, both as an individual and representing his party, dating back to his university days and some landmark rulings that have affected the very fabric of this nation’s existence. In a long line of achievements the highlight of Mwonzora’s career was probably being a co-chairman in the making of the country’s new constitution which was finally adopted as the country’s Magna Carta.
Mwonzora’s antagonists are now claiming that he is taking credit for Tsvangirai’s accomplishments and trying to divorce him from the great works he orchestrated. To this writer, if the man was there when the great works were accomplished and at times in a leadership capacity then the man deserves credit for the work. Chamisa’s minions should stop trying to take away the man’s hard earned successes simply because Chamisa himself pales in comparison.
Attacks on Mwonzora are not likely going to stop anytime soon but at least now we see them for what they are, a smoke screen meant to hide the shortcomings of Nelson Chamisa as an inadequate leader.
