by Brian Mutonhori
Since losing the 2018 Presidential elections, the MDC-A leader, Nelson Chamisa has been embarking on the so called ‘regional diplomatic offensive’ which always turn out to be farce as no SADC leader want to entertain his childish demands.
In his latest annual whirlwind jaunt, Chamisa is currently in South Africa where he is claiming to be ‘seeking political solutions for Zimbabwe’ and is scheduled to meet with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and former President Thabo Mbeki.
Since his arrival in South Africa, Chamisa has been hobnobbing to every South African television and radio stations that include South African Broadcasting Corporation Television (SABC TV), eNCA and Powerfm98.7 seeking interviews to make absurd claims.
Speaking to SABC Digital News, Chamisa claimed, ‘we now have new evidence after the Constitutional Court determination of the dispute between ourselves and (President) Mnangagwa. “…that evidence has to be at the doorstep of SADC, the AU and of course South African President Ramaphosa, to show and validate that these elections in Zimbabwe were rigged and stolen.’ This was amounting to forcing his words down President Ramaphosa’s throat in order to make his claims gather weight.
This is the same Chamisa who failed dismally to produce proof in the form of the famous V11 forms in the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) during his challenge of the 2018 Presidential elections. The ConCourt dismissed his case following his failure to produce primary evidence proving that the election was stolen.
In the same SABC interview, Chamisa also revealed that he was in that country to meet Mbeki, in an effort to foster dialogue between him and President Mnangagwa. This is very laughable because it exposes him as now desperate for a political dialogue that will morph into a Government of National Unity (GNU) or the much touted National Transition Authority project that brings him to the corridors of power through the back door.
Back at home he has been refusing to meet President Mnangagwa and other stakeholders through the Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD), an inclusive platform created solely for dialoguing between the Zimbabwean top political leaders.
Chamisa must know that Zimbabwe is a sovereign country with its whole lot of problems. Zimbabwean problems would be solved by Zimbabweans. If he is a serious politician with his country at heart, he must come back home and join other POLAD members to denounce the heinous sanctions that have greatly affected our nation.
What boggles one’s mind is that Chamisa never learns from his annual whirlwind jaunts as they have brought nothing meaningful to the table. He has been pushing the same old rhetoric – the ‘rigged and stolen’ 2018 Presidential poll and the so called ‘political illegitimacy’ of President Mnangagwa.
In March 2019, Chamisa met with President Ramaphosa and Botswana former President Ian Khama where he lobbied to have Zimbabwe’s political and economic challenges placed on the SADC agenda of the 17-19 August 2019 summit. The regional body, through its Executive Secretary, Dr Stergomena Lawrence Tax dealt a massive blow to the MDC-Alliance as the regional bloc indicated that there were no issues threatening security and politics in Zimbabwe to warrant putting the country on the agenda of the August summit in Tanzania.
What should Chamisa know is that, since then SADC has never changed its stance on Zimbabwe and we can safely conclude that Chamisa’s latest ‘SADC diplomatic offensive’ would not yield any results for his selfish desired interests.
The regional bloc leaders have given Zimbabwe maximum support in calling for the removal of illegal sanctions imposed on the country by the US and its allies
