By Charles Motsi
It is now going onto a full month now since the whole country has been forced to live indoors like scared mice by the COVID-19 pandemic and during this time the most controversial ruling, to date, was passed by the Supreme Court involving the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)’s power struggles.
By now everyone knows about the ruling and many have come forward to give their two cents from legal experts, political gurus and even hood rats like me have an opinion on the issue. In this small submission I intend to present that hood rat opinion as voiced by the few laymen I have come across during this lockdown period.
The opinion of the man on the streets is one to be considered equally if not more than that of the legal gurus and political experts as it is the layman who is primarily affected by the outcome of this political power struggle.
Nelson Chamisa and his followers are not fools, they know the truth but political thuggery and self-aggrandisement has taken over that faction to such an extent that common sense is not so common anymore and in light of the recent court ruling they are now seeking refuge behind their pinky fingers.
The Chamisa Chete Chete (CCC) faction is trying to claim that they are not answerable to or part of the April Supreme Court ruling because they contested as the MDC Alliance party in the 2018 elections. BUT, if they are truly a new outfit called the MDC Alliance then why on God’s green earth did they celebrate a 20th anniversary?
By celebrating the 20th anniversary of the MDC they acknowledged that they are still the MDC that was founded in 1999 and therefore should be answerable to that party’s constitution as ruled by the SC. This is a fact that all in the MDC are aware and there is no need to try and act a fool here.
The other flimsy excuse they try to hide behind is the little fact that they held a congress and chose new MDC A leadership led by Chamisa. Well, it is undisputed that they surely held a congress and chose new leadership but what happened later is evidence enough that it was not the MDC A that emerged from that congress but a pale unconstitutional version of the 1999 MDC which is bound by the SC ruling.
Why is it so? one may ask. The answer is simple and straight forward as daylight, because Chalton Hwende the supposed new Secretary General was still using the name MDC and logo on his official letterheads and not MDC A as he now claims he is part of. Hwende knows the truth, he is simply trying to play politics with us.
While the MDC is littered with lawyers and Chamisa himself is one, it is undebatable that when it comes to constitutional issues, Douglas Mwonzora is a cut above the rest, that is probably why the MDC godfather himself chose him to lead the MDC team that drafted the nation’s 2013 constitution, which we all now use.
Mwonzora’s fight is not for positions or power, it is not as simple as that. His fight is for constitutionalism and that is what Chamisa did not respect or follow as he rushed to grab power when his mentor and predecessor departed in 2018.
In his rush to grad power Chamisa desecrated his party’s constitution which said that Thokozani Khupe was the rightful heir to Morgan Tsvangirai until a congress was held. If he had waited for the congress maybe he would not have had this problem of legitimacy in the MDC.
But Chamisa chose the shorter and unconstitutional route to power. If he can break a party constitution he can never be trusted with a national constitution this is what Mwonzora has been saying all along not the propaganda that Chamisa has been spewing.
While we stay in lockdown for two more weeks we will all have to realise that Chamisa broke his party’s constitution and that is why he is in muddy waters now. If one is to believe his narrative that it is ZANU PF’s plot that has denied him his throne all this time, then one must also acknowledge the genius of ZANU PF in out smarting MDC for close to 20 years and if a party can be outsmarted for 20 years then they do not deserve a single day in office because they will be sheep for the slaughter on the international stage if ever they are given the reigns to this lovely nation of ours.
