Rungano Dzikira
One of the greatest dilemmas of Zimbabwean politics is the sordid pursuit for political mileage by opposition parties, at the expense of lies, and portraying themselves as victims of the system.
Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC)’s political adventurism and need for sympathy has led them to blame ZANU PF for just about anything that would have gone wrong in their party.
Just a glare at CCC’s social media accounts, one realises that it has much to do with their victimisation at the hands of ZANU PF more than what the party actually has to offer.
Due to its political bankruptcy, CCC has since been hijacking just about ‘any’ initiative that discredit Zanu PF, and projecting themselves as victims. But for how long will the CCC continue skyjacking anti-government initiatives for limelight and not genuinely pursue their democracy drive? And does CCC have anything to offer save for policing Zanu PF?
Early this month, CCC has lamented over victimisation by the State alleging that anti-riot police officers and members of Zanu PF members had collided to beat up CCC supporters who were conducting door-to-door campaigns in Chitungwiza Ward 7 for their candidate, Lovemore Maiko before May 7 by-elections. Surprisingly the report alleged that police shot teargas into the CCC crowd which included party deputy chairperson Job Sikhala, deputy spokesperson Ostallos Siziba and Harare councillor Denford Ngadziore. This begs the question on the kind of door to door campaign that they were conducting. Was it really a door to door or a street rally? A glare at the pictures circulating on social media speaks volumes about the nature of door to door campaign they were conducting because that was certainly nothing short of a street rally, as such warranting crowd dispersal!
As if that’s not enough, CCC seems to have managed to rope in civil societies to their side. There seem to be intensified and coordinated intimidation smear on Zanu PF by the opposition CCC, probably in an effort to expose Zanu PF during this pre-election period. Recently, the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) released a monthly monitoring report for April where it alleged to have noted incidences of alleged intimidation of people in various parts of the country for supporting CCC. Fighting in CCC’s corner, ZPP argued that ZANU PF was setting structures intended to intimidate and silence people in rural areas ahead of the elections. It recorded alleged 77 cases of intimidation.
CCC reported of an incident involving Murehwa North ZANU PF Chairperson, Takesure KASHESHA, who allegedly told party supporters who were gathered at Duku Business Centre in Ward 10, Murehwa North to create a “no-go zone” for CCC supporters in the area. The report opined that such an incident not only confirmed the toxicity of the political environment in the country. All these social media rampage evoke worrisome questions on the direction of the country’s main opposition party - CCC - and its ability to usher in a genuinely democratic dispensation.
The CCC clearly has no direction but to ride on victimisation. Over the past two decades, it has become apparent that the MDC has no authentic identity of its own except posturing as Zanu PF’s conscience. Instead of articulating its own economic ideologies and convincing the electorate that they would make better leaders, CCC expends its energy rubbishing Zanu PF and proffering unwanted advice on how Zanu PF should run the country’s economy and affairs. It also brought me to the realisation that, instead this is but one of the CCC’s usual antiques to grab limelight.
Hopefully out of this CCC political adventurism, the electorate will realise that everything being done has nothing to do with democracy drive, as the party would want them to believe. Nothing is being done out of some high moral responsibility to whisk people towards some form of ‘democracy.’ CCC should realise that being an opposition party doesn’t mean attacking anything and everything that the party in power does, instead providing solutions for the ills in the country could be a starting point in enticing the public, than playing victim to attract sympathy.
Clearly CCC has not invested time in crafting policies and manifestos acceptable to the electorate but is trying to smuggle itself into Government through belligerent tactics such as stay-aways, strikes, demonstrations and hopefully sympathy, if they do manage to brainwash a few gullible electorate. Surely we deserve better from an opposition political party.
