EXILED former Cabinet minister, Professor Jonathan Moyo, who has been on a tirade poking holes at opposition Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC) for operating without party structures, has once again taken aim at its leader, Nelson Chamisa.
This time around, the acerbic ally of late former president Robert Mugabe who fled Zimbabwe at the height of the 2017 coup and believed to be holed up in Kenya, said Chamisa faces defiance over US$40 000 loans extended to his parliamentarians.
Chamisa has insisted his party’s lawmakers wronged by accepting the Parliament loans and must face punishment.
Parliament offered US$40 000 housing loan to each sitting member, US$500 000 for individual ministers and US$350 000 for their deputies.
The loans totalled US$14 million, a huge figure critics say could resuscitate the ailing health sector.
Chamisa views the facilities as bribes to support the ruling Zanu-PF.
“It is so much about Mr Mnangagwa trying to avert a ‘Bhora Musango’ (protest vote) within Zanu-PF because he feels that the MPs are going to vote for themselves and campaign for mukomana (Chamisa) and to avert that, they have had to try and oil the palms of the MPs.
“They could not do it for Zanu-PF only, they also had to do it for CCC, but the CCC were not supposed to drink from this poison chalice. They have joined the pioneer column, they have joined the grave train and they have crossed the line,” Chamisa said in a recent video.
Chamisa vowed to descend heavily on all MPs who accepted the loans.
“I have told them that if you do not act accordingly, you know what it means, the citizens are waiting for you, and they are going to punish you and punish you happily.
“So that one is already catered for, I do not agree, encourage or support it. I do not believe that people must be talking about their welfare when the nation is struggling the way we are struggling,” he said.
Chamisa added: “To call it a loan is to be very nice; this is a bribe disguised as a loan, a donkey is a donkey, you cannot call a lion a cat.”
But Moyo, in usual fashion, criticised Chamisa for attempting to whip his charges into line, arguing he faces resistance just like what happened when he lobbied for mass resignations over recalls by MDC.
Tweeted Moyo at the weekend, “ln 2020 they defied him when he wanted them to resign en masse to protest the recalls of MDC-A MPs by @DMwonzora; and in 2022 they have defied him over his afterthought against their taking USD40K Parly loans; so, with his MPs as his only official “structure”, whom does he lead?”
Moyo has previously hit out at CCC over its lack of structures, describing the party as delinquent and operating like a secret society.
Chamisa – the country’s most popular opposition politician going by the last presidential election results – announced the formation of CCC in January this year, abandoning the bitterly contested MDC brand after rival Mwonzora claimed leadership of the formation.
However, CCC has yet to hold an elective congress and still operates with what Chamisa describes as an interim leadership. The party is also yet to come up a Constitution and policy blueprints.
CCC loyalists argue structures have previously been used by Zanu-PF party to infiltrate and destabilise the opposition.
But Moyo, who has led criticism over the absence of structures, was previously quoted saying; “The refusal by #CCC to be transparent about its structures has been compounded not only by the fact that the party does not have a Constitution; but also by the strange reason for the refusal, that the party wants to protect itself from infiltration by Zanu-PF or the State!”
He said registration of political parties was long overdue.
