ZIMBABWE will approach this year’s general elections without a formidable opposition to challenge the hegemony of Zanu PF giving the revolutionary party an advantage, exiled former cabinet minister Jonathan Moyo has said.
The country is heading towards general elections slated for August 23, pitting Zanu PF’s leader President Emmerson Mnangagwa against main opposition Citizens Coalition for Change’s (CCC) Nelson Chamisa.
Chamisa is dusting himself after being elbowed out of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) by erstwhile colleagues led by Douglas Mwonzora through a 2020 High Court judgement.
Chamisa challenged Mnangagwa in 2018 elections under MDC Alliance banner before the Supreme court declared he was an illegitimate leader of the party.
In an interview aired on South Africa’s public broadcaster’s SABC Full View programme, Moyo criticised the opposition which he said is weak ahead of the August 23 polls.
“If you look at this election against the background of a previous election since 2000, this is the one election without an opposition. The one situation we have in Zimbabwe today and it has been developing since the last election is that there is a palpable absence of an organised, discernible, active opposition,” he said.
Political parties are gearing up for a crunch election with the ruling party having concluded primary elections; 210 Zanu PF parliamentary candidates last week gathered in Gweru for a workshop on national ideology and mobilisation.
CCC, which has overseen a candidate selection process fraught with irregularities is yet to announce its candidates with nomination date edging closer.
Moyo, once a supporter of Chamisa now turned critic, added: “It is common course that the leading opposition since 2000 which was in the form of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is no longer there and what there is in Zimbabwe today is an opaque movement which calls itself Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) that is led by advocate Nelson Chamisa; it is conspicuous by its absence in the political arena”.
Chamisa has been at the receiving end of criticism with political observers slamming his lack of structures or non-disclosure thereof.
Spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere, deputy Ostallos Siziba and ambitious Takudzwa Ngadziore are only figures to have been declared publicly as position holders in CCC.
Recently Chamisa, in Kuwadzana, reprimanded journalists for referring to a senior member as Vice President.
“I do not have any of those positions. I just wanted to correct you. I continue to see you people referring us to MDC Alliance. We are CCC, I am the change champion like other change champions. If you’re to ask me, do not ask me about MDC- Alliance, ask me about CCC,” said Chamisa. – Newzim
