MDC-T deputy president Nelson Chamisa had heated exchanges with parliament’s deputy speaker Mabel Chinomona who had tried to reprimand him for protesting the expulsion of Zanu PF politicians linked to G40.
This was after Chinomona, linked to President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Lacoste group which rivaled G40, had announced the expulsion of 11 Zanu PF MPs who were recalled by their party.
But Chamisa was quick to intervene while protesting what he found to be a “vindictive and divisive” tendency by political parties to get rid of young MPs.
“We do not want this new dispensation to see a generational genocide. We have lost some of the very competent young Members of Parliament who were very promising,” he said.
“Yes, it is a latitude of any political party, but it must be noted that it is very dangerous to then target a particular generation the way we have done only because we have differed politically even within political parties … let us not just go on a generational hara-kiri whereby we destroy certain people of a particular generation.”
However, Chinomona could not take the MPs remonstrations, urging him to abandon the discourse to individual political parties.
“Which generation are you trying to talk about?” Chinomona shot back as Chamisa insisted on stressing his point.
“G40. I am a young man, it is not good…” said an agitated Chamisa who told the deputy speaker he would not allow her to abuse him and would not heed her orders to take his seat.
Chinomona told Chamisa that he could only be an “Advocate” for the concerned MPs only in the courts and not in the house.
Chamisa, an Advocate, could not take that either: “No, no, no aiwa, aiwa, no, no, no. I am advocating for myself. I have the right to raise the point of order.”
After being allowed the floor to air his views, the former ICT Minister said continued expulsions of political rivals from the house by political parties violated the new spirit of engagement which was being spearheaded by President Mnagangwa.
He said it was a fallacy that Zimbabweans were trying to reach out and engage the outside world when they could hardly tolerate each other.
Chamisa’s MDC-T was also forced to recall 21 of its own MPs who had abandoned the party to form a splinter group 2014.
The latest to experience the carnage were members of the infamous G40 “cabal” who were left in the lurch after Mnangagwa last November seized control of both Zanu PF and government following a military takeover of government which forced then President Robert Mugabe to resign.
Mugabe was being accused of harbouring “criminals” who were taking advantage of his advanced age to plunder the country’s wealth uninterrupted. – NewsZim