UK-based Zimbabwean lawyer and political commentator Brighton Mutebuka has refuted journalist Hopewell Chin’ono’s argument that the recall of CCC MPs and councillors by the party’s self-proclaimed interim secretary general Sengezo Tshabangu is a manifestation of disgruntlement among CCC officials and has nothing to do with ZANU PF.
Posting on X on Friday, Chin’ono said President Emmerson Mnangagwa and ZANU PF are only taking advantage “of the CCC chaos” which to the ruling party, is”manna from heaven”.
He posited that Tshabangu has handlers inside CCC who are disgruntled with how their party has been personalised by Nelson Chamisa.
In response, Mutebuka argued that Tshabangu did not initiate the recalls but is a proxy and would not have succeeded in the recalls had he not been working for a principal.
Mutebuka suggested that Tshabangu may have “always been a state asset… either embedded or working on the fringes and lying in wait…” Wrote Mutebuka:
1. I am afraid I do not get the reasoning behind this my brother. If Tshabangu has never been a member of @CCCZimbabwe and is not its Interim Secretary General, (as such a position clearly does not exist), it means that regardless of any weaknesses CCC have, in rational terms, this cannot be the reason he has succeeded in achieving recalls that he is otherwise at law not entitled to make!
2. He is succeeding because the regime, via the Speaker’s Office, is entertaining an illegality for political expediency purposes. It means any other illegality can & will succeed as long as the person who is responsible for making that decision lacks integrity & is partisan.
3. It also means that shoring up structural weaknesses will, at its highest, either minimise or make the regime’s task more challenging, but it is insufficient to totally eliminate such a risk because of the capture of all state institutions by the regime.
4. A good example is that ZEC repeatedly behaved illegally despite there being sufficient legal safeguards outlawing such behaviour via the Constitution & Electoral Laws.
5. This is a clear misdiagnosis, my brother. Who initiated the recalls is not Tshabangu, because he is a proxy. A proxy is an instrument or Agent of the Principal. We have to assess the real power behind the throne as, without such power, there would be no movement on the ground.
6. He is carrying out his Principal’s political interests & has been given free rein to act that way. Had he been acting contrary to the regime’s interests, he would not have succeeded in the recalls.
7. In all political parties, there are many disgruntled party members. They do not necessarily pursue recalls to achieve their political objectives.
8. For all we know, it cannot be discounted that Tshabangu has always been a state asset, (sleeper asset), who was either embedded or working on the fringes & lying in wait and is exploiting his apparent connections with others either naive or disgruntled party members to finally execute his mission.
9. There is no rational explanation as to why such an angle has not been explored, which the current regime is clearly capable of executing.
10. The reason why such a rigorous examination is critical is this. The timing of Tshabangu’s shenanigans is exceptionally convenient to the regime.
11. The regime has been under the cosh & facing a legitimate crisis. We also know that it was recently in Jambezi, Wedza drumming up command petitions to help it respond to the SEOM Report.
12. Even if @nelsonchamisawas the worst dictator ever in opposition politics, it is simply not credible that a genuine member of the opposition party would overlook the conclusions of the SEOM Report, the gross injustices that were witnessed & their impact on not only CCC as an opposition political party but the generality of Zimbabweans who were outrageously disenfranchised in the elections – and prioritise the recalls over & above those concerns.
13. I will be bold & go as far as to assert that there is a high degree of possibility that any political opposition leader or member of @CCCZimbabwe who is working with Tshabangu at this particular moment in time is likely to have always harboured an intention to work against the party & Chamisa & was thus waiting to pounce as soon as any such opportunity presented itself so that instead of being accused of treachery or betrayal, it would seem as if there was a just cause for doing so, thereby lessening the degree of culpability to be attributed to them.
14. I might be wrong, but the concern that I have is that your conclusions seem to inadvertently allow the regime to escape scrutiny for its unacceptable behaviour by unjustly undermining the opposition at key moments.
15. The inescapable conclusion is that the regime is fully responsible for Tshabangu’s senseless & unconstitutional recalls being successful. It must be fully held to account for that roguish behaviour which is not found in civilised & democratic societies.
16. Yes, it is preferable for the opposition to have robust structures & a sound Constitution, but even structureless & constitution-free parties are perfectly permissible in our jurisdiction and are entitled to the full protection of the law.
17. The fact that you rightly or understandably prefer Chamisa’s party to have a Constitution does not mean that you should overlook the regime’s culpability & call it out for what it is. You could be suffering from a handicap called “confirmation bias“, which means that due to your conviction that Chamisa is wrong by virtue of relying on “strategic ambiguity” or the claimed absence of structures & a Constitution, all his political misfortunes or what his party is currently experiencing is attributable to that defect and all other potential reasonable explanations are excluded.
18. As always, context is key in such situations. You are duty-bound to look at the regime’s behaviour since it came to power & throughout this entire electoral cycle.
19. The inescapable conclusion is that it is simply a regime which does not respect democracy, the Constitution, the rule of law & good governance at every level.
20. Also look at how ED came to power. Did he respect the ZANU PF Constitution? Did he respect the national Constitution? If he did not then why would it be rational to conclude that he would respect @CCCZimbabwe‘s Constitution even if it had one? What would hold him back or act as a sufficient deterrence & why?
21. I would argue that the very reasons why ED was successful in getting his party & the nation to accept his ascendancy via a coup, notwithstanding the unlawfulness forms the basis of how he has governed Zimbabwe. He has got a template which has worked well for him & his acolytes thus far.
22. He can deploy deception when he wants & can use force on other occasions while on others he simply leans on captured state institutions. We have to grudgingly give him credit for his aptitude in the dark arts of deception & skulduggery if he is routinely able to convince a person possessing your skills & expertise that he is not culpable in a situation such as this!
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