Self-exiled former ZANU PF Politburo member Jonathan Moyo has claimed that Nelson Chamisa, leader of the Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC), is planning to hold an elective congress by the end of November this year.
In a long post on X (formerly Twitter), Moyo, who has been away from the platform for over a week, claimed that Chamisa has tasked CCC Chief Whip Amos Chibaya with “hurriedly and secretly” organising “a fake elective congress”.
Moyo further alleged that Chamisa’s planned “crush congress” is an attempt to thwart a circulating petition for a legal congress based on CCC’s January 2022 congress. He wrote:
STUNG BY THE RECALLS of MPs and Councillors who’ve ceased to be members of the original CCC formed on 22 January 2022 and unveiled on 24 January 2022 – and after he publicly declared that his CCC is not a political party in the traditional or formal legal sense; but is an opaque structureless, positionless and memberless CCC-“wapusa wapusa” movement with no constitution and no officeholders except himself, who gives “tasks” and “assignments” to persons he works with, Nelson Chamisa is now secretly preparing to hold an “ambush” or “crush” [emergency] and essentially fake Congress by the end of November 2023 and he has given Amos Chibaya the “task” and “assignment” to organise it.
The mooted “Convention” would be a fake “elective” Congress in that, if it happens, it will not have any elections to write home about.
The idea of the crush “Convention” is the brainchild of Amos Chibaya, whom Chamisa has previously tasked with the assignment of organising public meetings like rallies and related interfaces.
Over the past 10 days or so since the recalls of MPs and Councillors, which the recalled MPs are challenging in the Harare High Court in a case set down to be heard this week on Thursday 2 November, Chibaya has been brainstorming the idea of holding a crush Congress with a few handpicked individuals, like Sesel Zvidzayi, to test its traction and fine-tune it.
Chibaya says the idea is to use the “Convention” or “elective Congress” to introduce a constitution that is currently being drafted in the wake of the recalls.
Also in what is a desperate attempt to at long last come up with some semblance of a “structure”, Chibaya has told his brainstorming colleagues who have been handpicked by Chamisa that the constitution being currently drafted will provide for the election only of Chamisa as the President or Change Champion in Chief or Leader.
The constitution being drafted will empower Chamisa – the only leader earmarked for “election” at the planned so-called elective Congress – to unilaterally appoint a seven-member “Management Committee”, which will include what is being branded as a “Bureau of Chiefs” – or something like that – which will be responsible for administration and organising work, etc.
In effect, the seven members will function as a Standing Committee under which lower organs will be “empowered” to “elect” lower level “leaders”.
It is this aspect that is designed to give the currently constitutionless, structureless, positionless and memberless CCC Chamisa the appearance but not the reality of a “structure” based on a constitution that is currently being drafted for adoption by the planned “Convention” or “elective Congress”.
Chamisa and Chibaya hope that the constitution being drafted, the crush “elective” Congress, and the election of Chamisa as the sole officeholder of CCC Chamisa will serve as a counter to the recalls and to the growing calls for a real and legal Congress coming from the traditional MDC-A base, whose National Executive Committee and National Council actually formed CCC in January 2022; triggered by the sitting of the nomination court on 24 January 2024 for the by-elections that were held on 26 March 2022, and which many saw as a “mini general election”.
Apparently, a popular petition is now circulating for a properly convened Congress, in terms of the original CCC constitution – recently submitted to Parliament and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission with Sengezo Tshabangu’s initial recall letter as CCC Interim SG – under which CCC was formed in January 2022.
Chamisa and Chibaya are working overdrive, and flat out in the hope that they can use their mooted “elective” Congress to thwart the petition in what appears to be a futile exercise against the wind!
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