Sengezo Tshabangu, the self-proclaimed interim Secretary General of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), has activated the MDC structures from the 2019 Gweru Congress.
In a statement seen by Pindula News, Tshabangu said individuals elected at that congress must now stand up and be counted by coalescing and uniting as per their collective mandate to restore the party back to its constitutional foundation. He added that there is a need to reset it towards its historic and traditional constitutional pathway, as per the historic decisions of the party’s National Council meeting that founded CCC on 22nd January 2022. Read the statement:
We note and welcome the judgment handed down on 4 November 2023 by the High Court in Harare which dismissed with the costs the application by the recalled MPs who ceased to be members of the party, following their election to Parliament in the August 2023 harmonised general election. As a people’s movement, we are deeply concerned that, because the general election was marred by electoral malpractices it, failed to redress the widespread and deepening social, economic and political crisis in the country. This mainly because it was held on the back of longstanding crippling challenges associated with previous elections that remain unresolved, along with, and because of, the failure to implement the recommendations made by various international election observer missions after the 2018 general election, especially from the African Union (AU) and the Southern Africa Development Cooperation (SADC). It is an open matter of palpable consternation among our party’s membership that our party, that was formed by the toiling working masses with the agenda to fight for democratic constitutionalism, job creation and sustainable livelihoods, ended up operating structureless, without a constitution, having wantonly and inexplicably disregarded the resolutions of the party’s 5th National Congress held in Gweru in 2019.
Also, our party’s membership and supporters were profoundly perturbed and watched helplessly when the party’s National Leadership elected at the Gweru Congress in 2019 was quietly but effectively and unceremoniously purged unconstitutionally and displaced through opaque processes under dark circumstances that left a gaping vacuum that was illegally filled by a handful of scheming individuals with a nefarious agenda — some of them with no history in the democratic movement — who had neither a mandate nor the requisite experience to implement the people’s agenda and programme of action for the change that the citizens expect and deserve.
In the circumstances, we call on these leaders who were elected at the Gweru Congress to now stand up and be counted by coalescing and uniting as per their collective mandate to restore the party back to its constitutional foundation and to reset it towards its historic and traditional constitutional pathway, as per the historic decisions of the party’s National Council meeting that founded CCC on 22th January 2022.
The time has come for all of us to close ranks by closing the chapter of divisions and individualism to focus on service delivery, internal party cohesion, democracy and to refocus the movement on addressing the plight of the people and on spotlighting their aspirations. Our elected officials in Parliament must now focus their attention on the legislative reform agenda, provide an alternative and robust voice and act on behalf of the public by holding the executive to account.
It is a matter of a grave national concern that local authorities are confronted with raging cholera outbreaks in various parts of the country, and that this is but just one out of a myriad of ills afflicting citizens to the detriment of their lives and livelihoods.
To effectively deal with these challenges, the party must as a matter of urgency return to Constitutionalism and manage its affairs through constitutional and formal structures in the interest of collective responsibility to ensure efficiency and accountability to restore stability and certainty.
It is clear that discordant and irreconcilable views on how to achieve the necessary democratic breakthrough in the country can easily lead to the total breakdown and collapse of the movement. This risk is made worse by the current failure to rely on the party constitution, party values and party organs as the premises for collective decisions and actions, as well as shared and collective responsibility. In the circumstances, going forward henceforth, we are committed and resolved to: Finalise the correction of processes and conduct that undermined the party’s Internal democracy and collective decision-making through ego-tripping, self-aggrandisement, fear-mongering and corruption. This is because we are aware that most of the party’s faithful deployees who enabled the corrupt practices did so out fear and desperation and had nowhere and nothing to fall back on, in the wake of the demobilisation of the party’s constitution, formal structures and processes.
Resume the holding of the party’s mandatory constitutional meetings at all levels of the party to enable members to regain their decision-making power. As a social democratic and people-driven party, the participation of citizens in decision-making process is paramount and thus non-negotiable.
Commence the preparation for Congress in terms of the interim constitution of the party, beginning with the election of branch committees.
Ensure that the preparatory process for the National Congress crystalizes an inclusive programme of mobilisation and ground action in preparation for the next harmonised general election due in 2028. We expect compatriots with the MDC and CCC DNA and blood in their political veins to be reinvigorated, re-energised and motivated to once again take their place in history and play their part to participate meaningfully and to assume their vanguard roles as we depersonalize the agenda for change in Zimbabwe to ensure that it is truly led and owned by the citizens.