Brighton Mutebuka, a Zimbabwean lawyer based in the United Kingdom, has stated that the Constitution of the opposition party Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) proves that Sengezo Tshabangu is not the party’s interim Secretary-General, as he claims.
Tshabangu has been making significant decisions on behalf of the party, such as recalling Members of Parliament and local government representatives on the grounds that they had ceased to be members of the party. However, some CCC leaders, including party president Nelson Chamisa, argue that Tshabangu is not a party member or its Secretary-General. They have, however, not provided evidence to prove this, even in court cases where recalled officials challenged their expulsion.
There is a document going around on social media that is said to be the CCC constitution. This document centralises party power in Nelson Chamisa. It read in part:
7.3 There shall be a leader and Change Champion in Chief (Adv Nelson Chamisa) who shall be the Administrator and President tasked by the citizens to champion, head and guide Processes of the movement in between sessions of the CNA until an elective citizen convention is held. The Change Champion in Chief shall be the chief spokesperson and chief representative of the CCC as well as the custodian of its documents, property and wellbeing.
Mutebuka believes that the party’s Constitution proves Tshabangu is an impostor and should have prevented these recalls from happening in the first place. His post on X read in part:
a. The @CCCZimbabwe Constitution proves that the imposter is not & has never been the ISG he claims to be. That should have been enough to stop the purges at Parliament. The quality of the Constitution is an irrelevant consideration – it only becomes relevant in a different context – adherence to democratic ethos, a matter not under consideration!
b. @ZECzim is likely to have had a copy of that same Constitution & a letter from @nelsonchamisa since before the Aug 2023 elections & yet kept quiet & acted on Tshabangu’s illegal recall letters. That should have been enough to have avoided all recalls from the beginning!
c. Away from the understandable noise, if you look at the grim political reality, extrapolating from this, say if you were in a marriage & had been divorced several times & each time you were left financially & materially poorer, would you not consider employing an extreme measure to prevent such a recurrence?
d. Is the very bizarre fact that such as clear an imposter as Tshabangu has audaciously succeeded in recalling MPs belonging to a bona fide & different opposition political party not actually vindicate that the very extreme measure that @nelsonchamisa ended up taking was objectively & reasonably necessary to stem such an occurrence & was still not enough?
e. Tragically, is not the real question that the level of brutality & dictatorship that has now been established in Zimbabwe can now only be adequately met by such equally extreme measures – just to try and achieve survival?
f. The real question then to ask is, if such a demonstrably extreme & skewed Constitution is not enough to stop ED from hijacking an opposition political party & not for the first time, then what will be?
g. What ED is actually perversely doing is, on a dictatorship spectrum, to raise the level of extreme dictatorship to such an extent that, if an opposition leader tried to react to it to achieve preservation, the focus / spotlight would actually be on the opposition leader & the measures they have taken to respond to him & not ED’s conduct.
Mutebuka says that to understand the theory better, the focus should be on President Mnangagwa’s actions instead of just the CCC Constitution. He said when Mnangagwa took power, his opponents either ran away or were arrested. Mutebuka also says that ED has ignored the national and party constitutions many times.
He also said Mnangagwa uses different methods to stop his opponents, like using other people, keeping them in prison without a time limit, spreading false information, making them change sides, violence and pressuring other countries. Mutebuka said this raises concerns about fair competition against Mnangagwa because he doesn’t follow the rules and might manipulate things. He said the CCC made extreme rules in their constitution because they were afraid of Mnangagwa’s actions.