HARARE – Former finance minister Tendai Biti is temporarily quitting politics after declining a nomination to be one of three co-vice presidents of the main opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) after party leader Nelson Chamisa resigned.
The 57-year-old said he wanted “complete time out” of politics but insisted that he would “remain driven” by the cause for democratic change in Zimbabwe.
“Everyone has a constitutional right of controlling his own affairs. At the present moment and time as Tendai Biti, I have taken a time out in certain spaces and political spaces,” he told NewsDay.
“As an individual I’m also entitled to rest, to have a sabbatical and so forth. So I’m in that mode of complete, I don’t want to say isolation, complete time out if you like, but I still remain driven, by the fact that we must have democratic change in Zimbabwe.”
Biti, a lawyer, said he would continue with “strategic litigation” on certain human rights causes, adding that he was also writing a book to be published this year “unpacking liberation movements.”
Biti called on Zimbabweans to take charge of the fight for democracy and not subcontract their future to individuals.
He added: “I don’t see agency and urgency, we have normalised the abnormal. We accept madness. They come up with a new currency it’s business as usual. They come up with a mad budget it’s business as usual. They distribute vehicles like confetti, it’s business as usual. They speak of a third term, it’s business as usual. It’s not good enough so I don’t see urgency, I don’t see agency.
“Collectively, I don’t want to speak about political parties or individuals, I want to speak about our collective responsibility as citizens, we must provide the agency and the urgency.”
Biti had been named as a co-vice president of CCC pending a congress together with Welshman Ncube and Lynette Karenyi Kore after Chamisa abruptly quit the party in January saying it has been “contaminated” and “hijacked” by the ruling Zanu PF party.
