HARARE – A Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) faction loyal to former party president Nelson Chamisa has issued chilling threats against sitting opposition legislators who decide to disobey its directives in the wake of a leadership rift caused by the popular politician’s January exit.
Chamisa dumped his party last month in protest over what he described as infiltration by the enemy with signs he was forming a new outfit.
However, the leadership vacuum caused by his unceremonious exit has split the party into two factions with former deputies Tendai Biti and Welshman Ncube reactivating the long-abandoned structures constituted from the former MDC Alliance’s elective congress in Gweru 2019.
Former MDC Alliance co-vice president Ncube now leads the party on a spur-of-the moment decision to rotate Chamisa’s three former deputies elected at the congress.
Amid signs Chamisa was still pulling the strings within the party, senior opposition politician and former minister Jameson Timba also leads another faction whose leadership has constituted under the so-christened Citizens National Assembly also styled as the “administrative bureau of the party”.
In a weekend statement, Promise Mkwananzi, appointed as party spokesperson when Chamisa was still in charge, is adamant Timba wields “the mandate to manage the transitional process” and “carries a collective and technical mandate of running the affairs of the party ahead of President Nelson Chamisa’s treatise on the next step”.
Added Mkwananzi, “All party deployees in parliament are called to cooperate and work with the stated leadership in executing the party’s legislative agenda and in advancing the interests of the citizens.
“Any acts of insubordination, sabotage and rebellion shall be considered an affront to the country’s democratisation agenda and shall be met with legal and political processes to ensure struggle discipline.”
The sentiments appeared aimed at earlier vows by the Ncube led CCC to “protect” legislators against any adversarial tendencies by rivals.
Mkwananzi further dismissed as null and void, the decision announced by Harare mayor Jacob Mafume, named as spokesperson of the rival faction, to reconstitute the party’s caretaker leadership around the Gweru congress outcomes.
“We have taken note of some rotten apples seeking to further the contamination within the party and its deployees.
“We have heard timid whispers emanating from Holiday Inn in Bulawayo wherein one Jacob Mafume mischievously makes pronouncements about the leadership of CCC.
“We state categorically that the said pronouncements are null and void and are not a representation of the collective wisdom of the Citizens national Assembly,” he said.
The opposition leadership rift has links to previous disagreements over Chamisa’s leadership style which saw the politician collapse the former MDC Alliance structures as he led the party’s rebranding to CCC.
Chamisa and his loyalists blame recent recalls on some party legislators and councillors by self-styled CCC interim secretary general Sengezo Tshabangu on clandestine scheming by his former colleagues but is yet to put a finger to it by way of proving the claims.
Both Ncube and Biti deny any links to Tshabangu.
