The Sunday Mail
Major Action Mandingo (Retired)
OVER the past few weeks, there have been vain efforts to portray Nelson Chamisa and his yellow MDC trading as CCC as if they are gaining political ground across the country.
From the surface, one is actually tempted to be swayed by this populist narrative, but fortunately Zimbabwe is not one big mental hospital.
Political scientists coined the term populism for political developments such as the ones currently unfolding in Zimbabwe.
There is nothing unusual and nothing to fear about the developments.
In very simple terms, populism refers to the range of political stances or views that focus mainly on the idea of “the people”, and these people are usually juxtaposed against “the elite.”
From another perspective, this is a movement that claims to champion the causes of “the people” against perceived ruling elites.
Taking a cue from this populist narrative, Chamisa has in recent weeks been trying to present himself as the saviour of the people of Zimbabwe, while labelling ZANU PF as a party led by elites.
Unfortunately for Chamisa, his party is still viewed, described and understood as a puppet project formed and funded by the West.
His party’s origins and roots in sell-out politics remain firmly in place and there is no amount of aesthetics that can change this reality.
There is no way a puppet or sell-out opposition political party with Western roots can claim to be the defender of the people in Zimbabwe.
The narrative by Chamisa, in typical populist fashion, will excite some people for a while, but won’t last long.
While the gullible are going with the flow, some of us are worried about what this populist narrative will bring to the country’s national politics.
We know the tide will ebb and we know that soon many will come back to their sober senses.
When that happens, what will these opposition leaders, who see themselves as hugely popular, do?
What can perceived popularity with no power do to someone like Chamisa?
Several studies have shown that populism has a pro-violence dimension, centred on blood, death and martyrdom narratives.
Some political scientists call this populist necropolitics.
They use the term necropolitics to denote the politicisation of death and the construction of and political instrumentalisation of narratives about blood, death and martyrdom for everyday political use.
In its original meaning as conceptualised by Achille Mbembe, necropolitics is the right of the sovereign to determine who shall live and who shall die.
Slowly and dangerously, Chamisa is trying to construct himself as the defender of the people, yet we all know he is just an opportunist.
Now what will the hoodlums around him be prepared to do for him if this false construct keeps playing in their idle minds?
Kwekwe quickly comes to mind.
While investigations into what really transpired during Chamisa’s rally in Kwekwe are still ongoing, as a trained soldier, something tells me that the clashes were stage-managed by CCC.
Chamisa and his people know that Kwekwe is now the hotbed of Zimbabwean politics and there was no better place for them to stage-manage the clashes that left one person dead.
The fact that there is a lot of talk about machete-wielding youths who are accused of terrorising people in Kwekwe made the town the perfect target of the mischief.
As I watched the whole drama in Kwekwe, the trained soldier in me saw many red flags.
Before investigations had even started, political discourse and media production converged, as they blamed the clashes on alleged ZANU PF youths. Several opposition leaders and media houses were very quick to blame it all on the ruling party.
There was something very suspicious about the coincidence in labelling the ZANU PF youths as instigators of the clashes.
While police arrested about 16 people in connection with the clashes, Kwekwe should act as a wake-up call for ZANU PF.
It looks like the hoodlums in Chamisa’s party are prepared to do anything and everything for their leader.
The truth will soon come out.
What makes the situation very worrying is the fact that this MDC trading as CCC has a DNA steeped in confrontation, chaos and violence.
From July 2002, when the then MDC spokesperson, Learnmore Jongwe, stabbed his wife, Rutendo Muusha, about eight times with a kitchen knife, this opposition party has shown a sickening penchant for blood and violence.
For those who think this Jongwe horror is in our past, the sad news is that Chamisa still views this cold-blooded murderer as his hero.
To Chamisa, Rutendo never existed and the Muusha family does not matter – only the murderer matters.
If Chamisa considers such a murderer as his hero, what does this say about his psyche as an opposition leader?
Even the opposition supporters think that contentious issues should be resolved through violence.
In 2006, Trudy Stevenson, a senior MDC member at that time, was attacked with stones and machetes by youths belonging to Morgan Tsvangirai’s faction. Stevenson had to be rushed to a private hospital after she suffered a deep gash on her forehead, a broken arm, a fractured cheek bone and bruises all over her body.
“They attacked me using enormous boulders, some of which were bigger than my head. They actually intended to kill me as they kept shouting my name,” Stevenson reported at that time. Stevenson’s crime was that she was part of a breakaway faction led by Professor Arthur Mutambara that was calling for the renewal of the MDC leadership.
As the violence continued escalating in the MDC, in 2014, the then MDC T deputy secretary-genera, Elton Mangoma, and secretary-general Tendai Biti were assaulted by a group of party youths for allegedly calling for the removal of Tsvangirai as the leader of the party.
Biti, Mangoma together with the then youth assembly secretary-general, Promise Mkwananzi, were attacked as they stepped out of Harvest House, which was the party’s headquarters at that time.
Mangoma’s shirt was torn to pieces as he was being pummelled by the MDC youths.
Biti described these youths as a “drunken mob.” Sadly, this drunken mob is still the backbone of Chamisa’s party.
0-What should we expect when a drunken mob is led by a leader who overestimates his popularity?
What is worse is that Chamisa is surrounded by “yes men” of loose morals, with Biti topping the list.
In 2010, Biti lied to his wife that he was going to Nyanga for a party meeting yet he was having a good time with some girlfriend in Gweru.
The matter came to light when Biti was involved in an accident near Chegutu.
A few years later, when Biti clashed with Tsvangirai, the MDC leader exposed Biti saying: “I will also tell you that you left Harare saying you were going to Nyanga, but later got involved in an accident in Chegutu while in the company of a girlfriend.”
There was stone silence from Biti following this statement from Tsvangirai.
It didn’t come as a surprise when in 2017, Biti’s wife, Charity Maguwah, filed for divorce.
She couldn’t take the infidelity and the lack of respect.
In addition, Biti seems to have a low opinion of women.
If one is defined by those he surrounds himself with, what should we say about Chamisa’s close cronies like Biti?
How should we define Chamisa?
Anyway, soon after the death of Tsvangirai, Chamisa showed us all his true colours.
He grabbed the MDC-T from Thokozani Khupe and Douglas Mwonzora.
When the two tried to fight back, Chamisa unleashed his drunken mob to devastating effect.
This drunken mob detained and assaulted Khupe, Lwazi Sibanda, Mwonzora and several others during Tsvangirai’s funeral service in Buhera.
They were accused by these hoodlums of opposing moves by Chamisa to grab the party.
Talking soon after the ordeal, Khupe said the youths stopped intimidating them when one of them shouted that “the commander-in-chief (meaning Chamsia) had ordered them to stop what they were doing. They then stopped.”
If Chamisa could do this to his fellow leaders, what is he prepared to do using imagined power to those he sees as enemies?
Add the reckless Gift Ostallos Siziba and the temperamental Fadzie Mahelele to the equation, and you have a dangerous cocktail to this populist movement.
Researchers have shown that populists treat their opponents as enemies of the people and seek to exclude them altogether to come into power.
For this purpose, populists employ emotional, simplistic and manipulative narratives directed at the gut feelings and resentments of the people, aimed at getting majoritarian rule.
Already, Chamisa is on the overdrive trying to construct a divide between the generality of the populace in Zimbabwe and the ruling party, ZANU PF.
In the process, he is undermining the country’s institutions such as the courts, regulatory institutions and security services.
Isn’t this a ploy to weaken these institutions so that when he deploys chaos and violence, he will appear like the voice of reason?
