Illegitimate Nelson Chamisa what next?

Christine Lethokuhle Mabhena

Following the High Court ruling yesterday, that the appointment of Nelson Chamisa as one of the two additional vice presidents three years ago was illegal, thus his current presidency at the helm of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is null and void has left the youthful leader camp in disarray and running scared.

Soon after the judgement, Mr Chamisa tried hard to put up a brave face at a hastily organised press conference through his national party spokesperson, Mr Jacob Mafume. The foul mouthed spokesperson strangely claimed that ‘President Mnangagwa’s administration was seeking to destabilise the opposition party.’

What boggles one’s mind is that Mr Mafume as learned as he claims to be, why did he chose to trash the court’s judgement and lay the blame on President Mnangagwa’s Government? Where does President Mnangagwa, Government or ZANU PF come in on internal matters that concern the breach of constitution of another political party?

A lawyer by profession, Mr Chamisa and his fellow MDC counterparts should appreciate that Justice Edith Mushore just applied basic tenets of the same party constitution that they trample on to arrive at her judgement.

Nothing is amiss on her judgement, the late Morgan Tsvangirai should have followed their own constitution that they created to govern themselves. As a political outfit they claim to be the ‘champions of democracy’ yet they allowed Tsvangirai to personalise the party to the extent of stamping on their own party constitution which is supreme to any individual.

Everyone in the party should have considered the unconstitutionality of all the actions that led to Chamisa and Engineer Elias Mudzuri to become vice presidents. This is the same party that boast of having many people who have studied the law profession, including Chamisa himself.

Since 2016, Chamisa’s ascendancy to the co-vice presidency post has been challenged left, right and centre with one of the VPs Dr Thokozani Khuphe insisting that she was the only bonafide party vice president elected at a congress. From the onset Dr Khuphe expressed her discomfort against the late Tsvangirai’s decision to appoint the two leaders until the time of his death in February 2017.

From then, one may recall that to bolster his illegal ascendancy to the MDC top job, Mr Chamisa employed all forms of violent tactics against his perceived opponents. He used the violent MDC Vanguard militia led by the Deputy Youth Chairperson, Shakespeare Mukoyi to terrorize some of the casualties that include Khuphe, Mudzuri, Douglas Mwonzora and Lwazi Tashabangu, among others.

The irony of Mr Chamisa’s illegitimate presidency is that since 31 July 2018, he has been accusing President Mnangagwa of the same ‘legitimacy issues’ yet he is the one occupying the MDC hot seat illegally.

In the bible there is the famous Matthew 7 verse 3 which perfectly describes Chamisa’s stance on ‘illegitimacy’ which says, “Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your eye, and then you will see clearly the speck from your brother’s eye.”

What is left is to be seen whether the illegitimate Chamisa and his party will swallow their pride and follow what was prescribed by the High Court to hold an extra ordinary congress within a month using the 2014 structures or they will continue trampling on their own constitution which they are supposed to uphold.

In isiNdebele there is a saying that says, “asazi ukuthi iyozala nkomoni.” – at this juncture we wait and see what Mr Chamisa and his MDC crew has in store for us as they ponder their next move.