Chamisa, cobra politics

He did a terrible job of it all, handing the MDC its worst ever defeat in Election 2013. The party was in shambles as Nelson Chamisa left a trail of disenfranchised members across the country.

FROM the time Nelson Chamisa entered mainstream politics as the youth chairman for the then newly formed MDC in 1999, his ambitions were quite evident. At the time all he was armed with was political activism and student radicalism, nothing more. There were better shining stars like the late Learnmore Judah Jongwe, a whole load of intellectuals, trade unionists and seasoned activists like Munyaradzi Gwisai and others, and Chamisa was just an impressive kid. Coming from Harare Polytechnic with an incomplete Diploma in Marketing, Chamisa was seen as intellectually irrelevant.

He realised that academic credentials were going to be an impediment and he quickly enrolled for a marketing degree with UNISA, further enrolling for another degree in Political Science with the University of Zimbabwe, after which he did a Masters in International Relations and a law degree.

Meanwhile, he personalised the MDC youth wing and started side-lining all perceived threats among the young people who were from either the University of Zimbabwe or NUST. He surrounded himself with school dropouts and half literates from Harare’s high-density suburbs, particularly from Highfield and the surrounding areas. He wanted to be the shining light among an ocean of dunderheads.

Those who worked with Chamisa at Harvest House know very well what kind of a leader he was at the youth wing. He surrounded himself with thugs he called “Vakomana veJambanja” the likes of the late Tonderai Ndira and others. This was the origin of today’s Vanguards, at one time called the DRCs.

The untimely death of Learnmore Jongwe opened two opportunities for Chamisa. After failing to impress Tsvangirai and others in the MDC leadership that he was MP material in Election 2000, Jongwe’s death provided him with the opportunity to contest for Parliament in 2003.

Secondly, the death of Jongwe provided Chamisa the chance to become the MDC’s national spokesperson, a post left vacant by the late vibrant politician, Judah Jongwe.

In Chamisa’s own words he had come from being the “wheels” of the party to becoming the “hooter”. So at the 2006 congress he was chosen party spokesperson with little challenge after many senior members had left the party during the 2005 split.

These included people like Gibson Sibanda, Welshman Ncube, Paul Temba Nyathi, Gift Chimanikire and others.

When campaigning for the national organising secretary position in 2011, Chamisa said he now wanted to become the engine of the MDC-T, and added he would one day become the driver of the entire MDC vehicle. He then dislodged Elias Mudzuri, and he became the party’s commissar thereafter.

He did a terrible job of it all, handing the MDC its worst ever defeat in Election 2013. The party was in shambles as Nelson Chamisa left a trail of disenfranchised members across the country. His main problem was empire building and imposition of loyalists in place of meritorious and hardworking leaders.

When Election 2013 came, Chamisa and Tsvangirai were the main culprits in candidate imposition. Chamisa used what he called party consensus where he personally consented on behalf of all others in the party, punishing and isolating all people who dissented and opposed him. He even declared God had told him certain things, and no one had the right to question him.

Then came the Tendai Biti-Elton Mangoma Biti split, alongside others like Lovemore Moyo, Sipepa Nkomo and others. Again Chamisa played his usual cobra politics and dined with the dissenters during the night while standing by Tsvangirai during the day. He urged all others to leave the “scandalous” Tsvangirai, but he himself did not leave.

He had done the same thing in 2005 when those he cheered on left, yet he remained.

By machinations that reportedly involved Morgan Tsvangirai’s wife Elizabeth, it so happened that Morgan Tsvangirai just woke up one fine morning and appointed Elias Mudzuri and Nelson Chamisa his deputies, alongside the then elected deputy president Thokozani Khupe.

This was after Douglas Mwonzora had humiliated Chamisa in the contest for the secretary-general’s post on November 3, 2014. Morgan Tsvangirai had a hand in the defeat of Chamisa.

The appointment of Chamisa as one of the deputies in 2017 did not go down well with a number of people, including his conqueror for the SG post, Douglas Mwonzora, as well as the elected deputy, Khupe.

But Chamisa is a cobra politician, and this was the time to strike. He knew Morgan Tsvangirai was dying of cancer, and the snake side of Chamisa started to show brazenly in January 2018. He knew he was turning 40 in a month, and he knew an election was coming where Mnangagwa would be the opponent. No Khupe or Mudzuri was going to stand in his way.

He retraced his loyalists in the MDC youth wing, and he started to use them to silence every dissenting voice by sheer force and coercion.

So the Morgan Tsvangirai deathbed dramas started to unfold, with family members dragged in to try and stop Chamisa from robbing a dying man of his position even before he breathed his last.

No amount of anger from Tsvangirai’s family could stop the Cobra. He declared himself in charge when both Khupe and Mudzuri were bidding farewell to Tsvangirai on his deathbed. Just hours after Tsvangirai breathed his last, Nelson Chamisa unilaterally held a national executive meeting and declared himself the successor of Tsvangirai.

He hijacked protocols and funeral procedures at the burial of Tsvangirai and found his way to address the mourners, much against the will of the Tsvangirai family and the organisers.

Chamisa’s thugs from the Vanguard manhandled Douglas Mwonzora and Thokozani Khupe at the funeral, and they were nearly torched to death in a hut where they had taken refugee.

Mwonzora decided against leaving the main MDC, but Khupe could have none of Chamisa’s hawkish politics. She left with a load of other disgruntled members and they claimed they were the legitimate MDC-T, even winning a court battle to the same effect.

Nelson Chamisa proceeded to lead what he called the MDC-Alliance, under which he contested the 2018 election. The whole campaign programme was about himself and himself alone. There was no party involvement in campaigns for Members of Parliament, and all resources were channelled to campaign for Chamisa’s presidency.

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