Chamisa is fast becoming an international embarrassment

Hardly a week passes these days without some international incident involving MDC-T President Nelson Chamisa.

After traveling to the US in December, Chamisa claimed that President Donald Trump promised the opposition party a $15 billion kitty should they win the forthcoming elections. This was vigorously denied by the American Government.

Then there was Chamisa's announcement that he would throw out foreign investors in the Zimbabwean economy, the Chinese in particular, that created a lot of raised eyebrows in the West and the East. When you start threatening to boot investors and foreign money from the country, this rightly creates a lot of apprehension globally about a person's capacity to lead.

Chamisa's recent trip to the UK was a complete bust, and he was barely acknowledged by senior British officials. Reluctantly, Foreign Minister Boris Johnson gave him a few minutes but made no mention of it in a public statement, or even a Tweet, preferring instead to post about the wellbeing of a British soap star at exactly the time he was ostensibly meeting with the Zimbabwean opposition leader.

More recently, Chamisa slammed the British Government for providing up to $100 million of new lending to private businesses in Zimbabwe.

He called on the British government to stop its loans which will help the Zimbabwean economy and ordinary citizens because the MDC leader feels it would look too favourable towards his opponent, President Mnangagwa.

Now, the US Embassy has had to respond to another one of Chamisa's more regular lines, that he met American President Donald Trump and other members of the Administration.

Of course, this is also a matter of fiction and completely concocted in Chamisa's mind.
These are just a few examples of Chamisa getting himself into hot water over his exaggerations, embellishments and downright lies.

The international community like it or not, has a large role to play in the development and progress of the new Zimbabwe. The president has managed to bring about massive investment to Zimbabwe, has been invited to many parts of the world and is now on the verge of rejoining the Commonwealth.

This is a great vote of confidence in the way the president is running the country since he assumed office in November.

While President Mnangagwa is successfully taking Zimbabwe out of isolation, Chamisa is isolating himself while becoming a figure of ridicule in governments and administrations around the world.

It appears to be less about Chamisa's experience and more about his personality. He doesn't mind lying and exaggerating. During the last elections, Chamisa made such wild claims as saying that he went over three weeks without food and water, which we know is physiologically impossible. Chamisa also frequently says that God tells him things.

This talk may suffice during local domestic politics, but when dealing in the sensitive international arena, one needs subtlety, clear-headedness and diplomacy.

Chamisa shows nothing of these qualities. Instead his lies and loud mouth are fast making him an international embarrassment.
Unfortunately, if he becomes president, he could turn Zimbabwe from an international pariah into an global embarrassment.