Chamisa - A case of paranoia

MDC leader Mr Nelson Chamisa's claim of an abduction attempt on his person by alleged State agents last Saturday as he made his way from a rally in Marondera is a diversionary tactic to shift from the mounting pressure in his own backyard where his position is being challenged.

The stage-managed video clip capturing the alleged abduction attempt failed to paint the picture that Mr Chamisa and his loyalists intended to prove that there were people after capturing him.

The commentator on the video who contradicted himself on the identity of Mr Chamisa's alleged assailants could not help matters either.

Just as the Government dismissed the claims as false and mischievous, the reality is that Mr Chamisa is trying, by portraying himself as an alleged victim of state targeting, to evade the burning leadership issue in his party.

The greatest threat to Mr Chamisa is political and within his own party in the form of his lieutenants who are angling themselves for the party's leadership at the party's Congress next year.

So intense is the pressure on Mr Chamisa that he has caused the postponement of the party Congress from March next year to around October to December in the same year. While trying to buy time, Mr Chamisa has also launched an assault on his challengers whom he accuses of working with Zanu-PF to topple him from the presidency.

At the party's 19th anniversary celebrations, Mr Chamisa mildly discouraged ambition within the party claiming he was left the position by the late MDC founding leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai who died in February this year.

"I have told my colleagues in the top leadership that none of us should go wayward because it will be akin to a fish taking itself out of water, where it cannot survive. So we need to continue to follow Tsvangirai's way, the party's ways. Tsvangirai left power for me so that I will also pave way for the next leader, in that order," Mr Chamisa was quoted in the media.

"We don't want a situation whereby someone would want to grab from me what I was given by Tsvangirai before I even start the journey he set me to embark on, yet you don't even know what he wanted me to achieve. Why don't you wait for me to accomplish that first? Then I will also show you the way when you eventually take over."

With mounting pressure from his challengers, Mr Chamisa later upped the ante and issued threats to those with ambition to ascend to the party's presidency.

"It is surprising that Zanu-PF is more interested in our Congress than in its own Congress as they seek to determine who emerges as the leader of the MDC because they have their preferred candidates and there is dirty money changing hands hence you hear them say Chamisa must go and so and so should take over but we will not allow that," he was quoted saying as he addressed party supporters in Marondera at the weekend.

"We are going to have our Congress and elect our own leader, leaders that we want not those they want. We will put the one they fear most just to show them that they don't determine what happens in the MDC. There are some in the leadership who think that because I took over from Tsvangirai I will allow them to do as they please in the party. No I am in charge until Congress and will brook no nonsense, I want order and discipline."

What is clear is that Mr Chamisa's legitimacy crisis, having violently grabbed power following Mr Tsvangirai's death and hounded the likes of Dr Thokozani Khupe out, is fast catching up with him.

To those who remember, after hounding Dr Khupe out of the party, Engineer Elias Mudzuri, now one of Mr Chamisa's deputies, was critical of the move. He went on to suggest that in the event Mr Chamisa loses in the July 30 Presidential polls, which he did, there could be a possibility of leadership change.

It can be said therefore that attempts by Mr Chamisa to make himself an alleged victim of the state is calculated mischief meant to win him sympathy especially within the MDC in the face of a challenge to his position.

For some time after the polls, Mr Chamisa has tried to ride on his mantra that Zanu-PF "stole" the election but that has proved inadequate to deter his challengers from taking him on in the forthcoming Congress hence the change in tactic.

Significantly, the challenge on Mr Chamisa's position from within his own party takes away the weight, if any, to his claims that he won the election which he alleges was rigged by Zanu-PF.

If his party believed the allegations, there would not be any challengers to Mr Chamisa but instead everyone would rally behind him in either disputing the elections or building for the next elections with the hope of a more emphatic "victory."

Important to note also is the fact that Mr Chamisa inherited a fractious party long battered by factional fights when Mr Tsvangirai was still alive and he has done little to bridge those divisions by the way he ascended to the post and some of the decisions he has made as leader.

Already, there is a reported tiff between one of Mr Chamisa's deputies Professor Welshman Ncube and party national chairperson Ms Thabitha Khumalo over the control of party structures in the southern region.

Insiders within MDC say that Ms Khumalo feels betrayed by Mr Chamisa's appointment of Prof Ncube as one of his deputies ahead of her as she believes she deserved it more than the professor.

In reality, Mr Chamisa is struggling to unite a fractious party on one hand and on the other growing ambition to his throne which Zanu-PF and the State have nothing to do with. His antics, if anything, provide a window into the mind of a paranoid leader haunted by the possibility of losing power to his colleagues within the MDC.