Chamisa told to concede defeat, seek dialogue

The Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) leader Mr Nelson Chamisa has been implored to concede defeat to President Mnangagwa following last month's harmonised elections and not seek to cause anarchy and despondency in the country.

President Mnangagwa is already on record as saying all opposition political party leaders should feel free to approach him for dialogue directly as opposed to using proxies, the media and third parties.

The President, who has kept an open-door policy to all Zimbabweans since the advent of the Second Republic, established the Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD) platform where he regularly interacts with all opposition political parties. Following the August 23 polls, the President said the platform would stay in place.

While many opposition leaders have embraced POLAD, some like Mr Chamisa have chosen not to, instead expressing their willingness to dialogue on the wrong platforms.

Speaking in an interview with a local media house, Roman Catholic Church priest, Father Fidelis Mukonori, said it would be prudent for Mr Chamisa to accept defeat and seek dialogue with President Mnangagwa whose door remains open.

"The one who says I am not satisfied and I believe the elections were not free and fair should also have the courage, it takes courage for someone to say let us sit down and discuss, it takes wisdom, courage is wisdom.

"It is essential, the two to sit down and discuss. Discussions are more difficult than toy-toying on the streets and it will get people killed.

"They (discussions) are more difficult because they require thinking and it is an exercise which has no text book and thinking requires someone who has to know how to think," he said.

Fr Mukonori said it was not too late for Mr Chamisa to seek an audience with the Head of State, describing it as a discussion between "the winner (President Mnangagwa) and the loser (Mr Chamisa)".

"We need that humility. It is only a lawyer who is called an educated person but there has to be a display to say indeed we are learned and therefore let us sit down and discuss.

"I believe it is necessary, it is not too late to request the two sides, the winner and loser to say please can you sit down and discuss. There is a need for serious discussion," he said.

Turning to the country's detractors in America and Europe, who perceive themselves to be in the highest echelons of democracy, Fr Mukonori said it was all a façade and "not true".

He said if they were truly as democratic as they made the rest of the world believe, they would invite those they perceive to be lesser democracies to come and observe their elections, as a learning curve.

"In Europe and America they never invite Africans to say ‘come and observe our elections so that you can learn how we do it', we take it that in America everything is spick and span, it is not true even in Europe.

"We have to realise that Zimbabwe has everything we need to have a good and successful country," Fr Mukonori said.

President Mnangagwa continues to reiterate that Zimbabwe is now a mature democracy.

"Zimbabwe continues to entrench democracy, constitutionalism, good governance and the rule of law, following the recently held 2023 harmonised general elections.

"I am pleased to highlight that our country enjoyed peace before, during and after our free, fair, transparent and credible elections," said the President during the 78th Ordinary Session of the United Nations General Assembly debate held last week.

President Mnangagwa won the presidential election after polling 2 350 711 votes (52,6 percent), beating Mr Chamisa, who got 1 967 343 votes (44 percent).