Chamisa tramples the constitution and shows electorate the middle finger.

MDC T chairman Mr Morgen Komichi gave a cup full of confusion and brought out the dictatorial tendencies of the MDC T and its alliance. in a Press statement released today the 7th may 2018 Komichi proudly without shame announced that the MDC supporters will not be given a chance of chosing their representatives in a primary election. But like small children who cannot think or who lack the capacity to exercise their thinking capacity a team to represent them was selected by the Komichi Chamisa inner Kitchen committee.

"The MDC T is pleased to announce that it now has a comprehensive panel of approved parliamentary and local government candidates ready to represent the party across the length and breadth of the country" said Komichi.

Komichi went on to say "following the compilation of the approved candidates, panel, and the party is now undergoing the second stage of candidate selection, which is consensus-building and primary elections where necessary. We are undertaking a robust process that is grounded in and popular among people."

In a clear breach of Article 15 of the MDC constitution Chamisa has chosen his cronies and side swapped the popular vote. In actual fact MDC has taken the dictatorial approach where the electorate will wake up with an imposed representative.

Zanu pf may have chaotic primaries but shows signs of commitment to democracy. MDC uses consensus which is foreign to democracy. Consensus has never works as it is only the consensus of the few who have anointed themselves to be the gods of the people. It is clear that MDC has now transformed itself to be the Movement to Dictatorial Change. It is very clear that consensus is another name for candidate imposition. It is actually true that consensus means bullying. If you defy what the head office says you are out in the cold, that how MDC T is running the country. Consensus then becomes bulling of the less powerful by the most powerful.

MDC T's democracy stinks. It started with Chamisa grabbing power, and then he insulted the judge at a rally and now imposes candidates.

Political parties are a key element of democratic politics. Their internal deliberations and leadership elections can have significant consequences for national politics. The behaviour of MDCT and it alliance shows the world that they are not committed to democracy at all.

Intra-party decision making is generally governed by a party constitution, so the transparency of these decisions requires that people have a say in what the party decides on people's behalf. Imposing of candidates and calling them consensus is abominable.

Like a national election, all participants need to know the rules of the game, and the rules should be widely-available, so that politicians' conduct can be scrutinised and held to account. True, political parties are primarily accountable to party members, but members and the wider electorate alike benefit from transparency in a party's institutions and processes. MDC T has failed in the Transparency game. No wonder why Khupe and Mr Gutu are the lone rangers fighting for transparency in the MDC. The tragic death of long-time opposition leader and former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has plunged this party,  (MDC-T) into an intense and bitter leadership crisis. it now fights for legitimacy and the Chamisa of the day sings stories from the future best known as fiction.

With national elections around the corner, there was an imperative for the leadership issue to be resolved quickly, and the primary elections to be done to give some legitimacy to the party as a whole.   Chamisa himself was appointed in a clandestine manner. his appointment was urgent, but the decision to use the national council as the mechanism for that appointment was a form of ‘forum-shopping' that benefited one of the party's rival factions to the detriment of others.

Throughout this period of very public in-fighting between the party's three deputy presidents, the party disintegrated into chaos, whether through a deliberate party decision, third-party disruption, or unacceptable dictatorial tendencies. Now the imposition of candidates shows the undemocratic traits by the party which is meant to be a democratic change outfit.

Instead, constitutional legitimacy remains a major issue in the debate over the succession, with Khupe insisting she has greater legitimacy as an elected deputy president, and Chamisa insisting that his appointment as president was entirely consistent with the provisions of the revised constitution. This is not a sterile debate, but one punctuated by harassment and violence, and with the small matter of national elections on the horizon. Now the imposing of candidates removes all the little respect which might have been left in the democratic lines of the MDC T.

Under Tsvangirai's leadership, the party had a history of the leadership revising its constitution, and of losing senior members through damaging splits and the creation of a veritable alphabet soup of different splinter parties (MDC-M, MDC-N, MDC-Renewal, PDP, RDZ, etc.).  Now, the party faces not only the prospect of competing in national elections that HAVE a level playing field, but also of being riven by damaging and highly public splits in its leadership AND CONSTITUENCY representatives a few months before those elections. There is a great likelihood of a lot of opposition candidates standing in as independency as a protest to the candidate imposition. There is an old adage: the first rule of politics is to be able to count. The more opposition candidates in a constituency, the greater the risk the opposition vote splits. Variety and choice are important, but a split opposition cannot hope to defeat a governing party. The destabilising forces within the MDC-T and wider opposition movement can only reduce their collective chances of successfully over-turning the governing party in the elections.

Charged with keeping their respective parties together, political leaders often face the temptation to keep decisions and party processes in the dark, hidden from public view, as a way to suppress the appearance of strife. But the MDC-T succession crisis suggests that a better approach would be greater transparency and openness. Decisions deferred are only more difficult to resolve when they finally surface into the light of day.

The draconic actions by Chamisa and his protégé only show Zimbabwe that you vote for MDC at your peril. They have no respect for their own constitution and they will not in any way guarantee you that they will respect the country's constitution. The rights we dearly pray for will be tossed in the air if Chamisa is allowed to rule.

The MDC T has shown its true colours that it is only after power and not for the good of the people. Candidate imposition in MDC Alliance saves to reward those who backed Chamisa and punish those who had a descending voice.
On the other hand ZANU PF has shown the nation that let people chose. If there is a problem we do a re-run. Never again will the candidates be forced on people's throats. It does not matter who they are what position they hold in the party ZANU PF has abandoned the rewarding syndrome and have listened to the voice of the people.

vazet2000@yahoo.co.uk