Chamisa slip reveals dangerous plans

There is only so long a person can keep up the pretence. Eventually, however hard he tries try, the mask will slip and a person's true self is revealed. That is what American crime writer Robert Bloch meant when he described horror as the moment a mask is removed. For once the truth has been revealed, things can never go back.

For Nelson Chamisa, that moment came on Friday 20th July, with one fateful tweet. Commenting on his meeting with 'the Elders', Chamisa tweeted "We are committed to peace upon (a) free and fair election."

Yes, you read that correct. Chamisa has admitted in the most public forum possible that his commitment to peace was conditional. That if the election was not free and fair according to his standards, his answer will be violence.

The problem here is twofold. First, he is openly admitting that he plans to wreak havoc if he perceives the election to be unfair. This is problematic under any circumstances. But the scale of this threat only becomes apparent when one considers his previous claim that "if I don't win, it won't be a free and fair election."

So if we take Chamisa at his word, using direct quotes only, he is saying that (a) if he doesn't win then the election is not free and fair, and (b) that if it isn't free and fair then he will turn to violence.

The bottom line is that Chamisa has committed to violence unless he wins the election.

This is a quite startling admission, easily worthy of Bloch's definition of horror. And with polls showing Chamisa likely to lose the election, all Zimbabweans should be worried.

But for those of us who have observed Chamisa closely over the past six months, this is not a surprise.

After all, this is the man who travels with a personal army, The Vanguard, loyal only to him, whose modus operandi is to use violence against anyone who stands in their master's path.

That is what happened to Thokozani Khupe and her supporters at Morgan Tsvangirai's funeral, when The Vanguard attempted to burn them alive by setting fire to a wooden hut they were seeking refuge in.

That is what happened to the same people a few weeks later when they were attacked at the party's headquarters in Bulawayo, causing serious injuries.

That is what happened at the party primaries to candidates and supporters of candidates from other wings of the party.

And that is what happened just yesterday, when Crispa Musoni, the party's candidate for Gutu Central was viciously attacked by Chamisa's thugs in front of his eyes, with the great democrat not stepping in to protect a fellow MDC member.

Not only have these violent tendencies been widely reported, but they have also been confirmed by Shakespeare Mukoyi, a Vanguard commander-turned whistle-blower. In late May, Mukoyi confirmed the militia's role in these bloody attacks, and went one step further by revealing that he was acting under the explicit instructions of Chamisa and the MDC leadership, telling NewsDay that "They told me that the work that they were about to do had to be done by the Vanguard, which they are now dismissing as thugs today."

This tweet must surely be the final straw for those rational MDC supporters who have become uncomfortable by Chamisa's embrace of violence. Until today, he always had plausible deniability. We never heard him explicitly calling for violence.

But with today's tweet, the mask is off.

The truth is out. Chamisa's peace-loving supporters can no longer hide their heads in the sand.