Chamisa ignores wise and sage advice at all our peril

Over the last few days, MDC leader Mr Nelson Chamisa's plans to get the nation to disrupt the elections have taken hard hits. While most of the country is looking forward to casting their ballot in arguably the nation's first-ever free and fair elections, Mr Chamisa is still trying to rain on everyone's parade.

While many, who have listened to Mr Chamisa's incessant and repetitive rants against the elections and ZEC in particular, without any firm or conclusive evidence, will be forgiven for believing the hype, seasoned neutral observers have spoken the truth.

Touring Zimbabwe over the last few days have been some highly-respected former international leaders called The Elders, which is an independent group of global leaders that work together for peace and human rights.

In a press statement held in the capital, one of the leaders of the group, Mr Kofi Annan, who is also former United Nations secretary-general and a Nobel Peace Laureate, said making unreasonable demands, including inciting the population, had the potential to complicate the electoral process and yielding unforeseen outcomes.

"Politics is a tricky business, there are demands and there are demands. What is important is that we all play by the rules and we make reasonable demands; if we make demands which are unreasonable and which cannot be fulfilled, we are complicating the process," said Mr Annan.

"But we should be careful of what we say and what we demand because the main thing is not to incite. If you incite the population you never know what happens and this is the last thing that the nation and the people of Zimbabwe need. No incitement and I think they should stay within the code of conduct but reasonable demands they should be able to make," he said.

This was a not so subtle statement against those who are rabble-rousing. While there are many people vying for the presidential ticket in next week's elections, only Mr Chamisahas tried to incite and make unreasonable demands.

The Elders and the SADC Election Observer Mission, which Mr Chamisa has said should take over the elections, advised the MDC-Alliance to seek legal recourse to solve any grievances and desist from inciting the population to embark on acts that can cause unrest in the country.

However, Mr Chamisa knows that having to go to court means actually presenting proof. He will need to show evidence for his assertions and he or his lawyers will have to make persuasive and founded arguments and allow them to be abutted by opposing counsel. Mr Chamisa, as a long-standing lawyer, knows the system better than most.

However, in the court of public opinion, where ‘fake news' is believed without any backing, Mr Chamisa knows that if he screams long and loud enough then people will sit up and take notice.
So when we look at the two options and compare them, we see why Mr Chamisa is going with the latter.

Simply, he doesn't have any proof to back up his claims so even when neutral and reasonable international observers beg him not to take the path of incitement and loose allegations, Mr

Chamisa, doing damage control, has to make it about the people behind the message rather than the message itself.

Unfortunately, this is how Mr Chamisa has long dealt with problems, by attacking, delegitimising and even hounding the messenger rather than dealing with the substantive message.

This is why Mr Chamisa is ignoring sage advice from wherever it emanates.


Mike