Chamisa must get it right from word go

LAST week there were hints that Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) leader, Nelson Chamisa, may form a new political party in the wake of the chaos created in the two-year-old CCC party by some of his power-hungry colleagues.

If it is true that this is the direction the young politician has decided to take, it will be a record third time he will be forming an opposition party in just over five years after first creating the MDC-Alliance and the CCC.

If, indeed, this is true — that is if he has not already created the party which we understand might be called Democratic Alternative Zimbabwe — we would like to really wish him a lot of luck because he truly needs tonnes of it in the new endeavour. This is the most sane thing to do anyway given that CCC is virtually now a corpse awaiting burial.While we honestly wish him well for the sake of democracy in a country where egalitarianism, freedom of association and expression are increasingly thinning by the day, we would, however, wish to give Chamisa some advice.

Given what has happened to the CCC party whereby an individual has had the audacity to rip open the hearts of thousands of Zimbabwean voters by stealing their will in broad daylight as he brazenly and single-handedly recalled their legislators and councillors of choice from Parliament and councils, we suggest that Chamisa should get it right from the beginning.

By this we mean to say that in democracy it is consensus which carries the day and obviously MDC-A and CCC were never created by majority agreement which is why political weasels in the form of Douglas Mwonzora and Sengezo Tshabangu managed to tear apart these two parties.

All these political "soldiers of fortune" did was to exploit a glaring fault line in the foundation of the opposition outfits, which was that the parties were never birthed by the people. In other words, if Chamisa has decided to form a new party he should create a constitution since he is the one with the idea, and then he should invite followers to endorse the constitution, wherein it should clearly state how the party leadership will be selected.

For democracy and posterity's sake Chamisa should stand in an election to be selected as the leader of the party, even if he the party is his brainchild. If he is confident that people have confidence in his leadership he should never be afraid to be challenged in a ballot. It follows that everyone else chosen into the party's leadership should come from the party supporters.

Chamisa should not continue to be afraid of moles because this is a reality which will forever haunt him and an opinion piece elsewhere in this publication speaks quite succinctly to this issue of infiltrators. A tight and unambiguous constitution will, however, create a foolproof political system which reduces political machinations to the barest minimum, albeit never to eliminate them.

This is what simply lacked in all the parties Chamisa has helped create in the past. So this is why we are sincerely calling on the young man to get it right from the word go. If he decides to go it alone and involve a few people close to him, he will again regret and probably sound the death knell to his political career.

Many voters are obviously very angry and frustrated by what has been happening and is still happening in the opposition CCC and if he gets it right this time around, he is guaranteed of getting even more support despite the tough political environment.