Decoding and explaining the co-existence between Nelson Chamisa and ZANU-PF

Decoding and explaining the co-existence between Nelson Chamisa and ZANU-PF in the Zimbabwean authoritarian context: A case of captured popular opposition leadership


1. Introduction

Zimbabwe is in dire straits. The incumbent regime has severely underperformed as evidenced by a crumbling economy and growing poverty. Government corruption is at the heart of the mess. At the same time, the country has what scholars have described as the weakest opposition in the history of the country. Although he is not leading any party (after abandoning his organisation), Nelson Chamisa is still widely regarded by many in Zimbabwe as the main opposition figure. Democrats and a significant part of the population still look up to him for leadership in their quest to liberate the country from ZANU-PF autocracy. Chamisa's influence permeates across generations, villages and towns but he has, astonishly, never used it to organise and agitate the masses to peacefully confront the regime. Why?

After his appointment as a Minister in the then Government of National Unity (2009-2013), Chamisa's political character radically changed. As I will demonstrate in this article, prior to his involvement in the Government of National Unity (GNU), Chamisa was bold and would not hesitate to organise the masses and peacefully confront the ZANU-PF regime, to hold it accountable for corruption and human rights violations. The Chamisa who emerged from the Government of National Unity is soft, selectively religious and painfully ineffectual. Despite his popularity, Chamisa has avoided leading from the front and has chosen to "fight" the regime through scripture. What could explain this new Chamisa who is radically different from the old Chamisa? For me, the answer is in the complex relationship between the opposition-Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and different factions of ZANU-PF. This relationship remains understudied by scholars and therefore, a lot of my sources in this article are interviews and media articles. Since 2009, Chamisa has been in alliances with different factions of the ZANU-PF regime, and that explains his inability to confront the regime.


2. Laying the theoretical premise

ZANU-PF is a hegemonic regime. In their seminal article "Zimbabwe's Long Agony", Michael Bratton and Eldred Masunungure argue that  hegemonic regimes are different from other autocratic regimes because they maintain (on paper) formal democratic institutions (such as opposition parties) but they make sure that those institutions are ineffectual. Although Levitsky and Way characterise competitive authoritarianism as a different type of dictatorship, I am of the view that in most parts of Africa, competitive authoritarianism has emerged as a tool (rather than a type of autocracy) that is used by hegemonic regimes to remain in power through dictatorial means which however look democratic. Zimbabwe is a perfect example.  

A core feature of competitive authoritarianism is that the regime does not close all the channels for opposition participation in politics. The regime desperately needs to create a semblance of democracy and therefore, it allows the opposition to exist and compete for power. Occasionally, the regime allows the opposition to win some of the elections.

Historically, dictators used to control the opposition by infiltrating the opposition parties so that they receive information (in real time) about the opposition's plans. Modern dictators are more creative and daring. In order to create a public perception of stiff democratic competition, these dictators need a popular opposition leader who regularly accompanies the incumbent to a façade of an election, where the incumbent regime renews its mandate to rule in an electoral environment "of stiff competition" by the opposition. In order to achieve this, the regime needs an opposition figure who meets certain minimum requirements.

The opposition leader must be a popular person with an appeal to the masses,  but lacks real leadership skills and is gullible. It is essential for the regime to be in collaboration with an opposition leader who is popular so that there can be a semblance of stiff democratic competition every five years, but without the regime losing power. Occasionally, the regime may persecute the opposition leader as a way of galvanising and maintaining public trust in that leader. The regime knows very well that when it comes to opposition politics the public usually supports those who are persecuted by the government.

In Zimbabwe, whenever a person gets persecuted by the regime, that person is likely to be trusted by the masses as a progressive leader. For example, despite his chequered track record of gross political intolerance, the masses sympathised with Emmerson Mnangagwa when he was routinely and publicly bashed by the then First Lady, Grace Mugabe at party rallies. Mnangagwa's popularity grew exponentially, when he appeared to have been poisoned by members of the Mugabe's G40 faction at a party rally. When Mugabe fired him from government in 2017 and targeted him for persecution, Mnangagwa went into exile and the masses fully aligned with him, politically. Similarly, political support for the trio of war veteran leaders-Christopher Mutsvangwa, Douglas Mahiya and Victor Matemadanda-grew dramatically amongst the public and Zimbabwean elites as a direct result of their persecution by Mugabe as retribution for supporting Mnangagwa. Mugabe's persecution of Mnangagwa and the war veterans trio turned them into political heroes overnight and galvanised public political support for Mnangagwa's bid to succeed Mugabe as the new regime leader.  Thus, there is always a direct relationship between victimisation of a political figure by the incumbent regime and public trust by the masses. The trust is rendered emotionally and without scrutinising the democratic and leadership credentials of the subject.  

Whilst, it is true that the regime uses coercive means to persecute those who threaten it, this is not always the case especially when one analyses the behaviour of competitive autocratic regimes. Sometimes the animosity between the incumbent regime and the opposition leader may be choreographed in order to disguise the underlying relationship of collaboration between the opposition leader and the regime.

The regime uses a cocktail of tools to capture and control the opposition leader, but the main tools are bribery and blackmail (in that order) or black mail and bribery. The order in which these tools are used depends on the qualities of the targeted opposition leader. However, it is of absolute importance to the regime that the process of establishing control over the opposition leader be performed through extremely covert ways. This makes it difficult for the masses to realise that the regime has captured the opposition leader upon whom they have pinned their hopes. This is where thought leadership by discerning public intellectuals becomes key. The intervention of progressive public intellectuals is absolutely necessary to help the masses scrutinise the behaviour of the opposition leader in order to establish whether he/she has been captured or not. In this way, public intellectuals become a serious threat to the regime. This is why under a competitive authoritarian regime, public intellectuals are often vilified and discredited as part of intimidating them from scrutinizing these issues. Intimidating public intellectuals is an old authoritarian habit which was employed from as way back as the era of Benito Mussolini in Italy.

Opposition leaders who have been captured by competitive authoritarian regimes do not behave the same as opposition leaders who have been captured by traditional dictators. For example, when captured by a traditional dictator, an opposition leader tends to openly praises the regime. However, when captured by a competitive authoritarian regime, the opposition leader's role is to protect the regime while acting as if he or she is a serious threat to the regime. In other words, the opposition leader engages in what can be characterised as "performative oppositional politics". This is key for the regime to remain in power while maintaining a semblance of an environment of democratic competition. Under a competitive authoritarian regime such as ZANU-PF under Mnangagwa,  how can we know that the opposition leader has been captured to enable performative oppositional politics?

The following are some of the behavioural signs which show that the opposition leader has been captured and is now a client of the regime: (a) the opposition leader creatively sabotages the opposition's organisational capacity; (b) the opposition leader avoids peaceful confrontation with the regime and resorts to subtle ways of pacifying the suffering masses; and (c) the opposition leader promotes a culture of intolerance for knowledge and ideas-what Professor Achille Mbembe recently described as "intellectual decline".  

The above theory can be a helpful framework of thought for those interested in understanding the behaviour of Zimbabwe's most popular yet ineffectual opposition leader-Nelson Chamisa. Before testing Chamisa's behaviour against this theory, it is critical to first have a glimpse into the historical background of Nelson Chamisa, the opposition leader.


3. A glimpse into Chamisa's early history as an MDC political activist and leader  

There is a marked difference between the contemporary Nelson "Nero, Mukomana" Chamisa and the historical Nelson "Wamba Dia Wamba" Chamisa. The historical Chamisa was maverick, bold and fearless. After completing his high school education at Victoria High School in Masvingo, Nelson Chamisa enrolled at the Harare Polytechnic College where he joined the revolutionary Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) . He played a crucial role in the formation of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 1999, to the point that he was the party's first Youth Wing Chair. During his tenure as Youth Wing Chair, Chamisa demonstrated sheer courage as he fearlessly organised and led the youths in peaceful protests against the vicious ZANU-PF regime under Mugabe. Chamisa had no fear of being arrested, tortured or detained. He led the youthful democratic forces of the MDC from the front. For his courage, Nelson Chamisa was nicknamed "Wamba Dia Wamba"-a name associated with a popular leader of a rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the late 1990s. Later on he was nick named "King Cobra", again as recognition by the MDC supporters for his courage in organising  and "biting" against the regime and his internal party opponents.

During those days, Nelson Chamisa  often exhibited excellent communication skills. In recognition of his courage and excellent political communication skills, the party appointed him as its spokesperson and legislator for Kuwadzana, following the death of the legendary Learnmore "Judah" Jongwe. For those who know this part of the MDC history, Jongwe's tragic death left very big shoes to fill and the fact that the party chose Chamisa as Jongwe's replacement was a tremendous vote of confidence in Chamisa's abilities as a political communicator and organiser of the masses. Since his appointment as party spokesperson, Nelson Chamisa rose through the ranks of the party until he was appointed by Morgan Tsvangirai, as one of the three Vice Presidents of the MDC.

It is critical to note that Chamisa was suddenly "promoted" to the position of one of the three Vice Presidents of the party because Tsvangirai and the Lacoste faction of ZANU-PF needed to neutralise his influence. At that time, ZANU-PF was divided into two factions-G40 led by Mugabe and Lacoste led by Mnangagwa, and the two factions were embroiled in a competition to co-opt the opposition MDC as part of their strategies to topple each other. In particular, the Lacoste faction needed the support of the opposition MDC for the military coup they were planning, while G40 was hell bent on co-opting MDC in an attempt to politically isolate the Lacoste faction. In a sense, the MDC under Tsvangirai became a battle ground for control by the two factions of ZANU-PF. Around 2016/17, Morgan Tsvangirai had aligned with the Lacoste Faction and had promised them his support in exchange for co-opting him into the government that would be formed after the coup. Part of Morgan Tsvangirai's brief from the Lacoste faction of ZANU-PF was to reunite all the factions of the MDC under him and then bring them to support the Lactose faction's military coup against Mugabe. This is why Morgan Tsvangirai "all of a sudden" began in 2017 to engage with various leaders of MDC factions, including Prof Welshman Ncube and Tendai Biti to build the so called "one big opposition tent". It is possible that at the time when they were invited to join the "big tent", the MDC faction leaders may not have been aware of Morgan Tsvangirai's ultimate objective-to unite the opposition behind the impending coup!

It is at this juncture that Chamisa was just about to jump ship to join the G40 faction of ZANU-PF. Chamisa had long been recruited into the G40 faction when he was Minister of ICTs in the Government of National Unity of 2009-2013. He is reported to have attempted to smuggle transport cargo trucks into the country and those trucks were reportedly impounded by the state revenue authority. As a precondition for the release of the cargo trucks, Chamisa had to warm up to Robert Mugabe. Thus, the Mugabe regime blackmailed Chamisa into alliance with it.  The bro-romance between Mugabe and Chamisa grew so much that Mugabe began to praise Chamisa publicly while Chamisa would also do the same albeit secretly. For example, at one of the rallies, Mugabe described Chamisa as "Supersonic Minister". It was unusual for Mugabe to praise any opposition cabinet Minister in the Government of National Unity. Mugabe was known for undermining opposition Cabinet Ministers in the Government of National Unity. Chamisa also began to praise Mugabe, albeit clandestinely. For example during a Cabinet meeting Chamisa wrote a note to the then ZANU-PF National Commissar Mr Saviour Kasukuwere exalting Mugabe as the best leader Zimbabwe could ever have. The note was leaked and created controversy within the MDC party.  

The relationship between Mugabe and Chamisa grew so much that for several years, Chamisa was trusted by the Mugabe family to provide transport services to the Mugabe owned Gushungo dairy products company. It was unusual for opposition members to do business with ZANU-PF or the State. In fact, private companies associated with the opposition were often targeted for persecution and attacks by the Mugabe regime. Tsvangirai grew weary of the Chamisa-Mugabe relationship. Tsvangirai attempted to recall Chamisa from government but Mugabe blocked him and protected Chamisa.

In an attempt to whittle down Chamisa's influence in the MDC party, Tsvangirai supported Douglas Mwonzora in the elections for Secretary General at the party's congress in 2014, and Chamisa lost those elections. Between 2014 and early 2017, Chamisa was isolated in the MDC party but still commanded significant support.  Around 2016/17, as discussed above Tsvangirai entered into a pact with the Lacoste faction of Mnangagwa to reunite the different factions of the MDC and bring them to support Mnangagwa's bid to succeed Mugabe. Whilst this plan was in motion, both Tsvangirai and the Lacoste faction picked intelligence suggesting that Chamisa was about to join the G40 faction led by Mugabe in ZANU-PF.

During this time, the G40 faction appeared strong and looked poised to succeed Mugabe. On the other hand, the MDC was very weak politically and Chamisa had long been marginalised in the MDC politics after losing the elections of party Secretary General at the 2014 party congress. Therefore, Chamisa was attracted to join G40 faction of ZANU-PF because (on paper) that is where his political ambitions would be served better. After all, he had developed a cosy relationship with Mugabe who was not only the President of the country but the godfather of the G40 faction.  However, the MDC and Lacoste faction of Mnangagwa would suffer a huge political blow if Chamisa were to desert the MDC and join G40. That would seriously undermine the joint Tsvangirai and Lacoste's program of uniting the opposition in preparation for Mnangagwa's bid to succeed Mugabe through a "popularly supported" coup.

In an effort to prevent Chamisa from joining Mugabe's G40 faction, the Lacoste faction of Mnangagwa advised Tsvangirai to appoint Chamisa as one of his three Vice Presidents. This proved to be a master stroke as Chamisa took the bait and when the coup happened in November 2017, Chamisa could only express individual disapproval of the coup but would be bound by the party to render support to the coup leaders. As was later witnessed in November 2017 during the coup, with all the MDC factions united under Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition supported the coup and this was instrumental for laundering the coup as a popular democratic ouster of Mugabe. However, not long after the coup, Tsvangirai died and Chamisa succeeded him as leader of the MDC Alliance.


4. Chamisa the leader of MDC Alliance and CCC

Upon taking over as the leader of the MDC Alliance, Chamisa immediately reconnected with the G40 faction which had been vanquished out of power through a military coup. Chamisa secured the G40 support ahead of the then impending general election of 2018. Mugabe and other G40 leaders publicly campaigned for him. However, the elections were rigged and Mnangagwa became President. Chamisa's alliance with G40 dramatically fell apart for reasons which require a separate article. But one of those reasons seems to be the newly found alliance between ZANU OF under Mnangagwa and Chamisa. Perhaps, this is when the process of the Mnangagwa regime's co-option of Chamisa succeeded.

In the run up towards the 2023 general elections, Chamisa exhibited behavioural traits which suggests that the competitive authoritarian regime under Mnangagwa had completely captured him. Remember the traits of an opposition leader captured by a competitive authoritarian regime include: a) the opposition leader creatively sabotages the opposition's organisational capacity; (b) the opposition leader avoids peaceful confrontation with the regime; and (c) the opposition leader promotes a culture of intolerance for knowledge and ideas. I will now turn to discussing how  Chamisa has displayed these behavioural traits in very subtle ways that are consistent with an opposition leader who has been captured by a competitive authoritarian regime.


5. Sabotaging the opposition's organisational capacity

When collaborating with competitive authoritarian regimes, captured opposition leaders are required by the regime to use creative ways of sabotaging the opposition. They must not use methods that are obvious because that will erode public trust in the opposition. They must sabotage the opposition through methods which (on paper) appear to be logical and politically justifiable.

In the lead towards the 2023 general elections,  Chamisa formed the Citizen Coalition for Change (CCC) and this became the main opposition party which the majority of the suffering masses believed would be the vehicle to dislodge ZANU-PF from power. Chamisa sabotaged the CCC by pursuing what he termed "strategic ambiguity"-an approach whereby Chamisa would not share his program of action with party supporters and leaders, arguing that he wanted to take the regime by surprise! Whilst this sounded sensible and appealing to many, this approach created confusion within the party and led to several party activists and leadership demobilising as they hardly knew what the party was planning to do in order to win the next elections that were due in August 2023. The elections eventually came and Chamisa did not take the regime by surprise as he had consistently promised.  Rather, it was the democrats, CCC cadres and the suffering masses who were taken by a surprise by Chamisa when they eventually realised that he had no tangible plan to counter election rigging by the regime, and ZANU-PF had just successfully renewed its mandate to rule! Essentially and consistent with opposition leaders captured by competitive authoritarian regimes, instead of demanding electoral reforms or boycotting the elections, Chamisa led the masses into an election which he knew was not going to be free and fair. Instead  he promised the masses that he had a solid plan to counter ZANU-PF rigging, and when pressed to share the plan with the other party leaders he would not disclose the plan because he needed to be strategically ambiguous!   

Secondly, Chamisa sabotaged the opposition CCC by excluding some of the party's most talented leaders from contesting in the 2023 general elections. He did this by introducing an opaque party candidates selection process which was based on an unclear selection criteria, and designed to make Chamisa the final decision maker on who would be approved to contest as a candidate on behalf of the party. The results of that process was the exclusion of several of the party's strongest leaders including Tendai Biti (Harare East), Settlement Chikwinya (Mbizo), Trevor Saruwako (Mutasa), Innocent Gonese (Mutare Central) and James Chidhakwa (Mabvuku). Some of them ended up withdrawing from the party selection process while some decided to fight it out and were excluded at the end of the process. As a result, the party presented a weak set of candidates when it confronted the regime in the 2024 elections. Clearly, the biggest beneficiary of the exclusion of CCC's strongest candidates from the election was the ZANU-PF regime itself!

Thirdly, Chamisa sabotaged the opposition CCC by dismantling the party structures and refusing to adopt a constitution  for the party. Chamisa presided over a party that had no structures and no constitution. He would argue that the structures and the constitution are in place but are confidential to avoid infiltration by the regime. To some extent, he succeeded to persuade a significant part of the public. However, not long after I warned that this was disastrous, the party crumbled and Chamisa dramatically jumped ship claiming that the party had been infiltrated by ZANU-PF. He did not take any responsibility for what happened! The reality is that, by failing to establish party structures and a party constitution, Chamisa severely undermined the opposition CCC's ability to organise the masses ahead of the 2023 elections. There is absolutely no way an opposition party could win an election without clear structures who organise the masses. By refusing to maintain a publicly known party constitution, Chamisa made it possible for anyone to claim leadership over the party as was eventually done by Sengezo Tshabangu. For those who are unfamiliar with Zimbabwean politics, Sengezo Tshabangu is a fellow who "out of the blue" declared himself Interim Secretary General of the CCC party and began to recall MPs from parliament who had refused to acknowledge him. In doing this, Tshabangu was backed by the State. This infuriated Chamisa, who was hoping that some structures of the State would protect him in return for the support he had given in the lead up to the 2023 elections. In protest, Chamisa packed his bags and left the party CCC.

Both Tshabangu and Chamisa are ZANU-PF proxies but they appear to be aligned with rival factions of ZANU-PF. Whilst the ZANU-PF regime may have been in a collaborative alliance with Chamisa in the lead to the 2023 general election, a faction in ZANU-PF which began to openly  campaign for President Mnangagwa to extend his term to 2030 did not trust Chamisa to support their agenda. They needed a short term replacement and they found one in Tshabangu. As what became clearer early this year and speaking as leader of the opposition CCC, Tshabangu declared his support for the extension of President Mnangagwa's term to 2030. That is a story for further analysis in another article. For now, the point is that Chamisa deliberately weakened the opposition CCC in the lead to the 2023 general elections by refusing to establish party structures and a party  constitution and the biggest beneficiary for that was ZANU-PF.

Third, Chamisa sabotaged the opposition CCC by refusing to deploy and pay election party agents in all the polling stations despite having received funding to do so. In Zimbabwe, each election candidate has a right to deploy agents to monitor voting at polling stations, and CCC had adequate funding to do that. But alas, on voting day, the CCC did not have polling agents in nearly 50% of the country's polling stations, and of those who were deployed very few were paid their allowances. Chamisa was the sole guardian of party funds and up to now, he has not accounted for the failure to deploy election agents. The failure to deploy election agents in all the polling stations cost the CCC's ability to conduct parallel voter tabulation to counter the regime's rigging of elections. As a result, at the conclusion of the election, CCC had no records of how voting had transpired in the majority of polling stations and this enabled ZANU-PF to rig and emerge as the winner.


6. Avoiding confrontation with the regime

Under a competitive authoritarian regime, the major task for the captured opposition leader is to manage and pacify the masses to ensure that they do not confront the regime.  In order to achieve this, the opposition leader  is allowed by the regime to position himself or herself as a beacon of hope and uses his influence to control the way the masses engage with the regime, particularly how the public responds to the regime's socio-economic vices such as corruption. Historically, dictators used to rely on religious leaders to pacify the masses by preaching messages of blind obedience to the government. Modern dictators rely on opposition leaders to preach the same message. On behalf of the regime, the opposition leader abuses scripture to pacify the masses who are otherwise enraged by the regime's corruption. Nelson Chamisa's behaviour is consistent with the behaviour of a captured opposition figures.

At a time when the masses are looking up to him (as their leader) to organise and lead them in a peaceful confrontation with the regime, he does not do that. Instead, he consistently dishes out carefully selected bible verses. A closer scrutiny of the type of scripture which he dishes out reveals that he is pushing one single message and that is: "All that Zimbabweans need is faith and as a reward for their faith God will soon deliver them from the ZANU-PF regime." He never preaches scriptures which encourage the masses to take action against. For example, he never preaches about James 2 v 14-16 which says faith without works is useless. Preaching such a verse would be a breach of the contractual agreement that he has with the ZANU-PF regime-to pacify the masses. Like toddlers, and with Chamisa acting as the nursing parent, religion is now being used by the regime as a pacifier on the mouth of Zimbabweans.

Through these pacifying biblical messages, the ZANU-PF regime and Chamisa have succeeded to convince a significant part of the public to disengage from any peaceful confrontation with the regime. A few times, some of the CCC supporters have revolted against Chamisa by engaging in some kind of peaceful confrontation with the regime.  In response and abusing his influence Chamisa has isolated those activists, and in some cases he has publicly castigated them. On the other hand, those activists have been targeted with severe persecution by ZANU-PF. Without Chamisa's solidarity they have been left to suffer in isolation and this has created a chilling effect on other activists who would have wanted to disregard Chamisa and engage in confrontation with the regime.

A case in point is that of former CCC Vice Chairperson Job Sikhala-which many are familiar with. But there are several other cases that are not talked about often, where Chamisa isolated activists as punishment for confronting the regime against his advice. The case of Makomborero Haruzivishe is a notable one. Haruzivishe peacefully confronted the regime and was arrested. He spent almost 12 months in pre-trial detention.  Whilst Chamisa cannot be blamed for the arrest and detention of Haruzivishe, Chamisa must carry the blame for refusing to use his influential position as the leader of the opposition to organise the masses to demand Haruzivishe's freedom. By offering such solidarity to Makomborero Haruzivishe, Chamisa would have emboldened Zimbabwean young people to peacefully confront the regime.  This is what progressive opposition leaders, all of over the world do. In Senegal, and on several occasions the then opposition leader Ousmane Sonko led protests to pressure the vicious dictatorship of Macky Sall to release his supporters who had been placed in arbitrary detention. Chamisa should have used his status and influence as the popular opposition leader to organise and lead peaceful mass protests to demand Haruzivishe's freedom and this would have put the regime under enough pressure to do so. Instead, Chamisa isolated Haruzivishe and left him to rot in jail.  When Haruzivishe was eventually released from prison, he left the country in frustration not just with the regime but his party's leadership. Several other young supporters of the CCC left the country while others remained but disengaged from the party. By withholding his social capital, Chamisa tacitly enabled the regime to continue persecuting opposition activists who dare confront it. By selectively preaching passive scripture in response to Zimbabwe's governance crisis, Chamisa has successfully nudged  Zimbabweans to disengage from politics and under Chamisa, the regime has become safer than it has been under any of the previous opposition leaders.


7. Promoting a culture of intolerance for knowledge  

Levitsky and Way identified elections, the media, judiciary and parliament as zones which modern dictators seek to control so that they can manipulate political competition in their favour. I would add that the academia and knowledge production economy  is another zone of contestation which the regime seeks to control. Public intellectuals can be dangerous to the regime if their analysis create consciousness amongst the masses. But public intellectuals can also be weaponised by the regime to produce ideas and propagate information which supports the regime's evil deeds. We have seen this with Hitler's rule in Germany, and Mugabe's rule in Zimbabwe. Historically, dictators used to ban public intellectuals. For example, Mugabe forced the late Prof Shadrack Gutto to leave Zimbabwe as retribution for his intellectual work which exposed the regime's autocratic tactics. However, unlike historical dictators like Hitler and Mugabe, modern competitive authoritarian dictators work with the opposition to promote a culture of intolerance for knowledge and ideas. This is essential for the maintenance of a two party system which ensures that the only opposition in place is the one already captured by the regime.

Opposition leaders who have been captured by the dictator often use methods that are similar to those deployed by the dictator to control knowledge and ideas. Contemporary dictators usually avoid banning public intellectuals as what used to be done by historical dictators (like Hitler, Mussolini and Mugabe). Instead, they harass and vilify them as a way of discouraging them from producing knowledge and information which undermines the regime's interests. In Zimbabwe, the Mnangagwa regime uses bullies (varakashi) to insult and vilify dissenting voices including public intellectuals whose ideas are opposed to the regime. A case in point is that recently I wrote an article in which I pointed out that the Mnangagwa regime is persecuting voices of truth while amplifying voices of lies (as part of truth erosion) and this is why Blessed Mhlanga has been arrested for creating a platform where everyone can express their views, including those opposed to the regime. In an attempt to vilify me, a senior member of Mnangagwa's government went on a tirade describing me as a "little scholar" of no significance, instead of engaging with the arguments presented in the article. This is how competitive authoritarian regimes operate.

An opposition that is captured by a competitive authoritarian regime often behaves the same way, because it is an extension of the regime. It mimics strategies and tactics employed by the regime to silence any voices that may want to criticise the opposition leader. Chamisa introduced what Prof Achille Mbembe has characterised as "era of intellectual decline" in the Zimbabwean opposition, by establishing and maintaining a network of volunteers whose role is to cyber bully anyone who dares to criticise Chamisa's strategies. Under Morgan Tsvangirai, it was fairly possible to criticise party leadership. Similar to Mnangagwa, Chamisa cannot be criticised without one suffering retribution through vicious vilification and insults. This has created an atmosphere of fear in the opposition. Whilst Chamisa may have benefited from this, the biggest beneficiary of insulating Chamisa from criticism has been the Mnangagwa regime because when Chamisa is not scrutinised, his collaborative relationship with the regime remains intact and unexposed, and when the opposition is not criticised it cannot sharpen its strategies to become more effective in fighting the regime.


8. Conclusion

In his song titled "Get up, Stand up", Bob Marley said:

"It's not all that glitter is gold, and half the story has never been told. So now you see the light. You stand up for your right….And I say most people think that great God will come from the sky, take away everything and make everybody feel high. But if you know what life is worth, you would look for yours on earth. So now you see the light. You stand up for your right!"

In his letter to Christian believers, Apostle James writers as follows in James 2:14-16:

"What good is it, dear brother and sisters, if you say you have faith but don't show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save you? …So you see, faith by itself isn't enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless"

In order to break out of the current quagmire, as Zimbabweans we need to understand that "None but ourselves can liberate ourselves" and therefore, we must have the urgency to ACT peacefully against the regime. But we need a strong opposition leader who is capable of matching his/her faith with works. The faith must be accompanied by actions which (out of necessity) must include organising the masses and leading them from the front. Nelson Chamisa has demonstrated incapacity to match his faith with action and possibly, this is because he is in a collaborative relationship with the different factions of the ZANU-PF regime. For that reason, until he receives a signal from within ZANU-PF, he will never use his influence to galvanise the masses into action. Whilst some of us in the academia can provide this kind of analysis, there is need for someone to occupy the vacuum of leadership which exists in the opposition. But when the right person shows up, it's important that Zimbabweans provide their support. None but ourselves!