Chamisa in the shadows of political darkness

Justice Alfred Mavedzenge has done a very informative analysis on the behavior of Nelson Chamisa, and the radical change in his political personality since his ZINASU days of a firebrand student political activist, to the formation of the MDC in 1999, his rise to succeed the legendary Judah Learnmore Jongwe as the MDC spokesperson in 2023, and then rising to be the MDC Organising Secretary in 2009, the time he was also appointed the ICT Minister in the GPA Government, commonly known as the Government of National Unity. It is in 2009 that many shifts started happening in Nelson Chamisa's personal life and also his political life.

At the level of his private life, Nelson Chamisa started reporting for work at both his ICT Ministerial Office and at the MDC Organising Secretary Office armed with a Bible every morning, like he was coming to church, and would have moments he would lock himself in his office and go on rampaging tongue-speaking prayer sessions.

At the political level he was one of the first targeted people for neutralisation by the Robert Mugabe side of the Unity Government. They knew his ambition weaknesses and his ego driven approach to politics, so Robert Mugabe cleverly took away key elements of ICT like control of Potraz, but showered Chamisa with praises as the most outstanding Minister he had ever worked with. While Robert Mugabe was showering Chamisa with "supersonic Minister praises," Chamisa was privately praising the ZANU-PF leader as the best leader ever to come out of Zimbabwe.

We know of the leaked note that Chamisa wrote to Saviour Kasukuwere during a Cabinet Meeting, saying he could not imagine what Zimbabwe would be like without the brilliant leadership of Robert Mugabe.

I also was on the phone for an hour plus with Nelson Chamisa when he was on a ministerial business trip to Trinadad and Tobago in 2011, and he was just reminding me of that conversation last week. In that recorded conversation Chamisa had choice praise words for the exceptional leadership skills of Robert Mugabe, and he in no uncertain terms expressed his appreciation of this lifetime privilege of having had the chance to work as a Cabinet Minister under the leadership of the "legendary" Robert Mugabe.

Let us look at what has been happening behind the political curtains in our country in a bit of detail here, and I will be serialising more of this in the next few days.

Under traditional dictatorships the idea of capturing popular opposition politicians, dates back to the 19th century, and usually the captured opposition in this case will evolve into agreement and praises for the dictator, often as a result of either bribery and blackmail, or blackmail and bribery, depending on the circumstances of what comes first and why?

Under a competitive authoritarian regime like the one led by Mnangagwa today the captured popular opposition leader will just do enough to keep the hopes of his followers alive, while not doing anything materially destabilising for the ruling regime.

According to Alfred Mavedzenge, 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".  

Briefly Nelson Chamisa disregarded the constitution to take over the MDC Alliance and also in forming the CCC proudly and arrogantly without a constitution, throwing both the MDC Alliance and the CCC into chaos, dismantling both entities into near oblivion.

Secondly Nelson Chamisa is not willing to participate in any peaceful confrontation that might result in the resignation or ousting of Mnangagwa. He keeps saying everyone must stay calm and follow his scriptural verses online for guidance.

Thirdly, Nelson Chamisa has picked a bitter fight with every know intellectual within his party and some outside, from Welshman Ncube, Tendai Biti, David Coltart, Eddy Cross, Jonathan Moyo, Matienga, Mudzuri , Douglas Mwonzora and the list goes on.

How do these three issues relate to Mavedzenge's behavioural signs of a captured popular opposition leader?

Let us take glimpse into Chamisa's early history as an MDC political activist and leader.

As earlier mentioned, Nelson Chamisa has had a unique character transition that needs to be interrogated. Mavedzenge notes that 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).

I have described his political history at the beginning of this piece, but this "Mukomana" Nelson does nothing more than impressive oratory shows punctuated with tolerable ridiculing of Mnangagwa, with no resolution whatsoever on means of getting rid of him.

The old Chamisa had courage that got him the now forgotten nickname Wamba dia Wamba, that coming out of a striking resemblance of his perceived courage to that of the popular Congolese rebel leader. His other nickname was "Cobra", to his youthful followers an accolade of his lethality, and to his political colleagues in opposition power corridors an apt description of his dangerous backbiting tactics aimed at currying favours with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

In 2014, Tsvangirai had had enough of Nelson Chamisa, to the extend he made sure Chamisa lost the election for the party's Secretary General post to Douglas Mwonzora. This was a hit back for his bedding with Robert Mugabe. Then surprisingly, Tsvangirai unilaterally handpicked Nelson Chamisa to be his third Vice President in the opposition. We will also tell you why he did that.  

I can reveal 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, if the idea of ousting Mugabe militarily was going to work.

At that time in 2016, as many of you readers may remember, ZANU-PF was divided into two factions-G40 led by Robert 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.

Alfred Mavedzenge correctly writes that the MDC under Tsvangirai became a battle ground for control by the two warring factions of ZANU-PF. Tsvangirai fell for it instead of taking advantage of the chaos to mobilise against the divided entity.

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, and according to what Nelson Chamisa said to me in our last telephone conversation, the ailing Morgan Tsvangirai had been promised First Vice President to Mnangagwa, with an equally ailing Dumiso Dabengwa promised the Matebeleland Second Vice President slot.

Nelson Chamisa says he tried in vain to dissuade Morgan Tsvangirai from the deal, but Tsvangirai told him to start organising the masses because the deal was already done and sealed. He also told him that Mnangagwa would call him to provide details. That was in 2017.

According to what Chamisa said to me, the call did not come from Mnagangagwa, but from his wife Auxillia, who jokingly introduced herself as "Maiguru," and then told Chamisa that she was passing on the phone to Mnangagwa, so Chamisa could check on his welfare after the "poisoning" Gwanda encounter. "Taurai nemukoma wenyu munzwe kuti vave sei," so went the voice of Mrs Mnangagwa.

In this conversation carried in Shona, the paraphrasing is, "My young brother. Did Sekuru call you? (From 2016, Mnangagwa started publicly addressing Tsvangirai as Sekuru, meaning maternal uncle).

After Chamisa confirmed that Tsvangirai had indeed called him, Mangagwwa spoke in Shona riddles. He said, "The trumpet is going to blow. When it blows, we are expecting to hear mbira, mhururu nehosho from you." The recorded call goes, "Babamunini. Hwamanda yava kuzorira. Tinotarisira kunzwa mbira, mhururu, nehosho kubva kwamuri. Ndapedza."

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 was the master stroke to totally decapacitate the G40.

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! But certainly, according to his own narrations, Welshman Ncube knew early enough of what was happening, and he still stuck to the deal.

To the public Morgan Tsvangirai said he was doing the big tent to increase his chances of winning the 2018 elections. Far from it. He wasn't even interested in the election.

It is at this juncture that Chamisa was just about to jump ship to join the G40 faction of ZANU-PF, and the Lacoste faction, which I myself was deeply involved with, wanted to prevent this at all costs.

Nelson 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.

However, in my conversation with Chamisa, he vehemently denies ever purchasing or importing any trucks, or being involved in the transport business at any time of his life, despite leaked business transaction receipts between his purported transport company and the now defunct Gushungo Dairies.

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 as earlier detailed in this piece.

It is reported that so deep was the relationship between Chamisa and Mugabe that Tsvangirai got fed up with it during the GPA government, to the extent that he tried to recall Chamisa the same way Welshman Ncube tried to recall Arthur Mutambara. As was the case with the Mutambara issue, Robert Mugabe said "Angifuni," to Ncube, and "Handidi," to Tsvangirai, an emphatic "I do not want," from the President.

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. It is whilst this plan was in motion, that both Tsvangirai and the Lacoste faction picked intelligence suggesting that Chamisa was about to join the G40 faction led by Mugabe in ZANU-PF, leading to the above-mentioned telephone calls to Nelson Chamisa.

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 naturally 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 cozy relationship with Mugabe who was not only the President of the country but the godfather of the G40 faction.

It is also at this time that Nelson Chamisa said to me, he first met Kuda Tagwirei, whom he had known as a member of Mai Mujuru's Gamatox faction, and who now appears to have transited and settled himself well next to Mnangagwa, much to Chamisa's surprise.

Like I mentioned before, it was not in Tsvangirai or Mnangagwa's interest to have Chamisa and Mugabe in one corner through G40, so all efforts were made to tame him, and tame him they did, as they have continued to this day, as serialised articles will soon reveal.

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 is authoritatively how Nelson Chamisa became Vice President, although at the time he wasn't aware of the Mnangagwa involvement at all. He is naturally power obsessed, so the invite was sweet music to him.

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.

This he personally told me himself, that his hands were tied in 2017, but he wasn't in support of the coup. What he did not say to me was whether this was out of principle or out of his admiration of Robert Mugabe, or out of mere expediency.
You the reader can make your judgement.

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, not without the involvement of Mnangagwa.

Mnangagwa did not leave Chamisa alone after ascending to State power. He followed him up with the Khupe battles, then the Douglas Mwonzora battles, then the Tshabangu debacle, then the underworld deals to withdraw from politics and keep the popularity suspension high in the air by "keeping them hoping," while perpetuating the Karanga Hegemony.

It is true Nelson Chamisa totally refused to accept the $15 million dollar Opposition Leader offered to him after the 2018 elections, not because of personal principle, but because this was a public offer, where his judgement would be up for scrutiny with his millions of supporters, and also stakeholders like the US Embassy were totally opposed to it.

But there are many more shadowy deals that Chamisa continues to deal with out of everyone's sight except a few of us with limited privilege to hear some of it. It is not only Chamisa who acts tough Mnangagwa opponent by day, and ally by night. Hopewell Chin'ono too. This will be interesting.

Reader, at this rate you will be asking if this writer is not equally compromised. The answer is NO, but I wish it was that simple and trustworthy. You will need to put this writer to the same test we are putting Nelson Chamisa.

We will be serialising more of the behind the curtains of politics in our nation.
Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome.

IT IS HOMELAND OR DEATH!
REASON WAFAWAROVA.