Sometime in October 2023, the Speaker of the Zimbabwe National Assembly received a letter from a man named Sengezo Tshabangu.
Tshabangu wrote to the Speaker recalling 15 Members of Parliament, and 9 Senators. In the letter, Tshabangu claimed to the Secretary General (SG) of the opposition outfit Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC).
Fresh from the harmonized general elections held just about two months prior, Zimbabwe’s opposition was worried. At first, they posed a nonchalant attitude, many dismissing him as an imposter. But internally, there was reason to worry.
Nelson Chamisa, the party’s president wrote to the Speaker asking the latter to ignore Tshabangu, but he was the one ignored. The Speaker went on to declare the seats of the recalled MPs vacant.
“How does Chamisa say that I am an imposter? The process that approved Chamisa as the president of CCC is the very process that made me interim SG. But this is before the court, so I am not going to define the process. … if Chamisa says he does not know me, let him swear an affidavit before court!” Tshabangu challenged.
The CCC activists had gone to court challenging Tshabangu’s unilateral recall of the MPs and Senators.
“If it was unilateral, I don’t think parliament would have agreed with me. I think institutions have got a history and know whom to recognize. Who has ever questioned Chamisa’s authority?” Tshabangu added while appearing on Zi FM’s The Platform programme hosted by celebrated journalist Farai Mwakutuya.
In the courts, Chamisa and the CCC lost all petitions and appeals against Tshabangu. Notably, the recalled Members were barred from vying on the CCC party ticket.
In November, Tshabangu recalled 13 more MPs and 5 Senators.
Byelections
On December 09, 2023, the first of the by-elections were held. In the ten, Tshabangu’s group won two and ZANUPF won the remaining.
On Feb 03, 2024, the ZANUPF won all the six by-elections held, bringing their tally to 190, thus giving the ruling party a supermajority.
In less than four months, the CCC lost twenty-five parliamentary seats in shadowy circumstances.
The resignations
On January 25th, 2024, Nelson Chamisa resigned from his party. He did not say where he was going but claimed that the CCC was under the stranglehold of Mnangagwa, and that he had infiltrated it with his moles. “Our politics has been defiled by schemes of personal aggrandizement upon runaway pursuit of politics of positions, title, benefits, and trinkets of office. A contaminated, bastardized,d and hijacked CCC cannot deliver a New Great Zimbabwe!” Chamisa stated.
Several of his loyalists that were recalled from parliament also resigned from the party.
Tshabangu rewards himself.
On the February 9th, 2024, Tshabangu nominated himself among 9 people to take up positions of the CCC left vacant in the Zimbabwe Senate. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) gazette him as the senator for Matabeleland North.
Mnangagwa’s dynastic dreams
In the August 2023 election, the Zimbabwe African Nation Union- Patriotic Front (ZANUPF) had won 177 out of the 280 seats in Parliament. The opposition CCC won 103. This fell short of the two-thirds majority ZANUPF needs to push through some of its legislation without negotiating with the opposition.
Many pundits and critics are opining that the man who came to power in a disguised coup in 2017 wants to remove the terms-limit in the constitution and will achieve it, given his two-thirds majority in parliament now handed to him by Sengezo Tshabangu.
