THE recent boycott of the official opening of the First Session of the 10th Parliament which included President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) by CCC MPs is nothing short of grandstanding driven by a puerile approach to national politics.
And this was based on a flimsy argument that they did not recognise Cde Mnangagwa as President of Zimbabwe.
This they based on a discredited election report authored by a certain Dr Nevers Mumba of Zambia who is believed to have been helped by the EU in compiling his findings.
If the CCC genuinely disagreed with the election results, the legal route was open.
They didn’t take it because they knew, like the rest of us, that the elections were free, fair, peaceful and credible.
However, the boycott of the opening of Parliament has serious repercussions.
For a start, the President’s speech spelt out the legislative programme of the ensuing Parliamentary session within the context of the State of the nation.
It is from this that proposed Bills were spelt out.
By absenting themselves from this important occasion, the natural follow-up is that CCC MPs are not supposed to take part in Parliamentary debates.
CCC Mps, by virtue of their boycott, should, therefore, do the honourable thing by avoiding to take part in debating laws that will need the signature of a President they don’t recognise.
The CCC MPs must realise that they are in Parliament to represent the electorate, that voted them to make laws.
Obviously voters will not be amused by their childish theatrics.
Of course, if they are to live true to their boycott, they are not supposed to attend Parliament sittings at all.
But they won’t dare, for they know that prolonged non-attendance will cost them their seats.
The major problem with CCC is that the party is amorphous.
Chamisa claims to be the leader and he alone is the alpha and omega of the party — the style of a typical dictator.
The same Chamisa also decided to immortalise himself by having his face on the emblem of the party.
The party has no structures, no membership, no constitution and not even a bank account.
It has no intention to hold an elective congress any time soon.
It is Chamisa alone who picked candidates in the last general elections, humiliating political stalwarts like Tendai Biti, Thokozani Khupe and Welshman Ncube, leaving them out in the cold pointing out that there was no room for career politicians in his party.
It is the same Chamisa who declared the last harmonised elections null and void only after he had been walloped by President Mnangagwa.
Instead of advising his MPs to respect the Head of State, he instructed them to boycott the President’s SONA.
Now it seems he has met his own match in the structureless party in the form of his interim secretary-general, Sengezo Tshabangu.
We wait with guarded interest as the ‘Wapusa Wapusa’ political drama suggested by Chamisa, as part of his ‘Strategic Ambiguity’, begins to unfold.
Meanwhile, it will be wise for Chamisa to note that Zimbabwe is a sovereign State where decisions by its courts and ZEC are final.
It won’t be long before the former Harare Polytechnic student realises that the Nevers Mumbas of this world have no power whatsoever to neutralise the sovereignty of this country, a polity that got its independence after a protracted bloody war to free itself from the shackles of settler-white minority rule.
There will never be the so-called transitional authority advocated by the likes of Ibbotson Mandaza.
The CCC must realise that expecting SADC to organise a re-run of the just ended free, fair and peaceful elections is as good as expecting the EU to supervise British general elections next year.
The next harmonised general elections in Zimbabwe are in August or September 2028 and they will be run by ZEC.
To expect anything otherwise is seeking comfort in a fool’s paradise.
This is the meaning of politics in a mature democracy as opposed to high school political gymnastics.
