By Elizabeth Sitotombe
THE CCC is finalising its candidate selection exercise by holding citizens caucuses on June 10 for Harare.
The candidate selection process has been awkward to say the least.
Their leaders have called it ‘democratic’, a process by which the public has the last say.
It has been the complete opposite, with the whole process lacking transparency from the very beginning
It is at this exercise that Nelson Chamisa, opposition CCC leader, is expected to fire all sitting councillors whom he believes to be corrupt and those who he personally dislikes.
The ones expected to sail through are some of his closest allies, like Denford Ngadziore and Kudzai Kadzombe.
It is the same Ngadziore and Kadzombe expelled from the Catholic University after allegedly forging entry qualifications for a Business Management and Information Technology Degree at the institution.
Indeed, it is more difficult to uphold democracy than it is preaching it.
Remember last year when The Patriot reported that Chamisa would, in the end, impose candidates of his choice.
CCC denied it and came up with these community selection caucuses meant to hoodwink party supporters into believing they actually had a say in the party’s decision making process.
Now the chickens are coming to roost!
Chamisa claimed the party had been infiltrated by State security agents and the process would weed out the party’s sell-outs.
According to a source within CCC, Chamisa has been spying on party members using some friends from one of the country’s telecommunication companies (name provided).
The friends would provide him with the call history of each member and then go on to verify if any of those calls were made between them and any known State security agents.
Chamisa especially pointed fingers at his ‘chief of staff’ Trust Mamombe as one of the biggest sell-outs in the party.
He also laid off almost three-quarters of CCC party workers mainly accusing them of selling out information.
At the same time, Chamisa is looking to start a new term with ‘young blood’ that will see him promoting ZINASU affiliates like Womberai Nhende. Controversy, however, is not new to Nhende, well known for his violent tendencies within and outside the party.
ZINASU students are abused by the opposition and used to promote violence in the country.
They are later rewarded with positions within the party structures.
At a meeting held at their new offices recently, it was agreed that the ZINASU students would be part of the polling agents in rural areas at this year’s general elections slated for August 23 as a way of fighting ‘alleged intimidation’ by ZANU PF members.
For MPs, Chamisa plans to fire alleged flip-floppers who once joined other parties, like MDC N for Welshman Ncube, Tendai Biti’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Job Sikhala’s MDC99 or Mangoma’s Renewal Democrats for Zimbabwe (RDZ) and the Maruva cabal.
His final list is expected to be announced on June 17, a few days before nomination so that those who want to stand as independent candidates will not have much time to raise funds for nomination or campaign strategies.
Chamisa does not want more than five sitting MPs to retain their seats according to the same source.
Most of them have, in some cases, openly defied Chamisa’s orders.
A few months ago, the MPs openly defied Chamisa when he ordered them not to take the US$40 000 loans given out to all MPs.
Prior to that, Chamisa believes the majority have been contaminated by Douglas Mwonzora.
When Mwonzora won his court case against Chamisa, many MPs attended his meeting caucuses and he feels Mwonzora still has some sort of influence on some of them.
To make it even more interesting, there are current sitting MPs who were not recalled by Mwonzora and are in Parliament as MDC-Alliance but now aligned to CCC.
Most of the members whose names have been removed from the list are already aware of it, including those from the Maruva cabal.
The CCC recently concluded the candidate selection process in Bulawayo.
The majority of the members were left disgruntled, with some claiming the selection process had been unfair and undemocratic.
Many of the party’s bigwigs were left in the cold after being disqualified during the verification process; they did not see it coming.
Chamisa dropped almost every sitting councillor, appointed Khupe to stand in Cowdray Park just to manage tribal politics and then also dropped her unexpectedly.
In Pumula, Chelesile Mahlangu was chosen to represent the party; Desire Moyo will represent Nkulumane, whilst Descent Bajila will represent Luveve-Emakhandeni.
Chamisa’s blue-eyed boy, Gift Ostallos Siziba, will represent Pelandaba-Tshabalala.
In an unexpected turn of events, Dr Thokozani Khupe who was set to represent Bulawayo’s Cowdray Park constituency in the National Assembly against Finance Minister Prof Mthuli Ncube was instead put on the top of CCC’ s Bulawayo Metropolitan Province’s Senate proportional representation party list — and to spice up the dish, Professor Welshman Ncube was placed second after her.
Khupe was admitted into the Chamisa-led party just last year long after Morgan Tsvangirai’s demise and the attendant drama.
Ncube has been accused of fanning tribalism and factionalism and has even claimed Chamisa is neutralising Ndebele people within the party.
The circus continues in CCC.
Needless to say, Chamisa has the final say.
