By Special Matarirano

ON Saturday March 12 2022, CCC interim spokesperson Advocate Fadzayi Mahere, the outspoken interim deputy chair Job Sikhala and foreign-sponsored activist Hopewell Chin’ono posted on their Twitter handles claiming that former Harare Mayor Herbert Gomba had been abducted. 

It widely circulated on social media posts with CCC members describing the abduction as ‘a ZANU PF-orchestrated move’ to thwart political dissent through security sector heavy-handedness.

Surprisingly, the lie was left to roam the streets of public opinion for the entire weekend before Gomba himself refuted the false abduction claim. 

A sizeable number of the opposition had gone into overdrive, postulating that the former mayor was abducted, tortured and later released by military intelligence at 2 Infantry Brigade.

Surprisingly, there was no Mahere, Sikhala nor Chin’ono remonstrations that their social media posts were ‘hijacked or hacked’, giving credence to a spree of calculated lies aimed at tainting the image of the military, ZANU PF and the Government in the eyes of the electorate. 

Similarly, in 2020, the opposition trio of Joana Mamombe, Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marowa, claimed they were abducted by the security members and tortured beyond human imagination.

Chimbiri claimed they were taken to a remote, wooded area where they were beaten, stripped naked, sexually assaulted with firearms and forced to drink each other’s urine.

This brings to the fore the ‘victimhood political syndrome’ that the writer would like to put forward as a big agenda of the opposition in Zimbabwe today.

Perceiving oneself to be a victim is ubiquitous in Zimbabwe politics. 

Political scientists say: “The victim has become among the most important identity positions in Zimbabwe politics today.” 

This is no accident. 

Victimhood is a central theme of modern political messaging. 

For instance, at every CCC rally, central to the show is the idea of shared victimisation.

CCC leader Nelson Chamisa revels in it. 

He has consistently portrayed himself as a victim of the media and of his political opponents. 

However, if you consider Chamisa’s party and how they have invariably carried their political opposition to ZANU PF and Government, he is not a victim by any societal standards. 

Chamisa inherited this from his predecessor Morgan Tsvangirai and, regardless of rebranding and starting ‘anew’, the methods for political traction remain the same. 

It is in the interest of opposition political candidates to claim victimhood, to make their potential supporters feel as though they have been wronged. 

Allied and comparatively, who can be said to have ‘victimised’ the people of Zimbabwe between the one who calls for the country to be put on sanctions or the one who gives land to the citizens in a direct correction of an unjust historical past?

Last week there were revelations that, far from playing victims, the opposition, especially the CCC, have set camps staffed with youth who are charged with the responsibility to perpetrate violence and cry out loud when ‘the victims of their violence’ fight back.

In Zvimba, for example, the CCC’s ensemble of a group of youth 15km West of Zvimba Growth Point, along Zowa dust road where all the violence is co-ordinated as they make incursions into wards dominated by ZANU PF. 

In Chivi South, CCC supporters were patrolling roads and village paths in the constituency, harassing anybody belonging to any party other than theirs.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, on the other hand, keeps calling for violent-free by-elections but the opposition knows that without ‘kudenha’ (provoking), they won’t create their victimhood status for political votes. 

That’s why, even without a trace linking ZANU PF to the Kwekwe clashes, Chamisa, with his cohorts in the form of the British Parliament and the American Embassy in Zimbabwe, were quick to lay the blame on ZANU PF.

Pundits contend lies, fabrications of the truth, falsification of facts and political dramaturgy has overtaken political reason for the CCC as they attempt to set an agenda for ‘victimhood’ to gain public sympathy. 

This ‘victimhood syndrome’ is closely borrowed from the ‘underdog tag’ in sport and other relevant fields.

Special Matarirano is a media political analyst who can be contacted on specialmatarirano39@gmail.com