Less than a year later, Chamisa was dealt a terrible blow when the Supreme Court ruled that he should not have taken over leadership of the party because his appointment by Tsvangirai, as well as that of Elias Mudzuri, as party vice-presidents in 2016, was illegal.
Thokozani Khupe, who was elected vice-president at the 2014 congress, had to take over the party and call a congress to elect a new leader. Khupe had no chance against Chamisa but he opted not to challenge Khupe at the MDC-T congress saying the MDC Alliance -an alliance of seven political parties- was a new party and he was the leader of that party and not MDC-T.
Khupe lost to Mwonzora at the party’s extraordinary congress in December 2020 and trouble for Chamisa started. Mwonzora began recalling Members of Parliament who had been elected on the MDC-T ticket in the Alliance thus reducing the effectiveness of the opposition in Parliament. By December 2021, there were 28 vacancies in Parliament, 21 from legislators recalled by MDC-T and seven created by ZANU-PF either through deaths or reposting of MPs. Mwonzora also claimed the MDC Alliance name, forcing Chamisa to form what is now known as CCC to contest the by-elections set for March 2022.
This created the chaos that is now bedevilling CCC. Somehow, Chamisa convinced his executive to come up with a new party that did not have a defined leadership, a constitution or structures. He also came up with a new concept called strategic ambiguity.
There was a lot of hype when CCC won 19 of the 28 seats. Totally ignored was the fact that CCC had lost two seats previously held by the MDC and that ZANU-PF gained those two seats which it had previously lost to the MDC Alliance.
What was significant was that Chamisa was now the sole face and voice of the new party. He ignored calls to set up structures saying structures could easily be infiltrated. His key lieutenants- Welshman Ncube, Tendai Biti, Lynette Karenyi-Kore, Tabitha Khumalo and Job Sikhala, were completely sidelined with only two other people, Fadzayi Mahere and Ostallos Gift Siziba, speaking for the party. Even his 2023 campaign was centred on him and him alone.
Sadly Chamisa lost and trouble began when hitherto unknown Sengezo Tshabangu sprung from nowhere claiming to be the interim secretary general of the party and recalled 22 legislators and several councillors. The recalls were effected despite protests from Chamisa and his lieutenants and Chamisa lost the case in court.
The party has been more or less on autopilot since. Chamisa has made feeble attempts to show he is still in control but his inaction seems to fortify the argument that he is ED’s “boy”.
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