On 18 September, Movement for Democratic Change leader Nelson Chamisa posted the following tweet: “Just been back from rural Zimbabwe where I am meeting various opinion leaders and stakeholders including chiefs, church leaders and citizens on the next step, the leadership expected and the desired ideal. This Zimbabwe is beautiful, deserves better. Real change is coming!”
Chamisa was merely maintaining his stance that he won the 30 July elections, though he lost the case at the Constitutional Court with costs.
He had been planning to inaugurate himself as the “people’s president” but that was scuttled by the cholera outbreak in the capital. So far, 45 people have died of cholera.
That same day, 18 September, Chamisa refused to attend the official opening of Parliament where President Emmerson Mnangagwa was delivering his State of the Nation Address and officially opening Parliament. MDC legislators walked out of Parliament as soon as Mnangagwa began his address.
The following day, the tweet was gone. Deleted. No explanation. Chamisa’s spokesman Nkululeko Sibanda did not respond to a query on why the tweet was removed.
Sibanda, however, issued a statement in which he “encourage(d) the illegitimate President Mnangagwa to realise that he stole the election.
“Because of that theft,” the statement said, “he was then declared President. Because of this, he must stop being in a perpetual campaign mode, one cannot govern like a candidate. He must become Presidential. His poorly read speech sounded like a rumbling stump away from the houses of parliament.”
Sibanda said: “If we had not been cheated in this election, today there would have been no shortages and rationing of fuel. There would be no shortages of bread and pricing would have stabilised with a downward trend.
“We were going to achieve this by following our smart policies that would have quickly allowed for all and the best brains to be working on the economy…..
“A president Chamisa government would have stabilised the economy by engaging all political players to help give life to the idea of unity in building the economy. Putting everyone to work building our economy would have been the first job and first line for him.”
With crippling cash shortages, no fuel, no jobs, among other things, this is what the people wanted to hear, perhaps only to lull themselves.
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