Tshabangu blames ‘criminals around Chamisa’

Zim Now Writer

Disputed opposition Citizens Coalition for Change interim secretary-general Sengezo Tshabangu has accused what he called “criminals” around party leader Nelson Chamisa of subverting structures and imposing candidates through corruption, intimidation, blackmail, tribalism, regionalism and debauchery.

Tshabangu, who has been on a rampage, recalling elected CCC Members of Parliament and councillors, claiming they had ceased to be party members, on Wednesday issued a statement commemorating the second anniversary of the party.

While Chamisa and his allies argue that they formed the party on the 22nd of January 2022, Tshabangu said the “party was founded and launched by a leadership collective representing our broad-based membership, supporters and political base, a leadership which was elected in May 2019 in Gweru and which worked together from that time to 22 January 2022 and 24 January 2024 when that collective leadership founded and launched CCC, respectively”.

The politician claims that Chamisa was surrounded by criminals during the 2023 elections, who he added were responsible for the removal of structures and imposition of candidates.

He added that a report would be released soon, detailing his sentiments.

“Although today is not the best day to ruminate on this elephant in our room, whose full and detailed account we shall give in due course, it’s a regrettable and therefore an unavoidable reality we cannot fail to mention on a commemorative day like this that, in the run up to the general election last year, ambitious criminals around president Chamisa, most of whom are arrivalists in our party and movement, infiltrated the party’s ranks which by then had become structureless and rudderless, and took over the processes of selecting and nominating the party’s parliamentary and local authority candidates for the 2023 general election,” he said.

“There’s an evidence-based report on this covering all of the country’s provinces that we will publish before the end of the first half of the year; suffice to say it contains heart-breaking details of how criminals around president Chamisa subverted the formidable structures that we had when our party was launched on 24 January 2022; posed as the party's leaders when they were not even members of the National Council or the National Standing Committee at the formation of Triple C; and used corruption, intimidation, blackmail, tribalism, regionalism and debauchery to impose their own preferred candidates; using the name of president Chamisa and their proximity to him, to the detriment of the rights of the generality of our members in wards and constituencies across the country.”

Tshabangu said the actions of “criminals around President Chamisa” led to the existence of double candidates when the nomination court sat for the national plebiscite last year.

“As is widely known, this led to the scourge of double-candidates under the banner of our party after the sitting of the Nomination Court on 21 June 2023, not witnessed before in the history of opposition politics in Zimbabwe,” he said.

CCC spokesperson Promise Mkwananzi and his deputy Gift “Ostallos” Siziba were yet to respond at the time of writing.