Political commentator Jealousy Mawarire has questioned the timing of Nelson Chamisa’s sudden return to active politics, coming just days after Jameson Timba launched a new group to oppose ZANU-PF’s plan to extend President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s term from 2028 to 2030.
On Wednesday, Timba and several other opposition politicians launched the Defend the Constitution Platform (DCP), vowing to resist ZANU-PF’s proposed constitutional amendment.
Two days later, Chamisa announced his return with the launch of Agenda 2026, a broad citizens’ movement aimed at winning the next general elections and forming a new government.
In a Facebook post on Sunday, Mawarire questioned the timing of Chamisa’s announcement and suggested the former CCC leader may be working with Mnangagwa. Wrote Mawarire:
“Isn’t it suspicious that days after Senator Jameson Timba launched his non-partisan group to defend the constitution from mutilation by Zanu-PF through the illegal so-called ‘resolution number 1’, which seeks to illegally extend Mnangagwa’s term beyond the 2028 constitutional limit, Nelson Chamisa comes in and declares that ‘there is no constitution’ to defend in Zimbabwe?
“Is Chamisa trying to stall efforts to fight the 2030 agenda? If so, for whose benefit? Whose bidding is he doing?
“What is even more bizarre is that Chamisa goes on to declare that his fight is about stolen elections.
“Elections held in a country without a constitution cannot be stolen because not having a constitution suggests an absence of rules governing those elections, and in the absence of rules, there is no electoral fraud because the contest is a free-for-all, survival of the fittest, jungle-like engagement.
“Chamisa, as a lawyer, should have been alive to the fact that there can’t be electoral fraud, which he claims happened in 2018 and 2023, if there was no legal framework to guide the administration of those elections, as suggested by his ‘no constitution’ claim.
“What is apparent is that there is more to Chamisa’s return to active politics at this time than what he is giving out.
“His ‘no constitution to defend’ declaration is meant to pour cold water on efforts by the likes of Timba to fight Mnangagwa’s 2030 agenda. The question then is why? That’s the ‘$64m dollar question’ that people have.
“It’s not just the claim that there is no constitution to defend that is bizarre for a politician of Chamisa’s stature; the claim that demonstrations are useless is also as suspicious as they come.
“Last year, whilst he was still enjoying his sabbatical from politics, Chamisa would immediately sprout out of his political exile to pour cold water on efforts by Blessed Geza to organise demonstrations against ED’s attempts to mutilate the constitution and continue in power beyond the 2028 constitutional limit, among other issues.
“Is it coincidental that now, after Timba and others declared that they are forming an organisation to fight the same attempts by ED to violate the constitution and extend his stay in office beyond the 2018 constitutional limit, Chamisa sprouts out and declares that ‘there is no constitution to defend?’
“It is quite evident that the ‘no constitution to defend’ declaration is a direct attack on Timba and others, for their rallying point is ‘defending the constitution’ against ED’s plans to mutilate it through constitution amendment bill 3, which seeks to extend ED’s incumbency to 2030.
“So by declaring that there is no constitution to defend, Chamisa is tacitly endorsing ED’s 2030 agenda through political and constitutional disingenuity.
“He is saying ED is not violating any constitution because there is no constitution to violate in the first place, a deliberate, politically disingenuous statement meant to turn a blind eye to ED’s political chicanery, meant to extend his rule to 2030.
“That makes Chamisa part of ED’s plans, and never the antithesis. History is littered with Trojan horses; the question here is whose Trojan horse is he?”
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