Nelson Chamisa, the leader of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, the Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC), has dumped the party, saying it’s been ‘hijacked’.
Chamisa resigned this week, saying that the party had been captured by the ruling party, ZANU-PF.
He was quoted as saying that he would not ‘swim in a river with hungry crocodiles‘.
In elections held in August last year, Chamisa won 44% of the vote in the presidential poll, while the CCC won 103 of the 280 seats available in Parliament. ZANU-PF secured a comfortable majority with incumbent president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, easily winning the presidential race.
Subsequently a number of CCC MPs were recalled after a person purporting to be a senior CCC official claimed they were not members of the party. This resulted in a number of by-elections, most of which saw ZANU-PF win CCC-held seats, helping the ruling party get closer to its goal of having a two-thirds majority in Parliament.
Chamisa said this was happening because the government wanted an opposition that could be controlled, and wouldn’t challenge government excesses.
The CCC was founded in 2022 as a breakaway from what had previously been Zimbabwe’s main opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change.
It is not clear what Chamisa’s next move will be and whether he will remain in formal party politics in Zimbabwe.
[Image: Zviko Zingoni, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=121923501]