Exiled former cabinet minister Jonathan Moyo says the Nelson Chamisa led Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) must negotiate with prosecutors to have their deputy chairperson Job Sikhala released from detention.

“Scream your insults but it is cultic naivety, arrogance and immaturity not to engage prosecutors to bail Job Sikhala out of pre-trial jail.

“The politics of negotiating bail with prosecutors, to agree on bail terms to submit to the courts, is a common practice in the rule of law,” says Moyo.

He adds that negotiating Sikhala’s release doesn’t mean Chamisa joins POLAD:

“The nonsense that engaging prosecutors to get Job Sikhala bailed from pre-trial detention means CCC must join POLAD smacks of bankrupt politics in the so-called main opposition party & the govt in waiting.

“It is breathtakingly childish. Clearly, Job Sikhala
deserves better!”

However, Norton Independent Member of Parliament Temba Mliswa says negotiating the release would be a strategic mistake.

“We have a judiciary that is being abused and the solution is to seek leniency from the same people abusing it?

“What stops them next time from repeating the same? The focus should be freeing the judiciary to make its own ways and judgements,” he says.

Mliswa adds:

“As we go towards 2023 elections whatever progress will be achieved through the negotiated releasing of opposition members will be an illusion as it will underline and consolidate the effective use of the judiciary as a political weapon.”

Zwnews