How Chamisa’s dictatorial tendencies caused downfall of a formidable party

One of the then main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa’s then top allies Freeman Chari (pictured) has exposed how big headed the popular politician was, leading to the downfall of Citizens Coalition for Change.

Writing on his X handle, Chari said it is disheartening that his sound advice was thrown into the bust bin.

Apparently, those who know Chamisa well say he is a dictator who doesn’t take advice from anyone.

Chari writes:

I wasn’t gonna address this seeing it is moot, but it is important that I do & it is my last comment on this.

When CCC was formed in my conversations with NC a number of us said to him, we will defend you with our lives out there but in private we will tell you the things that need to be fixed so we don’t fall into the same predicament we did with MDC-Alliance.

Top was the need for a clear constitution with clearly articulated roles, I believe a draft constitution was made.

Secondly, it was about structure & I remember giving him a document that had alternative structure which I worked on with Dr Magaisa. Lastly it was about branding etc.

Unfortunately Strategic Ambiguity took precedence. The people who defended this vehemently in private are the same pple after election who ditched him.

They were opportunists especially the Harare crew. What pained me more was that we had worked so hard for 2 yrs to build this but we had no way or leg to defend ourselves. Anyone could see our potential flaws but they were overlooked.

This carried into the elections & candidate selection. We all know bereka mwana was stupid, but these comrades who supported it before they were outwitted/ ousted shld have known better way before this. They were selfish and thought they could keep their proximity to power through stupidity.

After elections when NC failed to reign in the few MPs we had I cld see we were sitting ducks. Every bara was hitting the head.

In my view, even through ego we had continued on Strategic Ambiguity, if the fundamentals of organization building had been done right behind the scenes we could have had a fighting chance.

I fear without the willingness to retrospect and introspect we will go round and round in circles with multiple heartbreaks. I am not willing to go through that again!

And by the way, I responded to
@BMutebuka the way I did because he is privy to some of these things. It is unfortunate it came out the way it did but I have no regrets whatsoever. Ciao?