By Brighton Mutebuka
- So easy it was for ED to dupe Zimbos in November 2017 that he was a reformist – that he figured that the trick could be deployed multiple times with no adverse consequences.
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In July 2018, ED successfully stole elections aided & abetted by Zim’s captured Supreme Court & ZEC, the Electoral Body.
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Aware of how crucial Luke Malaba would always be in any potential presidential term extension/ Constitutional battles, ED conspired to rope in a desperate opposition political merchant in @DMwonzora to facilitate such a dastardly deed via tinkering with the Constitution.
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After successfully overcoming the spirited resistance he faced over that naked selfish & self serving political manoeuvre, ED proceeded to his next step, his most audacious yet.
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This involved creating parallel structures in ZANU PF, using FAZ to spearhead his August 2023 re-election campaign & hijacking the electoral process to run a hopelessly sham election that not even @SADC_News could stomach sanitising it in any way, shape or form!
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As part of that strategy, ED sought out sleeper agent in the opposition – Sengezo Tshabangu to act as his proxy – handled by FAZ & unleashed him to wreak havoc on the then opposition CCC.
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ED’s timing was impeccable. Tshabangu & his other acolytes in the opposition were activated on the most important day on the political calendar – the lead up to the declaration of the cooked up results.
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Via Tshabangu, the discredited self-glorifying CNN multi-award winning journalist Hopewell Chin’ono & other social & political malcontents, a grand distraction, diversion & disinformation scheme took place.
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That scheme involved blaming the opposition for the electoral heist through the absence of structures, a Constitution & failure to retain all V11 returns to expose the gigantic electoral fraud & mass disenfranchisement of voters in opposition strong holds.
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Chin’ono, who is Harvard, Oxford, City & Brunel University educated & has worked for the BBC, ITV, New York Times amongst many other blue chip media organisations, “laundered” his reputation & millions of his social media followers across several platforms through presenting Sengezo Tshabangu as a credible, bona fide aggrieved opposition party leader who had the support of senior opposition leaders.
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Chin’ono’s intervention was crucial because it brought ED crucial breathing space & shaped the political dynamic & narrative – including regionally & internationally through discrediting & delegitimising @nelsonchamisa
& casting the opposition CCC party that he then led as imploding/ unravelling at the very key time that ED should have been receiving universal condemnation. -
It is Chin’ono’s narrative which partially legitimised Tshabangu & gave cover to ED’s nefarious plan.
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A combination of Hopewell’s narrative, which he pushed relentlessly, which roped in shadowy CCC Senior MPs & leaders, strongly suspected of being
@Welshman_Ncube, Tendai Biti, Phulu, Mafume, Hwende & others, legitimised Tshabangu’s fraudulent claims to his fictitious post & opened the door for the captured Judiciary & Parliament to choreograph recognising him! -
At that very same point, Hopewell Chin’ono doubled down his criticism of Chamisa & CCC for not having V11s even though they would not have been capable of numerically recording the magnitude of the mass disenfranchisement which took place via denial of access to ballot papers in opposition strongholds as well as the industrial scale intimidation that FAZ unleashed in rural communities.
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Chin’ono openly discouraged any initiatives, including diplomatic ones, which sought to keep the pressure on ED.
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His sole focus was criticising the opposition & literally presenting their perceived shortcomings as the primary reason why the election had been stolen.
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It is worth noting that Hopewell enthusiastically supported the coup that brought ED’s regime to power & worked with the regime for long periods of time, until such a time that it was no longer palatable to do so.
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We are talking about a so-called international multi-award winning journalist here – who openly disregarded counsel from the likes of departed thought leader Alex Magaisa on the subject.
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When challenged about the reasons why he personally supported the coup, no compelling intellectual argument is advanced – other than that – because the opposition had also supported or welcomed the coup!
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When Zimbabwe’s history is finally written by objective historians in the near future, particularly about this chapter, Hopewell Chin’ono’s crucial role in providing a PR like role to ED’s regime during & after the coup should never be overlooked, the same applies to legitimising Tshabangu, driving a wedge between @JobSikhala1 & @nelsonchamisa (when the former was in prison (thereby sapping morale & dividing opposition supporters) and, finally, distracting the nation, the region & the international community in August 2023, which gave ED the break that he needed to masquerade as a legitimately elected President.
Conclusion: ED’s 2030 agenda is a product of a calculated series of political manoeuvres executed over a defined period of time.
At key events during that period, he has received vital support from notable pseudo opposition leaders and other characters who have steadfastly taken steps that have aided, abetted or enabled ED’s political objectives while simultaneously torpedoing those of the opposition – while projecting themselves as being opposed to ED.
It is arguable that had Tshabangu been correctly & universally identified as the shameless ED’s proxy that he was early on during the political season, his project would likely never have taken off the ground & ED would have been either thwarted at source or been forced to follow a more difficult path.
Instead we are led to believe that a so-called international multi-award winning journalist educated at elite institutions like Harvard & Oxford could genuinely not have foreseen that Tshabangu was a proxy, or that relentlessly attacking the only bona fide opposition leader (who had at that point thwarted ED’s desperately needed two-thirds majority) following a sham election could only benefit ED & risk implosion in the opposition!
I propose to argue that, I will go to my grave refusing to accept that, Hopewell Chin’ono, as aggrieved as he was with Chamisa after his favourite Tendai Biti failed to make it to Parliament, genuinely & sincerely failed to deduce that Tshabangu could only be relevant to facilitate ED’s pursuit of a 3rd term – which had been thwarted by the opposition’s electoral returns albeit in a sham election.
In other words, once ZANU PF had “won” a constitutional majority in that sham election – it had no discernible political interest that could be served by unleashing Tshabangu.
The only clear beneficiary was ED. I repeated that message ad nauseum & challenged Chin’ono, until he blocked me here on X under patently false pretences.
It is crucial that at this moment in time, when we are now belatedly being met with a cacophony of anti-2030 choruses from various quarters, we separate the genuine & credible ones from the dubious ones.
Indeed voices such as those of Hopewell, Mwonzora, Hwende, Ncube, Biti & others can only be hoisted by their own petards!
Their reputations precede them. They have to be treated with circumspection as, whether through commission or omission, deliberate, innocent, reckless or fortuitous, they played a part in getting us here!
They played an unforgivable part in thrusting Tshabangu onto the political scene in furtherance of ED’s choregraphed behind the scenes political schemes via harbouring or legitimising him or giving him a voice or amplifying his claim to a fraudulent position while rendering democracy a farce.
In any case, should I be wrong, and the conduct of the above characters is down to epic political ineptitude – then it follows that the scale of the ineptitude is such as to render them estopped from being taken seriously in the current charge to stop ED from his shameless tilt at life presidency!
Just pause for a second and think of the impact Hopewell would have made had he invested the same energy he put into attacking CCC & Chamisa in August 2023 & directed that against ED in the immediate aftermath of the stolen election & Nevers Mumba’s @SADC_News SEOM Report!
*Brighton Mutebuka is a Zimbabwean lawyer and political analyst based in the UK.
