We’re not going to remove Chamisa, says team Tshabangu

One of the members of the self-imposed opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) interim steering committee, which tasked activist Sengezo Tshabangu to spearhead shock recalls of MPs, senators and councillors, Mbuso Siso says his group has no intention to remove party leader Nelson Chamisa, but to correct “many wrongs” within the movement.

He says recalls have ended and were never intended to trigger a sweeping wave of removals of legitimately elected people’s representatives, but to boot out imposed MPs, senators and councillors who don’t come from local communities, hence do not represent the legitimate interests of the people.

Mbuso says the group behind the recalls is not working in collaboration with Zanu PF because “this is an internal matter” and the “ruling party is a national problem for all of us”.

The underlying motivation of the recalls, Mbuso says, was to deal internal impositions of candidates in Bulawayo, but the plan has now been hijacked by some Harare political actors, including those loyal to senior party member Tendai Biti and Zanu PF.

Biti has denied association with Tshabangu and the recalls.

Siso says all recalls in Harare were done by activists loyal to Biti and not by Tshabangu. He says some Zanu PF elements have also joined the fray.

In a wide-ranging interview with The NewsHawks, Siso says: “The plan from the beginning was to recall imposed MPs and other representatives who do not originally come from Bulawayo communities.

“Local people, those who come particular localities concerned, should represent local communities.

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s in Bulawayo, Harare, Masvingo, Mutare, Gweru, Kwekwe or Chinhoyi.

“The principle is that local politics requires local people to lead because they know local issues, the people’s history, grievances, interests, their problems and potential solutions,” he says.

“When you bring people from elsewhere who don’t know the local history, culture and issues, they can’t be useful representatives of the people.

Local politics is about local issues in a national context.”

Siso adds: “That’s our motivation, but the process has been hijacked in Harare by Biti’s people and some Zanu PF elements. It’s no longer what we intended at the start, but there are internal CCC issues which we still need to resolve.

“We will keep pushing for those issues to be addressed. We have told Chamisa about them before repeatedly, but they were not deal with. We have no intention of removing Chamisa at all, but we want to help him stamp out the problem of impositions.

“We are not working with Zanu PF, but if others are now doing that they are doing it in their own individual capacities, not our interim steering committee.

“We want a strong opposition to fight for change, not a party of friends and their supporters with imposed candidates.”

Newshawks