BULAWAYO – Professor Welshman Ncube has seemingly confirmed earlier suspicions that he is working with Sengezo Tshabangu when he refused to comment on the current problems bedevilling the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party, insisting that he had no authority to do so.
CCC is in chaos after August’s election defeat, and the Zanu PF and court-assisted recalls of its elected representatives by Sengezo Tshabangu, who imposed himself as interim secretary general taking advantage of a lack of defined roles in the opposition party.
In the wake of Tshabangu’s recalls of over two dozen MPs and senators and over 60 councillors, the CCC has introduced to the public a structure called the Citizens National Assembly (CNA), as well as releasing a truncated constitution.
Developments in the party have roiled activists who are demanding that party leader Nelson Chamisa’s former deputies in the MDC Alliance, which was abandoned to form the CCC in January 2022, must speak up and condemn Tshabangu.
Ncube and Tendai Biti have conspicuously been absent from the party’s major political gatherings since the elections and Ncube has now confirmed that they have been sidelined.
When CCC supporter Chris Chidarikire confronted him on X over why he hadn’t attended “any CNA recently,” Ncube fired back: “Am I a member of CNA? If so, how did I become a member?”
When Chidarikire revised his question to ask if the former industry minister was “in the leadership” of the CCC, Ncube appeared to suggest that he should be, but he was not because the party had unconstitutionally abandoned its structure under which he and Biti were Chamisa’s deputies.
“As of January 22, 2022, I was vice president of MDC Alliance which on that date by resolution of its National Council resolved to reconstitute itself as CCC and participate in the March 2022 by-elections under that name. At that meeting, the National Council didn’t resolve to dissolve itself,” Ncube said.
He was equally rasping when challenged to condemn Tshabangu.
“When Thokozani Khupe and Douglas Mwonzora started recalling MDC Alliance MPs and councillors did I not, in my capacity as vice president of MDC Alliance come out guns blazing right up to the end?… In what capacity do you want me to insert myself now?”
Chamisa is accused of concentrating power in himself and collapsing the structures he had in MDC Alliance, leading to a fallout with some of the founders of the opposition movement including Biti and Ncube.
He maintains that the CCC is a new party and it will elect a leadership structure sometime in the future, a posture which his critics say is a dent on his democratic credentials.
These critics say this leadership vacuum is what birthed the Tshabangu debacle after the former MDC-T Matabeleland North chairman imposed himself as CCC interim secretary general and began writing letters to parliament and the local government minister recalling MPs, senators and councillors claiming they ceased to be members of the party. The CCC is appealing those recalls.
