Tshabangu threatens more CCC Parly recalls

Harare (New Ziana) – Controversial interim secretary general of the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party, Sengezo Tshabangu on Thursday threatened more recalls of the party’s legislators if they skipped parliament beyond the six sittings they were barred from the legislature.

Almost all CCC members of parliament were this week censured from attending the next six parliamentary sittings after they caused commotion in the legislature on Tuesday when they tried to block the recall, and subsequent ejection, of some of them from the august house.

Tshabangu had earlier written to parliament notifying it of the party’s recall of fifteen CCC MPs from the lower house of parliament, and nine from the senate, a decision both houses of parliament effected on Tuesday.

It was in trying to enforce the recalls that almost all CCC MPs tried to block parliament from doing so, thereby causing commotion resulting in the intervention of riot police to restore order and eject the resisting legislators.

In reprisal for causing the fracas, lower house Speaker, Jacob Mudenda barred all the rowdy CCC MPs from parliament for the next six sittings, and also ordered forfeiture of their salaries for two months.

On Wednesday, CCC leader Nelson Chamisa came out in support of both the recalled, and censured MPs, and ordered all party office holders, including in local government councils, to disengage from their work for the next two weeks in protest.

Reacting to this, and other moves being considered in the party for prolonged disengagement, Tshabangu threatened on Thursday that any CCC legislator who will withdraw from parliament beyond Mudenda’s six sitting censure will be recalled.

He said all earlier recalls were of MPs who had been fraudulently foisted on the party’s election ticket in the primary selection process ahead of the general election in August, and was done to restore true democracy in the CCC, and justice to its electorate.

“According to the Parliament Hansard, CCC members of the National Assembly were as a matter of fact and law suspended for six (6) sittings with immediate effect, which equates to two weeks of sittings. Once this suspension has been served, all CCC members of the National Assembly as well as Members of the Senate, must attend all parliamentary programmes, activities and sittings without fail, save in circumstances seeking or requiring verifiable medical attention or compassionate leave. Members of the Senate should continue to attend all parliamentary programmes, activities and sittings without fail,” he said.

“Any CCC member of the National Assembly or CCC senator who does not comply with the foregoing will be recalled without further ado and redeployed from Parliament or their local authority,” Tshabangu warned.

He said the party was in the middle of self-cleansing after a pre-election selection process for candidates which was riddled with brazen corruption, resulting in the disenfranchisement of the electorate.

The recall of the fifteen lower house legislators, and nine from the senate, marked the beginning of the self-cleansing process, he said, but denied Chamisa was also in the eye of the brewing storm as reports on social media suggested.

“The nomination process for the 2023 harmonised general election was turned into a circus as party officials ran roughshod over the will of the people. In some cases, candidates nominated by citizens were disqualified by dubious vetoes that had no legitimate basis at all, besides the pursuit of nefarious personal agendas,” Tshabangu noted.

“In Bulawayo, for example, total strangers from other parts of the country were imported to replace local candidates selected by the local community. In a nutshell, our internal electoral processes became a corrupt and blashphemous insult and brazen act of disenfranchisement.

“It is against this background of a rigged internal electoral process that I, as a bone fide secretary general,after nationwide consultation with the citizenry and our structures as they existed in January 2022, as they still are, decided to bite the bullet to stand up for justice and truth and to recall those MPs who are a product of a fraudulent and corrupt internal electoral process that is inconsistent with and contrary to our constitutional ethos and founding as a political party,” he said.

“It is unacceptable that we present ourselves to the Zimbabwean body politic and the outside world as doyens of democracy while practicing naked fascism in pursuit of personal ambitions. The recalls are redemptive, as they seek to reaffirm and entrench a democratic culture where dystopia had developed and was gathering alarming momentum. As a political party based on constitutionalism, we must walk the talk if we are to institutionalise constitutional democracy in our beautiful motherland, Zimbabwe.”

While not naming anyone, Tshabangu’s remarks appear to be camouflaged rebuke of Chamisa, who has staunchly refused to create leadership and administrative structures in the party and was accused of single-handedly selecting and imposing CCC candidates in the last election.

New Ziana