This week X (formerly Twitter) was abuzz with a spirited debate over the way forward for the opposition movement in Zimbabwe.
United States-based veteran activist Freeman Chari, who is also a Biomedical Scientist and Software Engineer, torched off a storm when he launched into an analysis of what he felt were the shortcomings of opposition leader Nelson Chamisa and his CCC party at the time.
Shortly after Chari launched his no-holds barred critique, UK based lawyer Brighton Mutebuka also gave a detailed response.
We publish both their contributions separately. We have put together a collection of Chari’s tweets on the topic in order of the dates he posted (oldest first).
By Freeman Chari
Let me be clear. I represent nobody except myself. Anything I say is my opinion and my experience. I don’t support individuals. I support ideas. I bring my own and I evaluate them against others.
At this point I have different ideas about Zimbabwe from all other political players. I will be exploring my ideas with like minded folks. Hope that helps.
The biggest problem in the pro-democracy movement is that we have so many corrupt people in there. Anyone exposing those people is quickly shut down hanzi you give ZANU PF ammunition.
If you call them out privately they don’t stop. It did not start now. In the early 2000s there was a scholarship program in MDC for persecuted activists, soon it became a family affair.
We have seen many of such initiatives, finances etc just being mishandled. We end up being quiet because of the law of unintended consequences but it doesn’t stop.
It then goes into councils and the same unscrupulous characters carry the same behaviour into office. We defend them but they don’t stop.
Transparency and accountability shouldn’t be expected from ZANU PF only. There can never be an alternative with these folks.😭
A party must be structured for maximal efficiency. There must be a clear distinction between the party and those elected to be MP, senators or councillors. Once elected you can’t hold other positions in the party. That way the party continues to function in people’s absence.
A political party should be structured to run like a company. Those who take top leadership positions must be paid so they work 24/7 for the interests of the party. People with split interests tend to have split loyalty to a party.
I don’t think practising lawyers should be anywhere near the pro-democratic movement leadership.
If your job aides the oppression of people and you can’t recuse yourself then you aren’t fit to lead. It’s the same as having a soldier in leadership, one moment with you, next shooting you.
Many years ago I used to write a lot about what needs to be done. Unfortunately the first reaction by those who should do is usually “That cannot be done in Zim!”
In 2016, I decided to just do so that folks can see it can be done. Unfortunately, once you do, they want you to continue doing. When there is a proof of concept, it is upon others to scale☹️
I had never worked directly with Prof Welshman Ncube until 72hrs before the 2023 elections. He was not well but he said “I am going to call all the candidates from all the 3 Matabeleland provinces tomorrow then you distribute the agents money”
He did that and we got all results from all polling stations in Matabeleland.
No one in Mashonaland/Masvingo or Manicaland did this. We tried so many of the CCC leadership in those areas but most of them said they were busy with other things.
So, in as much as you want me to bluetooth your hatred for him, I won’t because when we needed him, he delivered.
What happened after elections is another story!
The problem is that there is no introspection. Nobody stops to ask, what did we do wrong, what could have been done better, what needs to be changed. In the end you have people doing the same things they did in 2013, 2018, 2023.
Politics must be incremental, you build on top of what has already been built… unfortunately, on one hand you have folks that say ngazvife titange kuti zero, on the other you have those who say if not built by me it doesn’t work.
In the end every year we are at foundation level, with the same sand, same stones, same builders and same plan…. yet the environment keeps changing
I wasn’t gonna address this seeing it is moot, but it is important that I do and it is my last comment on this.
When CCC was formed in my conversations with NC (Nelson Chamisa) 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 and 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 people 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 and candidate selection.
We all know “Bereka Mwana” was stupid, but these comrades who supported it before they were outwitted/ousted should 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 could 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 Brighton Mutebuka 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😊
Chari on MANDLA
Let me say it one last time. Mandla was Thabani Mpofu and Pachedu’s idea which was mooted maybe a month or so before election. I was never involved. I told them what they wanted to achieve takes yrs of planning.
Whatever they built was never used. What you call Mandla was work that a separate team called CredibleVote worked hard for 2 years.
That team built the WhatsApps bot where you checked who to vote for after maisirwa madouble candidates. Guess what about 500 000 voters used it. Our data shows CCC wld have lost 13 seats in Harare if we had not intervened.
CredibleVote is the one that built the parallel tabulation system with multiple Starlink supported centers, satellite rovers and meshtastic nodes. It’s the one that managed to tabulate results from 10400 or so Polling Stations. The results we published in August.
CredibleVote is also the one that built the donation platform yataiti CitizenAgent which Mazizi used to donate for polling agents.
We raised $109k which we had to distribute in 48hrs before elections because we had waited for CCC to use their structures to do it but it was all chaotic.
The people we call CredibleVote were a small team of developers, GIS experts, climbers, roving agents, data entry people. Most of them were unpaid volunteers. They are here on X.
So, when you look back… Our role was not to replace CCC. We knew politicians are good at talking but not execution so we were there to plug holes that we had seen in 2018. We just wanted to avoid kuzoti “Dai makadai”. We did what we could but it wasn’t enough to remove ZANU PF.
Freeman Chari is a United States based veteran activist, Biomedical Scientist and Software Engineer
