Parliament is a site of the struggle. Anywhere in the world, Parliament is a theatre of prudent representation and the robust articulation of the citizens’ issues by their presumed ambassadors.
Sadly, our Parliament has now been effectively captured. Indeed, the Zimbabwe Parliament, a key arm of the State, has become a huge crime scene where cheap political souls are transacting themselves for trinkets and trappings, an agenda far removed from the sacred interests of the ordinary citizens they supposedly represent.
Last Sunday’s Precabe trip of shame by MPs is a case in point. The Precabe disgrace showcased just how most MPs across the spectrum have become political harlots, betraying the citizens’ cause by stripping off their values in the red light district called Zimbabwe’s Parliament, which our august house has become.
Indeed, apart from Sengezo Tshabangu’s sponsored shenanigans in that House, our Parliament has in every respect become a red-light district where cheap and loose souls are openly peddling themselves for a political quickie without any value-protection!
Most of the MPs and councillors from the so-called democratic contingent, particularly the CCC as it currently stands in its various manifestations, are of loose political morals as they unstintingly pursue self-aggrandizement at the expense of the interests of the citizens they are supposed to represent!
For them, it is all about fuel coupons, workshops, trips, housing loans and vehicles; never about robust oversight and sculpting prudent legislation that uplifts the lives of the citizens.
In fact, judging from what I have read in the Hansard, one can tell there is serious undersight (not oversight) of the Executive by Parliament as currently constituted. I know the MPs in the current Parliament will disagree with me. But then the facts speak for themselves. .
For me, all these self-serving MPs and councillors were not supposed to agree to be sworn into office in the first place in 2023. . Zimbabwe held a harmonised election two years ago in August which was deemed illegitimate by all credible observer missions, including the SADC observer mission.
If the harmonised election of 2023 was illegitimate as confirmed by the observers, then it meant the illegitimacy too was harmonised in respect of the triumvirate of the Presidential, parliamentary and local government elections.
We cannot say we only had an illegitimate Presidential election but the parliamentary and council elections were legitimate, yet the election was harmonised, which should mean the illegitimacy too was harmonised since it was one election.
For some of us, the only prudent route to have taken was for the over 100 CCC MPs and over 500 councillors to refuse to be sworn in on the objective grounds that the election was illegitimate, which would have led to a Constitutional crisis.
Remember Zanu PF by that time did not even have the two-thirds majority in Parliament that it now has courtesy of Tshabangu.
That is why I agree with the colleagues who chose to walk out of that tainted Parliament.
The pain of the democratic struggle lies in that the ordinary citizen is the biggest loser as these so-called people’s representatives peddle their bodies and souls for 30 pieces of silver as we saw at Mnangagwa’s farm last week. .
We know that even those who did not go to Precabe last Sunday are deep down in their hearts self-servingly wishing for a Mnangagwa term-extension so that their terms are extended as well.
Leading the way at Precabe in chanting the “ED 2030” mantra were one Sengezo Tshabangu and Dr Thokozani Khupe.
I have previously written exhaustively about Tshabangu, the hired Zanu PF gun that aided the regime in destroying the opposition. .
Tshabangu has become the latter-day Moise Tshombe, if not the infamous Morrison Nyathi during the Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle. .
But then Tshabangu’s political life story is a tragically fascinating tale of treachery.
In 2005, he was part of the team that had problems with Dr Morgan Tsvangirai and purported to have “recalled” or fired him—all in vain as it turned out. But at some point he later fell out with Professor Welshman Ncube, with whom he had walked out in 2005.
In 2018, now as a member of the Tendai Biti-led PDP, Tshabangu was part of a team that purportedly recalled the party’s President Biti from his position as leader of his party.
He became the organising secretary of a splinter group led by Lucia Matibenga that coalesced under a coalition led by Mujuru in the run-up to the 2018 election.
In 2023, as a surrogate CCC secretary-general planted by the regime, Tshabangu recalled elected MPs and also later purported to have recalled Nelson Chamisa, then the party leader.
Dear reader, kindly take note that Sengezo Tshabangu has been involved in three, if not four, purported recalls of party Presidents. His betrayal and his treacherous credentials are therefore impeccable.
With such an impeccable sell-out background, it was therefore no surprise that as a purchased surrogate, Tshabangu would lead the “ED 2030” chorus as he did in Kwekwe last week.
In fact, the whole contingent that went for the Precabe trip of shame are all shamelessly Zanu PF.
I am reliably told that all the MPs who went to Precabe will each receive a GD6 as payment in this dastardly crusade which comes as Mnangagwa pulls out all the stops to extend his term, notwithstanding his blatant lie that he is a constitutionalist.
Khupe was also there and added her own supportive lyrics to the “ED 2030” hymn.
Before I proceed with Khupe’s treacherous credentials, I wish to add that there have been many other sell-out characters along the way, including one Douglas Mwonzora as well as the local government “opposition” contingent led by Harare mayor Jacob Mafume that sought accommodation with the regime by attending Zanu PF’s ideology school.
Indeed, the democratic struggle has been painfully betrayed!
I saw on the shameful list of the Precabe attendees the name of my erstwhile friend Kudakwashe Matibiri who I understand is now a Senator at the behest of the Tshabangu sell-out faction.
I also saw on the same list of shame the name of one Maggie Ngwena, a Mash East CCC Proportional Representation MP with whom I traversed the entire Goromonzi district in 2022 and 2023 as part of the CCC Goromonzi district’s Mugwazo programme cluster leaders.
I hear some of these sell-outs are disputing the circulating Precabe attendance list, insisting that they never attended. But then that is exactly what happens with a witches’ party. No one will ever confirm they attended, even if you show them photographic evidence!
For me, those who directly joined Zanu PF such as the late Lillian Timveos, Obert Gutu, James Makore, Wallace Chibikira, Blessing Chebundo and others are far much better than the dangerous moles that remained behind pretending to be genuine opposition cadres.
At least those ones that joined Zanu PF were very clear on where they stood.
The biggest danger lies in those that remained to sell-out from within—-the sell-ins some of who were exposed at Precabe last Sunday.
Of course, a lot more are still to be exposed.
The most painful news is that Dr Thokozani Khupe, a decorated charlatan and one of the lead choristers of the “ED 2023” mantra at Precabe farm last Sunday remains a bona fide Member of Parliament, now with the protection of the “system.”
And what pains some of us is that Dr Khupe was not even part of the renegade group of MPs foisted by Tshabangu after he recalled those elected by the citizens in 2023. If she were a Tshabangu appointee into Parliament, then her bootlicking behaviour in Kwekwe last week would have been understandable.
The most painful fact is that notwithstanding her decorated treacherous credentials over the years, including her betrayal of Dr Tsvangirai, for which some of us fought her tenaciously, Khupe was placed on the party’s Parliamentary PR list by the then united CCC leadership.
Of all the credible people in Bulawayo that were available for placement, the leadership, and not the citizens, saw it prudent to deploy charlatan Khupe to parliament on the party’s PR list.
And this was done at the expense of the many known genuine cadres in Bulawayo who had stayed the course and had consistently and unwaveringly retained their fidelity to the cause over the years.
It is my humble submission that it is also part of leadership for those concerned to also responsibility for that we saw Khupe doing in Kwekwe last Sunday.
Khupe was not even part of the Bereka Mwana process, which some of the consistently loyal cadres in Bulawayo participated in but was placed into Parliament through a special super highway.
Probably as part of the big heart politics of accommodation and in spite of her overwhelmingly treacherous credentials, Dr Khupe was even spared the sweat of Bereka Mwana and placed on the party list ahead of consistent, citizen-centric cadres.
But then that has been the painful story of the democratic struggle.
Indeed, the democratic struggle has in many ways been a painful and sordidly chequered tale of lavishing and pampering celebrated turncoats and milk-nosed greenhorns at the expense of the true hewers of wood and drawers of water who have strenuously and consistently slugged it out in the trenches over the years.
The failure to root out known charlatans such as Khupe has also been an integral part of the painful failures of the democratic struggle.
Today, the consistently loyal cadres from Bulawayo who could have served the citizens better in Parliament are peripherally wallowing in the political sanitary lane, watching helplessly from the sidelines as Khupe leads Mnangagwa’s praise and worship team, purportedly on their behalf.
One does not even need Google to remember that Khupe was a member of POLAD and has been to Precabe farm before. There is even an iconic photograph of her alongside Mnangagwa throwing food at the Zanu PF despot’s fish at the same farm.
She abandoned both the MDC and the MDC Alliance outfits that ZANU PF had given her and only surreptitiously joined the CCC after Mwonzora took over her place as party leader and became the new recipient of Mnangagwa’s largesse.
Khupe, who the CCC leadership later surprisingly placed on the party’s PR list, is the same Khupe who in 2018 said the elections had been legitimate and publicly urged Chamisa to gracefully accept the result.
In fact, on 31 October 2018, Newsday had a spangled banner billboard titled “Khupe calls on Chamisa to acknowledge Mnangagwa.”
Today, after being deployed by the same party’s top hierarchy that she had lampooned at the expense of non-sell-outs, Khupe is singing in Mnangagwa’s corner.
One wonders how the same leaders she had lampooned would trust her so as to deploy her to such a critical site of the struggle at the expense of deserving cadres and in spite of her celebrated treachery.
Well, that is the painful story of the struggle that charlatans are trusted more. In Khupe’s case, it is very painful especially to those that remained unwaveringly loyal to the cause.
Perhaps the leadership is too kind to charlatans who are now abusing their favouredly deployed space to sing the dictator’s praises and to call for the unconstitutional extension of ED’s term.
Dr Khupe’s reasons for joining the CCC, whose principles she has expectedly betrayed by publicly singing ED’s praise, were never genuine.
But the painful part is that in its wisdom or lack thereof, the CCC party leadership in 2023 placed Khupe on the party list ahead of citizen-centric and consistent leaders who have braved it out over the years and who do not have in them any inkling of selling out.
I am talking here of dignified and respectable characters from Bulawayo, men and women of high probity and high integrity whose deportment is in sharp contrast to Dr Khupe’s impeccably treacherous record. .
This is the same Dr Khupe who boycotted the late President Tsvangirai’s meetings for over a year and only turned up at his funeral, where she was harassed by party members.
Her gripe was initially with the fact that Dr Tsvangirai had signed Alliance agreements with the leaders of other political parties whom she felt were coming in as de facto Deputy Presidents, in the process undermining her authority. . She was to later deepen her gripe when Dr Tsvangirai appointed two more Vice Presidents.
So for over a year, Khupe boycotted party meetings chaired by Dr Tsvangirai and only turned up at her boss’ funeral in Buhera, probably for the rich picking of the party’s highest office.
And party members took great exception to that and probably went overboard in their reaction to what they felt was indecorous behaviour by an underling to her boss.
The deployment of people to a crucial site of the struggle such as Parliament ought to be very serious business. But surprisingly, even with such a perfidious record that should have disqualified her from the outset, the then party leadership sent Khupe to Parliament where she is now showing us just where she has always truly belonged.
The bigger scandal is that this regime has put in place a systematic, deliberate, well-oiled and well-moneyed plot to decimate the democratic alternative. Many across the spectrum of the democratic alternative have been bought and the democratic contingent today stands heavily infiltrated and monumentally compromised.
Many have fallen for the regime’s trinkets. I know this and I can say it with confidence because I personally turned down these trappings and trinkets. As I have publicly said before, some of us are not purchasable.
We are not buyable. We are genuine in our quest for democratic change and in our pursuit of peace, stability and development in the country of our birth.
In the fullness of time, we shall tell the full story of how the regime tried in vain to compromise some of us.
We also know, and there is credible evidence available, that many were bought, especially at the last election.
Some parliamentary seats were sold by treacherous and tainted characters with a sell-out background but who somehow found themselves on the party list without due diligence and without even a cursory background check.
Some were given cash and had houses built for them to accede to the regime’s ploy to tamper with the results.
That is the painful story of our democratic struggle.
But the rest of us ordinary Zimbabweans are in this struggle for the long haul. And what is certain is that change in Zimbabwe can only be delayed but not denied.
Change is the only constant.
Given the infiltration and the money that has been thrown around to compromise and infiltrate the opposition, it stands true and correct that the democratic alternative needs to be soberly re-imagined and re-sculpted.
But that cannot be done without a deep reflection and a subterranean introspection, nay a thorough re-analysis of both the democratic struggle itself and the murderous regime confronting us—–a brutal regime prepared to sacrifice the country’s resources to pay anything and anyone in its way for the sole purpose of making Mnangagwa a life President.
Parliament remains a site of the struggle but in our case it has been entirely captured and has become a major crime scene.
As we re-imagine a new, truly democratic alternative, perhaps this is also the time to be brutally honest and ferociously unkind with ourselves on how, where, and when exactly the rains began to beat us!
But then despite all these hurdles, what we know for certain is that a New Zimbabwe is definitely possible well within our lifetime.
Luke Tamborinyoka is a citizen from Domboshava. He is by profession a journalist and a political scientist. You can interact with him via his facebook page or via his X handle @luke_tambo.
