The politics of re-entry: Chamisa, opposition orphans, and the convenience of collapse

Nelson Chamisa’s re-entry into Zimbabwean politics comes not with the thunder of mobilisation nor the humility of consultation but with the quiet certainty of a man convinced that history has been waiting for him to return.

Yet history, unlike memory, is rarely sentimental. It is forensic. And, when examined closely, the timing and manner of this return raise more questions than they answer.

Chamisa insists that he has stepped back onto the political stage because no one else rose to occupy it in his absence. This assertion is not merely inaccurate; it is politically revealing.

It reframes a period of opposition struggle, confusion, and sacrifice as a vacuum, thereby absolving the absent leader of responsibility for the consequences of his departure. In doing so, it turns political withdrawal into moral superiority and political return into benevolence.

But the conditions that prompted Chamisa’s exit have not disappeared. The weaponisation of parliamentary processes, the institutional capture of opposition structures, and the state’s tolerance—if not orchestration—of political impostors remain firmly in place.

The Sengezo Tshabangu episode was not an aberration; it was a rehearsal. To return without first addressing how such vulnerabilities will be prevented is to invite repetition while pretending to offer renewal.

What has changed, however, is the ruling party.

ZANU-PF is visibly consuming itself. Factional battles, succession anxieties, and internal purges have reduced what was once a disciplined political machine into a public spectacle of attrition.

The party is not collapsing, but it is distracted, wounded, and internally preoccupied. In Zimbabwean politics, such moments are rare—and they are never accidental backdrops.

Chamisa’s return must therefore be read not as coincidence but as calculation.

This raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: Is Chamisa returning to confront power or to manage its transition? In other words, is he an opposition leader—or a stabilisation project?

Zimbabwe has a long history of “safe opposition”: actors tolerated, even subtly facilitated, because they absorb public anger without fundamentally threatening the system.

Such projects are not always conscious collaborations; sometimes, they are simply predictable personalities whose behaviour reassures power that nothing truly disruptive will occur.

The insistence on personalised leadership, the avoidance of institutional reform, and the preference for symbolism over structure all make opposition easier to manage.

Chamisa’s mode of return—solitary, media-centred, heavy on metaphor and light on programme—fits uncomfortably well into this tradition.

There was no national consultative process, no broad coalition-building effort, and no admission of past strategic failures. Instead, there was an announcement. One man. One voice. One narrative.

This is not how movements are rebuilt. It is how brands are relaunched.

Equally troubling is the implicit contempt embedded in the idea that Zimbabweans were waiting idly for Chamisa’s return. Millions endured repression, economic collapse, and political uncertainty without the comfort of symbolic leadership.

Others attempted—often against impossible odds—to organise alternative platforms. To dismiss these efforts as irrelevant is to mistake visibility for value and loyalty for ownership.

If Chamisa is indeed returning because ZANU-PF is vulnerable, then the public deserves honesty. If he believes the ruling party’s internal decay presents a genuine opening for democratic renewal, then he must articulate a strategy commensurate with that moment.

But if the return is merely an attempt to position himself as the inevitable alternative when the dust settles, then Zimbabweans are right to be sceptical.

The question, therefore, is not whether Chamisa has the right to return to politics. He does.

The question is whether his return represents political courage or political convenience; whether it challenges the system or comforts it; whether it empowers citizens or recentres personality.

In times of national crisis, Zimbabwe does not need messianic returns. It needs institutional imagination, collective leadership, and uncomfortable honesty.

A leader who returns without reckoning risks becoming not the answer to Zimbabwe’s political paralysis, but part of its careful management.

If Nelson Chamisa is not a project, then his next steps must prove it. If he is, history will record this return not as a moment of hope but as a well-timed intervention in the service of continuity masquerading as change.

Zimbabweans, long accustomed to political theatre, will know the difference.

Dr Sibangilizwe Moyo writes on Church & Governance, politics, legal and social issues. He can be reached at [email protected]