CAB3 debate Day One: The weapons of the weak told a bigger story

Dear Reader,

Before listening to the parliamentary debate on Constitutional Amendment Bill Number 3 (CAB3), I expected the defining moments from some of the anti-CAB3 Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) MPs to come from the big speeches.

I expected powerful constitutional arguments, sweeping visions of the Republic, and dramatic exchanges over presidential terms, elections and the future of the Constitution.

Some of that happened.

However, by the time the debate was adjourned yesterday on Day One, I found myself drawn not to the grand speeches but to the smaller moments.

Reader, again and again, the debate drifted away from constitutional clauses towards who gets to speak, who gets heard, and who gets to claim they are speaking on behalf of others.

As I listened, I was reminded of James Scott’s idea of “weapons of the weak”. Scott argued that where people occupy less powerful positions, they often resort to subtler forms of resistance and contestation. CCC MPs mirrored this yesterday as they confronted political realities.

They resorted to points of order, interruptions, humour, ridicule, silence and refusal to remain silent, memory, and public signalling outside the Speaker’s preferred list.

Through these tactics, they challenged procedures, exposed contradictions and placed uncomfortable facts on the record.

In many ways, the most revealing story of the CAB3 debate on Day One was not what MPs said about the Constitution. The political odds were stacked against them. As a result, several interventions focused less on winning the argument and more on exposing the rotten process.

That is what made some of the smaller exchanges fascinating.

One of the most telling moments came not during a constitutional clause argument but during a dispute over who was being allowed to speak. Hon. Blessing Ropafadzo Makumire challenged the list being used to allocate speaking opportunities.

The response from the Chair was simple: “Talk to your Chief Whip.” Makumire persisted, arguing that the list was not available on their platform and that members were struggling to understand how speaking opportunities were being allocated.

Attention suddenly shifted to participation in the debate itself.

Reader, the Speaker then accidentally confirmed Makumire’s complaint. After the exchanges, the Speaker said: “I respect the list given to me by the Whips…” Ironically, this became a revealing moment about the controversial lists.

Humour also emerged as a political weapon during the ‘Ga-Ga-Ga’ moment [Fast-Fast-Fast]. During Hon. Matema’s speech, Hon A Gumbo rose on a point of order and complained that the member appeared more occupied with his phone than with the debate itself.

“The Hon. Member cannot debate while he is on WhatsApp. We keep seeing him scrolling his phone and debating.”

He persisted, adding, “He keeps on scrolling his phone; we have seen it from the screen and he must just ga-ga-ga.”

The House erupted.

Hon. Wellington Chikombo joined the fun, suggesting that perhaps the member had been “hacked”. Even the Speaker could not resist the joke, eventually ruling, “I will allow Hon. Matema to proceed and say ga-ga-ga ga.”

On the surface, it was simply a comic interruption. However, humour often performs an important political function. It punctures authority, invites ridicule and momentarily shifts attention from the substance of a speech to the credibility of the speaker.

In a debate where the numbers appeared stacked in one direction, laughter became one of the few tools available to challenge, embarrass and diminish an opponent without ever being officially nominated to debate the actual clauses.

Another revealing exchange emerged after Hon. Mutseyami and Hon Edwin Mushoriwa complained that the new Parliament lacked the green, amber and red timing lights that existed in the old chamber.

The Acting Speaker responded jokingly: “I think with seven-year extensions, some of these things will be fulfilled.”

Perhaps it was intended as a joke. Fortunately, Fortune Daniel Molokele was paying attention. He immediately challenged the Chair’s neutrality. How, he asked, could a presiding officer joke about seven-year extensions while presiding over a debate on a Bill proposing seven-year extensions?

Now, Dear Reader, Molokela was unlikely to stop the proceedings. The effect was to place on record, publicly and officially, that questions of neutrality existed.

Then came four words that probably carried more political history than four hours of debate.

Hon. Thomas Muwodzeri’s “Tatokanganwa vaMudede?” [Have we forgotten Mudede?]

Mudede was the Registrar General from 1985 to 2018, infamous for manipulating the voters’ roll in favour of ZANU PF. Every Zimbabwean who understands the country’s electoral history immediately knew what was being said in those four words. One sentence doing the work of ten pages.

Another revealing moment came when Hon. Ngwenya argued that speaking opportunities should reflect ZANU PF’s overwhelming numerical superiority in the House. Eng. Hon Leslie Mhangwa responded with a mathematical ambush.

“We can bring this House to disrepute for not being able to calculate Maths correctly,” he said, before explaining that “two out of three means two thirds is yours, one third is ours.”

On the surface, the exchange was about arithmetic. In reality, it was a question of power. Mhangwa was not disputing the majority’s dominance. He was asking why a two-thirds majority was still seeking more than its two-thirds share.

In doing so, he transformed a technical discussion about speaking allocations into a political question about fairness.

Another curious moment came when Hon. Makumire interrupted Hon. Mapiki.

“I am requesting that Hon. Mapiki speak on his behalf,” he said. “There are other people there who want it. We do not want it.”

At first glance, the intervention appeared unusual. Yet it touched on a recurring issue throughout the debate: who has the authority to speak for whom?

CAB3 generated repeated claims about what “the people” want, what Parliament wants and what Zimbabweans want. Makumire’s intervention pushed in the opposite direction. Speak for yourself, he seemed to be saying, but do not presume to speak for the rest of us.

So, when some anti-CAB3 CCC MPs confronted the reality that they would not be allowed to dominate debate on the actual clauses or win the argument on numbers, they did not simply go home.

Instead, they turned to smaller acts of resistance, exposure, irony, procedural disruption…point of order…, humour and symbolic challenge. In doing so, they partially exposed the authoritarian character and institutional rot embedded in the process itself.