Veteran opposition politician David Coltart has warned that the rise of Sengezo Tshabangu to become the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament will damage the country’s standing abroad and make Zimbabweans “the laughingstock of the world”.
Tshabangu, an obscure opposition activist, wrote to Parliament and the Ministry of Local Government in October 2023, recalling several CCC MPs and Councillors.
Surprisingly, both Parliament and the Minister acted upon Tshabangu’s letters, even though he had neither held a CCC office nor been a candidate in the 2023 general elections.
Subsequently, Tshabangu recalled dozens of additional CCC councillors and MPs, with the courts endorsing his actions, effectively establishing him as the de facto leader of the opposition party.
This week, Tshabangu changed the party’s leadership in Parliament and also appointed himself Leader of The Opposition.
This came after Parliament rescinded the appointments that were made by Jameson Timba in February this year.
Posting on X, Coltart who is also the mayor of Bulawayo (CCC), Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, said Tshabangu does not have the mandate of the opposition to be its leader in Parliament. Below is Coltart’s post in full:
I am appalled by the statement made by the Speaker of Parliament yesterday that Mr Tshabangu has been recognised as the leader of the Opposition in Parliament. In my view, this act is contemptuous of Parliament itself.
At their core, all Parliaments throughout the world are meant to be representative institutions. They have been established to give the public a voice.
The whole purpose of elections is to ensure that elected MPs can enunciate the concerns and issues of those who elected them.
This is the very essence of representative democracy. It follows that the leader of the Opposition must be a person who clearly represents the interests of citizens who oppose the government of the day and who has been clearly chosen by them, either directly or indirectly, to lead them in Parliament.
In the case of Mr Tshabangu, it is clear that he only represents his own interests and at most a tiny cabal of people around him.
The facts are stark. He has never held any high office in the MDC, or any of its successors, since it was established in September 1999.
At the May 2019 MDC A Congress in Gweru, he was not elected to any office. After the formation of the CCC, he was not elected or appointed to any office. In the August 2024 general election, he was not elected to any ward or constituency.
The facts show that after the general election last year, he purported to appoint himself as SG of the CCC, and subsequently to nominate himself as a PR Senator.
He has now appointed himself as Leader of the Opposition in Parliament. Once again there is no evidence that this has been sanctioned by anybody other than himself.
The fact that Courts in judgments of exceptionally dubious and flawed jurisprudential reasoning have supported him in this illegal conduct does not rectify the fact that he does not represent anyone.
Other than his own say so there is no independent evidence of him being elected or appointed to these offices. In short, he represents no constituency, either directly or indirectly, and has little palpable support amongst the general electorate.
It is simply farcical for him to be presented as the Leader of the Opposition based on his own assertion. The Speaker has done both Parliament and the Nation a disservice by associating himself and Parliament with this narcissistic conduct.
It brings Parliament into contempt in the eyes of democrats and rational people both in Zimbabwe and elsewhere.
In fact, it does immense damage to Zimbabwe’s reputation internationally. Conduct like this simply would not be tolerated anywhere else in the democratic world.
Those who support this conduct need to have some serious introspection about the damage they are doing to “Brand #Zimbabwe”. All this does is make us the laughingstock of the world.
