As the 44th session of the SADC Summit, which Zimbabwe is set to host in August beckons, the world has witnessed increased and frantic activities by the opposition and its hangers-on to wring some relevance and attention ahead of the event.
Many will recall that the SADC Election Observer Mission (SEOM) in its final report on Zimbabwe's 2023 polls unequivocally advised any aggrieved parties to follow the country's Constitution in seeking redress.
The National Charter bids anyone who is not happy with electoral processes and outcomes to approach the courts.
The Government Gazette of June 2, 2023, among other issues, notified the nation of the Chief Justice Luke Malaba's constitution of the Electoral Court for the 2023 Harmonised General Elections by appointing some High Court Judges to the Electoral Court for the period June 1 to 31 December 2023.
Despite all these efforts by the Government to abide by the Constitution, former CCC leader, Nelson Chamisa chose not to approach the courts in preference for grandstanding and playing to the gallery to cover up his deserved electoral loss.
He and his supporters claimed that they spurned the Electoral Court because it was allegedly "captured," a euphemism for their unsubstantiated claim of bias on the part of the Judiciary.
It is therefore interesting that against this background, Chamisa had the cheek to issue a statement on May 27 appealing to SADC to resolve challenges arising out of the August 23, 2023 elections.
SADC clearly spoke using the SEOM Report and advised him to approach Zimbabwean courts for redress given his usual unsubstantiated claims of poll theft.
Chamisa displayed his lack of seriousness by using the statement to accuse SADC, the African Union (AU) and other stakeholders of allegedly sanitising and fertilising the "theft of elections and electoral malpractices by turning a deaf ear and casting a blind eye to matters of gigantic electoral fraud."
The timing of the statement exposes Chamisa's desperation to cover up his poor electoral performance, which was born of his grotesque "strategic ambiguity" election "strategy" in view of the impending SADC Summit.
The hosting of this very important regional event by Zimbabwe is a bold statement which makes Chamisa and ilk very uncomfortable.
All along he and others like Pardon Gambakwe and Ibbotson Mandaza have been telling his supporters and the world that the regional bloc is going to descend on Harare and order the adoption of a transitional mechanism pending fresh elections that he would have better chances of winning.
The hosting of the event by Zimbabwe demonstrates that the regional bloc accepted the outcome of the country's August 23, 2023 polls and is moving on.
The event indicates that the bloc is now tired of the opposition's baseless political tantrums which are calculated to bring the undeserving opposition into power through the transitional arrangement back door.
Even if the event had been hosted by another SADC member other than Zimbabwe, her mere presence at the event would be enough endorsement of the 2023 elections to send Chamisa panicking.
To add salt to Chamisa and company's injury, the major highlight of the regional summit is set to be the handover of the Chairmanship of the regional bloc from Angolan President João Lourenço to President Mnangagwa.
If SADC believed Chamisa's election rigging fable, it would not agree to and oversee the handover of the Chairmanship of the bloc to President Mnangagwa.
Chamisa's case is further weakened by the fact that he failed to prove his claims when the Constitutional Court gave him a chance to do so during his election petition on 24 August 2018.
He worsened his position by spurning SADC's counsel to approach the courts to address his complaints over the 2023 polls. The impending summit exposes the false impression that Chamisa often gives that the bloc is standing on his side and ready to give his power. The event is set to demonstrate that SADC stands on principle and does not cut behind-the-scenes deals with amateur opposition leaders.
In view of all these odds that are ranged against him, Chamisa had to be seen by his followers to be doing something to sustain his blatant lie that SADC would intervene in Zimbabwe's poll to hand him in a silver platter the electoral victory that the Zimbabwean electorate deservedly denied him in the polling booth on August 23 2023.
Despite being in politics for decades now, Chamisa is yet to learn the very basic fact that political power is earned from the electorate and not by pressing regional blocs like SADC.
Elections are won by strategising to win the hearts of the people and not waiting to subject undue pressure to regional blocs after losses which are obvious.
Chamisa is yet to learn that lobbying regional blocs is not an election strategy. It is against the foregoing background that Chamisa now has to issue statements that appeal to and insult SADC to appease his restive blind supporters who are increasingly seeing the light and realising that they were led up a garden path when Chamisa told them that SADC would order fresh polls to scaffold him into power.
Chamisa is desperate for attention and relevance after walking out of the CCC in huge embarrassment after his dictatorial tendencies saw him leading the party astray and losing the election despite his much-vaunted strategic ambiguity.
He could not afford to remain on the sidelines at a time that SADC is set to visit Zimbabwe and crown her President as the new Chairman of the bloc. Chamisa's statement was therefore born of the painful realisation that Zimbabwe and the region are moving forward without him.
It was also driven by the need to do something about his fast waning relevance on the Zimbabwean political landscape.
When Chamisa and his supporters are pushing their "Tongai tione and kudira jecha" politics of sabotage, they often refer to the economy as one area in which they wish ZANU PF to fail. SADC is not blind to the opposition (read the West)'s machinations in this regard.
The leaders of the bloc know that the West knows that ZANU PF's success depends on economic prosperity.
This is the reason why the SADC Secretariat ensured that the Summit programme is preceded by the 7th SADC Industrialisation Week, which is set to run from July 29 to August 2.
The SADC Summit is not just going to culminate in President Mnangagwa assuming the chairmanship of the bloc. Zimbabwe's manufacturing body, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industry (CZI) is also going to assume the chairmanship of the SADC Business Council. For this reason, the 2024 edition of the CZI Annual Congress is going to be upgraded to a regional event as the body hosts regional counterparts to deliberate on how to industrialise the region and promote sustainable economic growth.
All these positive initiatives demonstrate that SADC is more prepared to partner Zimbabwe in moving forward after last year's polls than it is to lend an ear to Chamisa and company's whining and tantrums.
It is the mere thought of this that Chamisa and some of his diaspora supporters such as Gambakwe of the YouTube channel, Gambakwe Media, are inciting Zimbabweans to protest during the SADC Summit to embarrass Government in the presence of the region.
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The planned pointless protests are nothing, but Chamisa and other detractors' way of getting back at President Mnangagwa and ZANU PF for trouncing the opposition last year.
It is their way of trying to embarrass the bloc in front of global media for doing the right thing by refusing to be used by the West to manipulate its observer role in favour of Chamisa.
Gambakwe has already begun to use his channel to criticise the bloc and the Summit. On May 29, he created the Concerned Zimbabweans for SADC Mediation WhatsApp group, which he is using to incite Zimbabweans to protest during the Summit "calling for a fresh election after the rigged elections in August 2023."
The group, which at the time of writing had a measly 1015 members, is nothing but a platform of Zimbabweans in the diaspora who are seeking to use those at home to fight a proxy war against President Mnangagwa, ZANU PF and the SADC bloc on behalf of Chamisa and his Western owners.
Thankfully, most of the group members at home are refusing to be used. They are refusing to get into law enforcement agents' crosshairs unnecessarily for Chamisa and company.
While the Constitution guarantees citizens the rights to assemble, protest peacefully and to association, Chamisa, Gambakwe and other like-minded people should know that no right is absolute and any infringement of other people's right in the process of exercising one's rights invites the intervention of the Police.
They should know that Zimbabwe has laws, law enforcement agents and competent courts of law to deal effectively with politically mischievous citizens like them.
