Nelson Chamisa, Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader has quit his Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party today, January 25, two years to the day after its formation, over claims that it has been taken over by the ruling party, ZANU-PF in a power grab.
Chamisa had revealed this in a lengthy statement he posted on his official X account.
The statement read:
“Fellow citizens, this is to officially and under my hand inform you that, with immediate effect, I [am] no longer affiliated with CCC.
The CCC has to all intents and purposes been criminally handed over to ZANU-PF.”
The statement continued
The CCC party, which is widely popular in the country won 103 of the 280 seats in Zimbabwe’s main house of Parliament and unanimously won the urban councils in the 2023 general election.
However, several CCC lawmakers and councillors have been removed from their seats by an official asserting to be the party’s secretary general, but who Chamisa and the CCC members say is an imposter.
CCC has been accusing ZANU-PF, the leasing party of using the courts to destroy its opposition.
ZANU-PF has dismissed the accusations, but has benefited from the recalls after winning most of the resultant by-elections.
At the time of filing this report, the ZANU-PF spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.
It is also not immediately clear if lawmakers and councillors loyal to Chamisa would vacate their posts in solidarity, a move which would set off a wave of by-elections.
Chamisa formed the CCC political party in January 2022 after being defeated in a series of court battles over the control of the Movement for Democratic Change –MDC, which had first emerged in 2000 as the biggest threat to ZANU-PF’s stranglehold on power, before the CCC.
