During the 2018 harmonised elections, Chamisa contested
under the MDC Alliance ticket, but now leads the Citizens Coalition for Change
(CCC) party, an outfit he created in January last year after being elbowed out
of MDC Alliance by Douglas Mwonzora.
The 2018 elections were held after the removal from power
of the late former President Robert Mugabe by President Emmerson Mnangagwa
through a military-assisted coup.
Addressing a Chief Executive Officers Roundtable meeting in
Harare last week, Cross, who is also former MDC opposition legislator (Bulawayo
South) said in 2018 Mnangagwa faced opposition from everybody.
“Mrs Mugabe financed Chamisa so that he defeats Emmerson
and eventually Emmerson abandoned everything and concentrated on winning the
elections, and thank God he did because if he hadn’t spent the next four or
five months fighting the elections, he could have lost the election. As it is,
he won it by 300 000 votes, and when he won that election, he then sorted the
problems inside his government — all 20 ministers were Emmerson’s people,” Cross
said.
But CCC deputy spokesperson Gift “Ostallos” Siziba said:
“Eddie is trying by all means to be more Zanu than Zanu PF people
themselves. He is a delusional man who
will do anything to get a seat in the gravy train.”
Added Cross: “It was all in that meeting with Members of
Parliament (to impeach Mugabe in 2017) and in 15 minutes we couldn’t get out of
the hotel. There were a quarter of a million people outside that hotel. I
couldn’t push the door to find my way out. It was the response of the people
that legitimised the change of government. I tried to go to the rally in
Highfields that day, but we could not get within three miles, it was just
packed with millions of people.
“Sadc [Southern African Development Community] observers
came and flew around in a helicopter and they saw what was going on the ground
and went back to the State House and they said to Mugabe, it’s over, the people
have spoken and it was the people’s response to the coup which legitimised the
change of government.”
Cross said the country incurred a huge deficit during
Mugabe’s reign, and money was printed to cover the deficit.
He said Zimbabwe’s fiscal deficit was 40% of the budget
which prompted Mugabe’s administration to continue printing money.
Cross said after winning the 2013 elections against MDC-T
leader Morgan Tsvangirai at the end of the four-year inclusive government,
Mugabe re-assumed full control of government and accrued a debilitating fiscal
deficit.
“By 2017, the fiscal deficit was 40% of the budget, how do
you run a country like that? We had US$23 million in our bank accounts which we
called United States dollars but it wasn’t United States dollars. It was there
because Mugabe was printing money to cover the deficit. We were headed for the
rocks again and that was when Mnangagwa decided the change of government was
necessary, and on the 17th of November, the transition took place. I was
actually still in Parliament. I sat at the Harare International Conference
Centre waiting to impeach the old man, and then in walked a messenger with
Mugabe’s letter of resignation,” Cross said. Newsday
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