Acting leader of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), Professor Welshman Ncube, says that rather than serving as a tactic to defeat Zanu PF, strategic ambiguity ended up confusing party members and supporters while political opponents found a way to take down the opposition party.
Strategic ambiguity was developed by former CCC president
Nelson Chamisa ahead of the 2023 elections as a tactic to prevent Zanu PF
infiltration.
However, Prof. Ncube, who was the vice president of CCC at
the time, said strategic ambiguity resulted in unforeseen consequences that may
have divided the party.
He also claimed ‘strategic ambiguity’ began as a cliché and
was not well thought out, even though it was implemented.
“There was no formal announcement of strategic ambiguity.
These were clichés which were bandied about, thrown around from one event to
another, sometimes almost in jest – things like siyangena nyovane. All of these
clichés were popularised, used from time to time, to gel in the minds of
people,” he said during a conversation held on X spaces on Sunday evening.
Since strategic ambiguity was introduced into the political
discourse, Prof. Ncube said it was then perceived as a way of making it
difficult for Zanu PF to ascertain developments in the opposition.
However, at the end of the day, Prof. Ncube stated
strategic ambiguity did the opposite.
“It confused ourselves, our membership, and our supporters,
often tripping us in the process because we were not sure if this was a
make-believe thing of strategic ambiguity or a real thing,” he said.
“The negative result of strategic ambiguity was that you
didn’t know the role of who, who held what position, who had what authority,
hence the ability for one to emerge and say ‘I’m an interim this and that.’ Of
course, our opponents, far from being overridden, found ways of negating
everything we were doing, taking advantage of strategic ambiguity.”
Prof. Ncube said this confusion caused some CCC leaders to
disengage as they did not know what was happening.
“Certain changes took place. First, the then president who
had now designated himself champion-in-chief would not allow meetings of the
standing committee, national executive, and national council to take place,
emphasizing that in his view, judgment, and wisdom, positions were not
important but we needed to focus on one thing – the struggle against the ruling
party,” he said, claiming this made communication challenging as meetings were
“no longer convening.”
Prof. Ncube said national council members tasked him to
talk to Chamisa, and he had a lengthy conversation about these concerns, but no
changes occurred.
“The party leadership came to see an undiscussed alteration
that only Chamisa would address the rallies. We had a rally in Bulawayo at
White City Stadium, with the whole leadership of CCC present where this
decision was implemented but unknown to us,” he said.
“Historically, we would have the youth chairperson, the
women’s chairperson speak as a warm-up. Then some of the leaders, changing from
time to time, such as the treasurer, national chairman, vice president, or any
one of the other VPs, could address the rally. All of that was done away with.”
Prof. Ncube noted that at a Gweru rally held after the
Bulawayo rally, the CCC leadership had no space to sit as a collective but were
told by security that the chairs were only for the president and the VPs.
“These chairs were not on the stand but immediately in
front of the crowd, and everybody else was directed to sit on the grass floor.
This caused a great deal of consternation among many people,” the acting CCC
leader said.
“Many of the leaders considered this unnecessary
humiliation and disrespect. Some of these were MPs, former ministers, and
former mayors, all made to sit on the grass in this new approach.”
The developments at the Gweru rally, according to Prof.
Ncube, marked the beginning of disgruntled CCC members saying, “‘If this is how
we are going forward, the president will then largely do his rallies on his
own. We will do our rallies.’”
“That is the beginning of the reluctance to attend the
champion-in-chief’s rallies because of this thing which started to manifest
itself at the Gweru rally. A lot more unsavoury things were beginning to happen
around these aspects,” he said.
Prof. Ncube said in a “long conversation” with Chamisa, one
of the requests was for a meeting of the standing committee to be convened to
address some of these concerns.
One of the outcomes of their meeting was that this ‘new
approach’ would be put to the standing committee so members understood this
direction.
“Regrettably and unfortunately, the agreement was not
implemented,” Prof. Ncube said, stating the meeting was for the leadership
collective to discuss this ‘new approach’ because it was “implemented without
the rest of the leadership knowing where it was coming from and why it was
there.”
Prof. Ncube lamented that under Chamisa, the leadership
collective did not convene to discuss issues, which is why the national council
met last week Wednesday, for the first time since the party committed to
forming the CCC on January 22, 2022.
“We apologised to the membership of the party for having slept on duty, having failed to use all avenues available to force a conversation on what was happening,” he said. CITE
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