Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa is back in politics – and the resurrection of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s main opponent and his government since 1980 ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front) creates mixed feelings.
At the end of last week 47-year-old Chamisa launched his new movement “Agenda 2026”which he presented as a broad citizens’ movement. “Zimbabwe needs a new beginning,” Chamisa said in the capital Harare.
“Zimbabwe needs a new path. This new path begins with a long-term reflection on a crucial truth: that previous political alternatives have too often been built on a tainted, compromised, jaded and sterile past.”
Agenda 2026 represents “a clear break with the mistakes of the past,” continued Chamisa. “It is a commitment to reimagine Zimbabwe and rebuild our nation based on democratic values, constitutional fidelity, competence and care.”
From MDC to CCC to Agenda 2026
The appearance met with rather skeptical reactions. Because exactly two years earlier, on January 24, 2024, Chamisa was in charge of his original opposition movement CCC (Citizens Coalition for Change) thrown away.
At the time he gave the reason that the CCC had been infiltrated by ZANU-PF and the state. His departure left the CCC in chaos, with disputes over leadership and finances.
Chamisa now says traditional political parties are too open to infiltration and division. A liberation movement could better unite the nation.
At 47, the trained lawyer and theologian is relatively young by the standards of Zimbabwean politics, but he is a political veteran. As early as 1999 he joined the unions that emerged from Zimbabwe MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) under Morgan Tsvangirai when it was founded – the country’s first opposition party, which posed a threat to ZANU-PF under its first president Robert Mugabe.
In Zimbabwe’s government of national unity, which Mugabe and Tsvangirai agreed after the disputed 2009 elections and which lasted until 2013, Chamisa served as information minister. He took over the leadership of the MDC in 2018 when Tsvangirai died. The party then split and lost the first elections in Zimbabwe in 2018 without Mugabe, whom the army deposed at the end of 2017 and replaced with Mnangagwa.
Die next elections in 2023 Chamisa lost again to Mnangagwa. This time he ran as a CCC candidate. It was obvious that the opposition was exhausted. A little later, Chamisa withdrew from politics.
Ruling ZANU-PF rubs its hands
Many former comrades-in-arms are now cautious about his return and Agenda 2026. They say he should first apologize to those he left two years ago. Rachel Rusenza says: “We don’t trust you anymore, honestly. Last time you left us without explanation.”
The exiled ex-minister Jonathan Moyo expressed the worryChamisa’s new movement could suffer a similar fate as his last one. “Nothing is easier to infiltrate than a party launched by an individual and posing as a movement. If that happens, will Chamisa run away again?”
There is satisfaction in the ruling ZANU-PF party that Chamisa, who has been defeated several times, now wants to try again. “We are happy that Chamisa is back,” the party complained on its social media channel „Zanu-PK Patriots“. “We had no opposition and we became complacent, we had started fighting each other.”
ZANU-PF is divided, with one faction behind President Mnangagwa and one behind Vice President Constantino Chiwenga. He wants to become president when Mnangagwa’s second and constitutionally final term ends in 2028. Supporters of the now 83-year-old president, however, want to extend his term of office until at least 2030.