Jonathan Moyo Dismisses Welshman Ncube's Suspension Of Tshabangu As Futile
Self-exiled former ZANU PF Politburo member Jonathan Moyo has criticised Welshman Ncube, the leader of a Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) faction, for suspending self-proclaimed interim Secretary-General Sengezo Tshabangu.
On January 8, 2025, Kurauone Chihwayi, Ncube’s spokesperson, issued a statement announcing Tshabangu’s suspension for allegedly violating the party’s constitution.
Tshabangu’s suspension was announced on the same day High Court judge Justice Neville Wamambo blocked him from making changes to the party’s parliamentary leadership.
The judge made the ruling after Ncube filed an urgent application arguing that Tshabangu did not have the authority to reassign MPs and was carrying out back-door recalls, which he was previously barred from doing by an earlier High Court judgment.
Justice Wamambo granted an interim order sought by Ncube, reversing the changes announced by Tshabangu last month.
However, Moyo, who fled the country during the November 2017 military coup, criticized Ncube’s response to the judgment, describing it as irresponsible and likening Ncube to “an infant who has been given a lollipop for the first time.” Below are Moyo’s comments as shared on his X page this Thursday:
This recklessness is mind blogging for anyone familiar with this case. Just what exactly is Prof Welshman Ncube trying to achieve by being this excitable like an infant who has been given a lollipop for the first time?
In fact, the court order that Prof Ncube and his faction won yesterday is not a lollipop. Not at all. It very well be a deadly a boomerang.
The order is so controversial and so seriously flawed that it needs sober and cool heads to understand before deciding what to do with it.
In any event, the order is unimplementable. It does not order Parliament or the Speaker to do anything whatsoever.
So, the status quo will remain. Full stop.
Prof Welshman Ncube’s childish excitement is surprising and disappointing – for a person of his experience, stature, and scholarship – given that what he has is actually a pyrrhic order.
Besides, Prof Ncube and his colleagues have never recognised Tshabangu as a member of their Gweru 2019 faction; and in the application that they are celebrating to have one yesterday, they present Tshabangu as an ordinary person out there; who is not a member of their “party”.
In fact, since February 2024 when Prof Ncube purported to have been appointed an Acting President of a Gweru 2019 CCC, strangely appointed by a National Standing Committee (NSC) – which has no such appointing powers under the Gweru 2019 constitution that they invoke – he and his Gweru 2019 colleagues have never ever invited Tshabangu to a single official meeting, as one of theirs. Instead, they barred Tshabangu from all their meetings from day one to this day.
How then do they suddenly, from nowhere, today issue a media statement purporting to suspend someone they have never been in association with at any point or time? Someone whom they have never recognised as their member, in the first place?
The case decided yesterday did not deal with or resolve the question as to which is the real CCC. Is it the Blue Movement led by Jameson Timba or Is it the Gweru 2019 faction led by Prof Ncube or is it the original CCC formed on 22 January 2022, as represented by Tshabangu, as its Interim Secretary General?
This is the 64 million dollar question, yet to be determined in court. Prof Ncube should know better, and he should take it easy, lest his trigger-happy behaviour boomerangs while he is enjoying his lollipop judgment!
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