By ZimEye Editorial | One of the critics of the Citizen Coalition for Change: CCC party, Wilbert Mukori’s annoying stubborn propositions, is that the CCC is corporately to blame for the failure of the Mudenda parliament which they cohabit with ZANU, to create reforms. Wilbert who is a Quitterist, says as long as you participate in a defective parliament, you are to blame over the state of the parliament that you helped to endorse.

Quitterism is what gave Morgan Tsvangirai power over ZANU PF after the violent 2008 elections, forcing SADC to visit Zimbabwe and between 2008 and 2013, could have saved Tsvangirai from the embarrassing 2013 election rigging.

Quitterism also dictates that Nelson Chamisa could have had more power against Mnangagwa if he had pulled out of parliament after the Luke Malaba, 24 August 2018 verdict, and launched a govt in exile. Quitterism would this way, had made it difficult for ZANU PF to create the ugly Mwonzora monster, in what could have sustained the legality of Nelson Chamisa’s presidential win argument.

Does Quitterism work?

Back in the 70s, Quitterism is what made the US, and UK to force South Africa to ban fuel traffic into Beitbridge, so that Zimbabwe could become independent. This was only possible after Mugabe and Nkomo had refused to endorse Abel Muzorewa’s govt, choosing to rather die in the bush fighting to the bitter end.

Wilbert Mukori is a fundamentalist on quitterism. In Wilbert Mukori’s eyes, the opposition are traitors until the day they manage to stand out to command SADC level power the way Tsvangirai did between 2008 and 2013 right up to the Maputo Summit, when SADC as a body demanded that elections be cancelled until reforms are implemented. The same SADC that many blame for being retrogressive, said this.

In Wilbert Mukori’s eyes, the SADC level Quitterism, would be powerful enough to stop Mnangagwa from jailing Job Sikhala/ Nyatsime 17. Mukori annoys CC because he is a stubborn quitterist, and he says he has 62 years (1964-2022) of history to prove that quitterism works.

Quitterism asserts that Zimbabwe is not an electoral democracy, it has never been; since 1897, regimes can only be taken through power grabs. In Zimbabwe, electorals are useless, it’s power that talks.

If you don’t upgrade your politics from the holy electoral monastery to the-power-grab-club-halls, you will never taste state power.

In a WhatsApp debate on ZimEye, one of the CCC’s provincial Spokespersons, quipped in asking: So in your opinion, quitting is equal to implementing reforms. Have I understood you correctly? Besides, there is no guarantee that quitting Parliament will make ZANU PF enact the required reforms. So let us not express an opinions as a rule of thumb.

But Zimbabwe seems to be reforming already, although so far it has achieved deforms, rather than reforms, because you are not going all the way in releasing the baby. So far, Nelson Chamisa’s partial quitting of Parliamentary orders in 2019, has been so powerful to the extent that electoral reforms were created, albeit up to the Mwonzora-level. That move by Chamisa was so powerful that Zimbabwe for the first time enacted Standing Order rules in 2020 to try slow down the unavoidable reform agenda. Only a small push was needed, which is complete withdrawal from the bloodstained 1 Aug 2018 Parliament. The current parliament is a bloodstained coup parliament whose participation people should avoid unless they have power to heal the core corruption: the 1 Aug coup. A quitting could have wielded the Tsvangirai 2008 punch, would it not, especially after the failure to implement the Motlanthe Commission findings? It would have produced a fully healthy baby with better chances of delivering a democratic Zimbabwe.