By A Correspondent- The Citizens Coalition for Change’s (CCC) Youth Task Force in Bulawayo has threatened street protests if urgent electoral reforms are not implemented.

Speaking during a press conference on Thursday, 14 December, CCC Task Force National Administrator Pashor Raphael Sibanda, who was elected Cowdray Park MP in August before he was recalled by Sengezo Tshabangu in October, alleged that key State institutions such as the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), the judiciary system, and ZRP have been captured by ZANU PF.

Sibanda said CCC representatives were illegally recalled from both parliament and local governments with the help of the “captured” institutions. Senzeni Ncube of CITE quoted Sibanda as saying:

We are aware of the Zanu-PF agenda to try to steal the will of the people and undermine the role of the alternative in the country.

We have noted imposters, fraudsters and criminals being used by the regime as political condoms to collapse the people’s movement and aid a one-party state through illegal recalls.

 We want to send a clear message to the regime to reform as a matter of urgency and let the will of the people be respected and protected.

Failure to do so the streets shall be the avenue of our struggle.

Responding to Sibanda’s utterances, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s spokesperson George Charamba mocked the former legislator and described him as “a mere deviant boy”. Charamba posted on X:

SITUATING PASHOR SIBANDA: PASHOR is not important as a person; if anything, he is a mere deviant boy who has yet to secure any form of employment in his life.

PASHOR is important as an incarnation of Triple C’s desperate rethink, buttressed by resolutions of what is termed the Southern Africa Human Rights Defenders’ Network which held its “summit” in Namibia from 22 to 24 November 2023.

At that meeting – which the State covered – there was a decision to change tact towards more confrontational politics, with Triple C getting direct funding, as happened to MDC during Tsvangirai days, and to Hichilema’s UPND before the Lungu defeat.

More importantly, a decision was taken to found a more youthful and militant leadership for the opposition, with four names suggested as foremost. I shall have occasion to reveal them.

A follow-up meeting was scheduled for 5th December, in Lusaka, Zambia. Again, I will apprise you at an appropriate time. Essentially this Western outfit is a Third Force in the making, which is why Chamisa is very worried.

It threatens to supersede him, forcing him to go suicidal through dull brawn actors like Pashor and Mkwananzi.

Of course, these boys of brawn will soon learn – like the proverbial burnt child – to dread fire!!!! Ndapedza; vanzwa vatonzwa!