NELSON Chamisa’s loyalists are engaged in a bitter fight with a Citizen Coalition for Change (CCC) rival camp and the MDC over control of Bulawayo party offices.
The offices, which once belonged to the MDC, later MDC Alliance before the CCC took control, were repainted blue on Monday night.
All along, the offices were painted yellow — the CCC’s colours.
Bulawayo residents walk up on Tuesday morning to find the offices painted blue, with Chamisa’s portrait on top.
There have been reports that Chamisa is on the verge of launching a new party with blue as its chosen colour.
MDC leader Douglas Mwonzora immediately stoked up controversy by claiming ownership of the offices, protesting over what he termed capture of the offices by Chamisa’s group.
“Yesterday (Tuesday), we woke up and realised that some criminals have invaded and painted our Bulawayo offices blue,” Mwonzora said in recorded audio.
“These are people who are apparently preparing to form a new party. We placed it on record that these offices and many others in the country belong to the MDC; the paper work attests to that ... MDC will never tolerate invasion of its hard-won properties.”
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CCC Bulawayo spokesperson Swithern Chiroodza said: “We don’t know what Mwonzora was talking about. We don’t know what Mwonzora is huffing and puffing about. Blue has always been our colour. We have blue and yellow and I can assure you we are not done yet.”
Self-proclaimed CCC secretary general Sengezo Tshabangu threatened legal action.
“We will be taking legal action soon. We are preparing court papers to stop this criminal activity,” Tshabangu was quoted saying in the State media.
The CCC was thrown into disarray after Chamisa quit the party saying it had been infiltrated and hijacked by Zanu PF proxies such as Tshabangu, who emerged from nowhere late last year calling the shots and recalling several of the party’s Members and Parliament (MPs), Senators and councillors.
Yesterday, a camp aligned to Tshabangu and Chamisa announced separate plans on the way forward after Chamisa quit the party in a huff.
