By Advent Shoko | ZiGoats
Award-winning Zimbabwean journalist Hopewell Chin’ono has directly blamed former Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) leader advocate Nelson Chamisa for creating the conditions that allowed the opposition movement to be infiltrated and ultimately collapse.
Chin’ono’s remarks came after Chamisa accused President Emmerson Mnangagwa of orchestrating the infiltration of the CCC and said the emergence of Sengezo Tshabangu had exposed the government’s long-term strategy against the opposition.
But Chin’ono turned the criticism back on Chamisa, arguing that the former CCC leader’s decision to centralise power and operate without clear party structures made the movement vulnerable.
“Nelson Chamisa founded CCC and made himself its president, but refused to establish a constitution, elected leadership or accountable party structures,” Chin’ono said.
“You cannot deliberately centralise an entire political movement around yourself, personally control who enters its inner circles, refuse institutional safeguards, and then speak as though ‘infiltrators’ mysteriously arrived through a door controlled by someone else.”
Chin’ono argued that the absence of transparent structures was itself an invitation to political manipulation.
“If CCC became a snake pit, who built the pit? If infiltrators occupied the movement, through whose leadership did they enter and rise?” he asked.
His comments came after Chamisa declared that the “cat” was now out of the bag, accusing Mnangagwa of using infiltration, bribery and state power to weaken the opposition.
Chamisa said Mnangagwa’s rule had become so authoritarian that Robert Mugabe “almost looks like an amateur or a baby” by comparison.
But Chin’ono said alleged ZANU-PF infiltration could not absolve Chamisa of responsibility for the CCC’s organisational failures.
“Leadership is not merely about claiming foresight after disaster. It is about accepting responsibility for the decisions that made the disaster possible,” he said.
He also rejected Chamisa’s call for a fresh start without first confronting what went wrong.
“Starting again without confronting the leadership failures that destroyed the previous movement is not renewal. It is simply repeating the same mistake under a new name,” Chin’ono said.
The clash highlights a deeper question facing Zimbabwe’s opposition: whether the CCC was primarily destroyed by external political interference or by internal weaknesses that made it vulnerable to capture.
Chin’ono says both issues cannot be separated.
“ZANU-PF’s infiltration and abuse of state power must be condemned, but that cannot become an excuse for failed leadership,” he said.
“A serious leader protects a movement by building democratic institutions stronger than any individual.”
Chin’ono has challenged Chamisa to publish the CCC constitution and leadership organogram to prove that the structures he says existed were actually in place.
“You yourself publicly stated on Twitter that CCC had no leadership positions,” Chin’ono said. “You specifically said that there was no secretary-general in CCC. Those were not my words. They were yours.”
“Either you were lying then, or you are lying now. The contradiction is yours, not mine.”
Chamisa has rejected Chin’ono’s criticism, accusing him of spreading “lies and misinformation” and telling him to “be a journalist, not a propagandist”.
The public confrontation between the two prominent figures has now widened the debate over the collapse of the CCC, from alleged state infiltration to the leadership choices that may have left the movement exposed in the first place.
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