Retired Elder Rex M.E Midzi@RexMidzi
OPEN LETTER TO MR NELSON CHAMISA
By Rex Midzi
Dear Nelson
I enjoy reading plays very much particularly those written in the Elizabethan into the Jacobean era, so i plucked out a qoute from one of the plays i like ;
William Shakespeare wrote in Much Ado About Nothing :
"Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. But for sorrow, it is a traitor." Act II Scene 1
I return to it now because it captures precisely what I wish to say to you, Mr. Chamisa.
I am a Zimbabwean that is where my mandate and status is derived from
That fact alone entitles me to speak you have twice declared your intention to lead this nation in 2018, and again in 2023
That makes you a public actor with public obligations. My voice on your conduct is not an imposition. It is a right and I shall exercise it with no fear
In the 2023 election, I did something that still sits uneasily with me. In protest, I split my ballot. I voted for a ZANU-PF councillor. I voted for a ZANU-PF MP. And then, for President, I voted for YOU IMIMI va Chamisa in other words ndakaita BHORA MUSANGO
I did so in part because you yourself told us that MPs did not matter that we should focus our presidential vote on you, on Nelson Chamisa. I listened. I voted accordingly albeit i must admit also in protest to what i disagreed with in my own party ZANU PF regardless it is my vote that I chose to give you
I write this knowing what it costs there is a constituency of your supporters who are deeply uncouth who will read this letter and descend with insults before they finish the second paragraph. That is not their failing alone. It is yours. A leader shapes the culture of those who follow him. When your supporters are emboldened to silence dissent through abuse, the buck stops with you
Hear me , I am not writing to wound you. I am writing because I believe leaders must account to those who gave them their mandate. Zimbabwe has suffered long under men who treated the electorate as a cheering section. You have always positioned yourself as different Prove it !
It therefore bewilders me genuinely bewilders me that men like Air Marshal Henry Muchena (Retired) and other Retired Generals, men who served under the very system you oppose, have found the moral courage to speak publicly in opposition to CAB 3. Just yesterday 6 Zanu Pf members and war vets challenged CAB 3 in the Constitutional Court
These are ZANU-PF stalwarts. Yet you, who asked his voters to believe that you are the future of this country, have been conspicuously silent. How does one explain that?
You cannot retreat behind the excuse that you left politics when you departed the CCC. You announced your return. You are back. But more fundamentally you never had the right to simply walk away
People voted for you. They voted for the things you told them you would protect. When your enemy came for those things, you did not fight. You blamed the enemy for fighting. Mr. Chamisa, the very nature of an enemy is to fight you. That is what enemies do. What a leader does is stand
And now, since last Friday, the entire country has had a front-row seat to something deeply troubling. The audio leaks. The things you said about Mr. Timba. Whatever the context, whatever the provocation you must apologise for those words
An apology is not weakness. It is the mark of a man who understands that leadership is a public trust, not a personal privilege
The other recordings that followed have only deepened the silence that surrounds you. And it is that silence, Mr. Chamisa, that Shakespeare warned us about. Silence, in joy, is grace. But in sorrow in a moment when your people are watching, waiting, and deserve answers silence is a traitor.
Explain yourself to the people. Not because your enemies demand it. But because the Zimbabweans who voted for you deserve nothing less.
Rex M.E Midzi
The National Dog 🐕
Harare, Zimbabwe
