Claim: Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) has released a list of its candidates for the 2023 harmonised elections.
“Our champion Advocate Nelson Chamisa, together with champion Amos Chibaya have completed stakeholders’ consultations for candidates of Bulawayo. Whilst the list of councillors is being finalised, the champion in chief takes pleasure in presenting Bulawayo’s dream team for the 2023 harmonised elections,” read the message which circulated on social media.
The note also stated that in coming up with the list, the champion-in-chief considered all input from community stakeholders such as vendors associations, church representatives, elderly, women, youths, business community, service and commitment to the party, seniority in the party, ability by candidates to finance the election campaign and submissions from citizens.
Verdict: False
CCC National Deputy spokesperson Gift Ostallos Siziba said the list is fake.
“I have seen the list just this morning purportedly coming from myself with the contact numbers of our organising secretary and our President purported to have finished the consensus candidate selection process in Bulawayo and certain people being the ones deployed by the party,” said Siziba.
“The list is an absolute fake that has been developed by Magnet House with the intention to try and steer divisions and confusion particularly not just within the rank and file of our organisation but also to the people of Bulawayo because we have made it very clear that the CCC candidate selection process is a non-negotiable and a process that not any individual of the party can be able to temper with.”
He said they have collectively agreed as the party leadership that they are going to have a consensus candidate selection process.
“The intention and objectives or the philosophy behind this particular decision is to make sure that we have candidates that represent the community. What is going to be happening for the 2023 election is that in every community whoever becomes the candidate must be a fair choice of the people,” said Siziba.
He added, “I can assure you without any ambiguity that there is not going to be a candidate that is going to come from the party’s leadership whether it’s in Harare, Bulawayo, Masvingo, let the citizens be aware that there is not going to be a candidate that is said to be supported by the President or by leadership collective.”
Siziba also ruled out candidate imposition.
“There are people in the traditional political spaces that are put in positions because they associate either with the leader, the deputies, the rank of the organisation, I want to assure citizens that there is not going to be any CCC candidate that is going to be signed for by different people, therefore, we are not going to repeat the mistake of the by-elections of having double candidates because we are going to centralise the signing of all the people that are going to represent the CCC,” he said.
Siziba said CCC candidates found in the centralised process are going to represent CCC.
“We have made it known to our people, to our champions that it is okay to be ambitious because everyone has got a dream, ambition, desire to lead whether in council, parliament or as a presidential candidate, it is not criminal to want to lead, what we are not going to accept as CCC is a situation whereby Ostallos who has never worked with the people can come and say because I hold a national position or because I control and have got certain influence in some quotas and I must be made a candidate on that basis, we are not going to accept that,” he said.
“We have advised people like Ostallos or anyone with an ambition to be in council or in Parliament or to be a President that go and work with the communities, we are doing this because we a conscious of the fact that if the party doesn’t initiate that particular process, we are going to have apathy.”
