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Chido Chikuni Correspondent
The recent election victory of Zambia president-elect Edgar Lungu of the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) has proved that revolutionary parties in Africa are the people’s choice. Lungu was declared winner after securing 50.35 percent of the votes against his main rival Hakainde Hichilema of the opposition United Party for National Development (UNDP) who got only 47.67 percent of the votes in the just ended elections.

Most opposition parties in Africa have a weakness of alleging election fraud whenever a ruling party wins. Firstly, the majority of these opposition parties suffer from severe structural weaknesses. Unlike most revolutionary parties that have strong structures some of which date back to the liberation struggle, opposition parties lack firm party structures.

Closer home, the MDC has been battling to win elections since 2000. Morgan Tsvangirai lost elections from the time when he joined politics. Such a record is a clear-cut indication that politics is not his game, as he is failing to steer the wheels of his political party.

As weak as he is, Tsvangirai has been challenging all the election results. In the 2013 elections, the revolutionary party’s candidate, President Mugabe, won resoundingly with a margin of 2 110 434 votes, which is 61,09 percent against Tsvangirai who had 1 172 349 votes which is 33,94 percent of the total votes. Considering victory of the ruling party, Tsvangirai has been going to town criticising President Mugabe for allegedly rigging the election results.

Secondly, it is believed that most opposition parties in Africa lack adherence to formal rules, regulations, procedures and programmes which market them to the electorate. Failure by opposition parties to forward distinct policy alternatives to the voters is a minus on their part.

In 2015, Tanzania’s main opposition party leader, Edward Lowassa of Chadema party, who represented a coalition of opposition parties, Ukawa, also challenged election victory of the ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM)s candidate, President John Magufuli. Just like other opposition parties in Africa which are unappreciative, Lowassa was citing rigging of the election results by the ruling party.

What surprises most is that, when elections are carried out all political parties send representatives to the polling stations. Additionally, there will be some observers who will be monitoring the election process. Hence, one would wonder where exactly would the alleged rigging have taken place.

Another reason which makes opposition parties in Africa weak is that their leadership is normally centred on a dominant individual. This means that decisions are usually made only by the leader. MDC-T’s Tsvangirai recently appointed two additional vice presidents to deputise him together with his long serving deputy Thokozani Khupe. Such a move was challenged by a number of party members, who were not consenting with that lone decision.

Such a kind of decision has a negative impact on how party business will be conducted. Moreover, supporters of such parties identify the leaders with the party and show their loyalty solely to the party leader and not to the party’s ideology.

Written reports have it also that Mozambique’s opposition, Renamo, has a track record of claiming voter irregularities and intimidation of its supporters by state security agencies every time it loses elections to its rival, the ruling Frelimo party.

In 2014, despite the fact that sadc had declared the elections in Mozambique to be free, fair, transparent, credible and peaceful, Renamo went on to challenge the results.

This depicts a trend of rejecting election outcome within opposition parties in Africa. Renamo’s candidate, Afonso Dhlakama, lost to Frelimo’s Filipe Jacinto Nyusi.

In 2016, Uganda’s opposition Forum for Democratic Change leader, Kizza Besigye, is one of the African opposition leaders who failed to recognise the victory of President Yoweri Museveni, who represented the revolutionary party, National Resistance Movement. Besigye thought he was the election winner as he went on a mock swearing-in ceremony as the President of Uganda.

Some of the opposition parties in Africa are in a cycle of endless fusion and fission. This is typical with opposition parties in Zimbabwe. MDC-T has been splitting now and then since its formation. Now, MDC-T is in another move to unite with a new opposition party, Zimbabwe People First (Zim-PF) which is being led by former vice president, Joice Mujuru. Usually, this makes these opposition parties to be short-lived.

Another weak point of opposition parties in Africa is that most of them hibernate in the period between elections.

They are believed to be visible and active only during election times. However, this is different with ruling parties that are always on the ground assessing the situation and providing tangible solutions to challenges.