Congress: Zanu-PF will emerge stronger

 TEA BOY
Ndavaningi Nick Mangwana Correspondent

As Zanu-PF approaches its 6th Congress, there is a lot of excitement and a few self-appointed experts and analysts are rubbing their palms in gleeful anticipation of doomsday. What, with these fierce and brutal contestations! They believe that this December, Zanu-PF is going to meet its Waterloo. They anticipate that the day the behemoth of Zanu-PF will fracture is nigh.

However, this not only far-fetched; it is also wishful thinking. Of course some people may want to leave Zanu-PF.

Isn’t that the essence of freedom of association?

What they will not do is cause a deep dent to its structure. We have seen it happening throughout the history of the party. But it is still standing.

Some of those who wish for the party to split feel that the party has become too big, touching and influencing every aspect of their lives.

There is a belief that with this it has become less sensitive to the people.

There is also talk of impunity within rank and leadership. An accusation of taking people for granted, which is not too way off the mark.

These are things that need correcting and redressing. And they will be.

But they will not cause a spilt.

We have names of revolutionaries that felt either disenchanted or believed in their own hype enough to go it alone. Surely they just ended up alone and cold.

Many are now in the political wilderness giving wild, out of touch, out of sync and clearly impotent “expertise” to those seeking the good news of a possible split.

These include Edgar Tekere, Margaret Dongo, Simba Makoni and Dumiso Dabengwa, to name a few. These were people with a revolutionary history.

The number of parties formed is an alphabet soup: ZUM, ZUD, UDP, MKD, ZAPU and there is even a ZANU (Ndonga) somewhere. One doesn’t need to be an analyst to realise that all the formations of the above parties was never based on ideological differences or grass roots agitation.

These parties were formed as protest organisations to whip up or tap disenchanted cadres, neutrals and those fiercely opposed to the ruling party.

Zanu-PF is not the only party in the region where people set themselves to fail by trying to punch above their weight.

Instead of absorbing their setbacks, recalibrate, put their heads down and plough on, they left in a huff. People leave Zanu-PF. It does not split.

In South Africa, Messrs Shilowa, George and Lekota became disillusioned with the direction of the ANC.

They left the organisation in 2008 and formed the Congress of the People (Cope). At the height of their hype they only managed to get 7,4 percent of the votes (30 seats) in 2009.

This has now diminished to just 3 parliamentary seats in 2014.

Namibia is another country that attained its independence through a protracted armed struggle. In 2007 leading Swapo members and Cabinet ministers Hidipo Hamutenya and Jesaya Nyamu formed Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP).

With all their extensive publicity they only managed about 11 percent of the vote in the 2009 election.

In Angola, the MPLA has been in power since independence in 1975. Its power base was only shaken by UNITA, which had also fought a liberation war.

The MPLA is still scoring landslide electoral victories. Its liberation party status makes it difficult to defeat.

In Mozambique, like every other country that fought for its liberation, Frelimo dominates.

Daviz Simango and Alfonso Dhlakama, who at one time was in Frelimo and (in Simango’s case, his father is a former Frelimo leader) have no chance of dislodging it from power.

When these malcontent parties are formed, they offer no alternate programmes. They just have this raucous chorus for either the president to go or the ruling party to leave power. The excitement is but fleeting.

Soon enough people will just ignore and move on, waiting for the next ephemeral excitement.

In Tanzania The TANU/Chama Cha Mapinduzi formats have been in power for 53 years. Just next door Ian Khama’s Botswana Democratic Party has been in power for 48 years. In Mozambique Frelimo has been in power for 39 years.

In Angola MPLA has been power 39 years. In Zimbabwe the liberation party has been in power for 34 years, Namibia 24 and South Africa 20 years.

The list goes on. This does not mean that the Liberation parties cannot be dislodged from power.

It has happened in Zambia and Malawi but a history of a protracted armed struggle involving the peasant and the marginalised urban dweller mobilisation builds an affection between the liberation party and the masses.

They always feel they own the revolution and would not want to change that affiliation for another fad party, which will be in vogue today and gone tomorrow.

The liberation parties did not only bring independence.

They also brought a sense of nationhood.

It is this spirit of nationhood and its finding principles that makes it quite difficult to dislodge.

Of course this is not a rule of thumb but makes people think twice before they leave a party like Zanu-PF to form a different gathering.

It has not worked in the past. It is unlikely to work. For this to remain so, Zanu-PF will need to keep the voting public as a priority. Not power for the sake of power. Not power as an end in itself. It should be power as a means to transform people’s lives.

Power to bring tangible socio-economic change to the multitude of suffering Zimbabweans.

Ndavaningi Nick Mangwana is the Zanu-PF-UK chairman.

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