Zimpapers Logo

J. C. Marasha
In every competition there are winners and losers, what distinguishes the winners from the losers is usually the competitors’ preparedness to compete. While there are exceptional professional competitors who can go for long streaks without tasting defeat, the majority do face reality and fall. It is the lessons learnt and the strategies for winning the next competition that matters.
In 2008, Zanu-PF got results it did not expect.

The leadership demonstrated maturity by accepting their shortcomings and vowed to make amends.
They did not look for faults from outside the party. They were very much aware that they were fighting to overcome the obstacles that were being put on their way by the enemy, local or foreign.

So the fact that there were challenges thrown on the path by the enemy was obvious to the party. The mentality of the party was that they had fallen short by failing to adequately respond to these challenges.

I remember the party leader, President Mugabe, saying he was going to look at the issue that caused them the defeat with a view to addressing the root cause.
He did not point a finger at Tsvangirai, NGO’s subversive activities, or the interfering Western governments.

Such actions had to be expected and the fight at the polls since the birth of the country, were to defeat such machinations. This was not new to the revolutionary party. The introspection was necessary for two reasons.

Firstly, because the party had to address its faults in order to win future elections, and secondly because the elections were due in the next 18 months at the expiry of the inclusive government. Luckily for Zanu-PF, the opposition parties continued postponing the elections whenever they became due, giving it enough time to oil its machinery.

Foolishly, the opposition thought that it was scoring political points by getting their way on elections against the wishes of Zanu-PF.
We all remember how Tsvangirai foolishly thought that he held the keys to elections, obviously based on his previous experience.

Unfortunately for him, this time the lock had been changed as the revolutionary party had completed its homework and was raring to go.
Nothing would stand in its way.

Among the noted issues that cost the Zanu-PF victory in 2008, were divisions in the party. The divisions were so entrenched and threatened to split the party. Simba Makoni’s Mavambo project was a result of these divisions. This resulted in the infamous bhora musango strategy. The party also noted the electorate was not happy with imposed candidates, further compounding the bhora musango strategy.

MDC-T benefited from a protest vote as seats were delivered in its hands in constituencies that were normally termed Zanu-PF’s strongholds.
Good examples of such areas are Masvingo and Manicaland, where the MDC-T got the majority seats.

One other major issue that cost the party total victory in the 2008 election was its failure to respond adequately to the hunger that had gripped the masses.
We experienced a drought in the 2007-2008 agriculture season, resulting in food shortages and hunger across the country.

Because of sanctions invited by Tsvangirai and his party, the national economy was also in turmoil with rampant product shortages and high inflation, further compounding the suffering of the people.

The peoples’ day-to-day provisions were dependent on some dubious NGOs and the grace of God. For the suffering lot, any option out of this quagmire was welcome, even when it meant selling the country.

In a clear demonstration of good leadership, the President accepted these challenges as besieging the party and made corrective measures.
For starters, I noted that they addressed the issue of the stomach, product shortages and a poor performing economy by formalising the use of the United States dollar for trading.

The then Acting Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa made the announcement in his budget statement at the beginning of the year in 2009.
What followed was a sudden halting of inflation which had reached over two million, the re-appearing of products to shop shelves, and the restoration of monetary value. With the economy having been stabilised and even recording some positive growth, it was now time to work on unifying the party.

The 2008 election result had already done justice to this issue as the near miss was a rude awakening for the rebels in the party.
They noticed how disastrous their actions could have been. With the party unified, the motto change from “bhora musango” in 2008 to “bhora mugedhi” this time around. The results are there for everyone to see as the party regained the majority in areas that it had performed poorly. The party also conducted primaries where selected candidates represented the party in the 2013 harmonised elections.

This resolved the issue of imposed candidates and eradicated the protest vote. The primaries were a double blessing as the party managed to gauge its support base, in addition to exposing its voters to a voting exercise giving them confidence in the real deal.

On the message issue, the party did its homework and engaged its best brains to draft a gem of a manifesto that the opposition could not resist but marvel at. The message’s focus changed from just defending the land to an all encompassing one where both the land and the economy were important. People were offered options to better their livelihoods while at the same time taking ownership of their land.

This was something that the opposition lacked as it depended on funding from imaginary rich friends. The message was more appealing and it delivered for Zanu-PF, a win with a magnitude never before seen in the history of the country.

Luckily for Zanu-PF, the opposition was fooled by its good show in 2008 and went to sleep thinking it had finally transformed itself and appealed to the masses.

They did nothing to retain the protest vote of 2008, if ever they were aware that it was a Zanu-PF protest vote. Secondly, the opposition failed to shake off the puppet tag, if anything, they reinforced it with their “our friends’ campaign message and the support they get from pirate radios and foreigners.

Worse still, the former white farmers falsely sensing MDC’s victory in 2008, threatened the new farmer thereby letting the cat out of the bag. The threat to indigenous ownership of the land in Zimbabwe suddenly became apparent and had to be defended.