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Joseph Madzimure

Senior Reporter

PRESIDENT Mnangagwa has congratulated his Tanzanian counterpart John Magufuli for a landslide victory after garnering 84 percent of the total votes cast in last week’s election that secured him a second term.

The main challenger, Mr Tundu Lissu of the Party for Democracy and Progress, or Chadema earned 13 percent of the vote, according to the official count.

Posting on social media platform Twitter, President Mnangagwa said the victory for Cde Magufuli, who leads Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), will ensure continued cooperation between Zimbabwe and Tanzania.

“Congratulations to (President) Magufuli on his re-election victory as the President of Tanzania. I know that through increased trade and cooperation between our two nations, both of our peoples will prosper”.

Zimbabwe and Tanzania enjoy cordial relations that go back to the liberation struggle when the latter housed liberation movements in the formative years of the war. 

Over the years, the relations  between the two countries have grown from strength-to-strength as their respective revolutionary parties have continued to cooperate, diplomatically and economically.

In a statement, Zanu PF congratulated CCM for the overwhelming victory, especially as it came at a time when revolutionary parties are facing a renewed onslaught from their erstwhile colonisers.

Zanu PF Secretary for Administration, Dr Obert Mpofu, said the renewal of the CCM’s popular driven mandate to lead Tanzania under President Magufuli attests to the continued relevance of nationalist movements in Africa.

“The victory by CCM is clear testimony that nationalist movements remain at the heart of Africa’s destiny,” Dr Mpofu said.

“As such, the CCM’s reclamation of the political space in Tanzania invites the most deserved solidarities which buttress our bona fide allegiance to the CCM as Zimbabwe. The CCM’s electoral endorsement for another term in office affirms the evidence of the continent’s sworn loyalty to the founding spirit of African liberation.

“Tanzania has demonstrated that African democracy is alive to secure the popular existential basis of Former Liberation Movements (FLM) given the widespread demonisation of anti-colonial institutions such as Zimbabwe’s ZANU PF, Namibia’s SWAPO, South-Africa’s ANC, the FRELIMO of Mozambique, MPLA of Angola by neo-liberal hegemonic state actors.”

In addition, he said, the attempt to dislodge FLMs continues to take its toll across the African soil, but what Tanzania has demonstrated is that the loyalty of the majority in Africa is still inclined to the redemptive clarion call of the continuity of the liberation agenda.

“The irrefutable expeditious pace of reform in Tanzania is instructive of the need for a paradigm shift towards strategic public policy delivery tenets.

“Tanzania as a template for progressive post-colonial statecraft design has demonstrated that people vote for development-oriented political parties.

“Within the Zimbabwean context, this awakens us to a directly parallel approach to good governance ushered by the New Dispensation under His Excellency President Mnangagwa. Going forward, the relationship of ZANU PF and the CCM must be galvanised towards a shared Afro-centred determination of creating far-reaching impact in socio-economic and political development.

“As ZANU PF we are inspired to mobilise the people of Zimbabwe to renew our mandate in double the measure of Tanzania’s CCM,” he said.