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Lovemore Chikova Development Dialogue

A graphic that went viral following the successful Zanu PF 7th National People’s Congress held last week summed it all with regards to the colossal nature of the ruling party.

The graphic showed the 4 000-seater Harare International Conference Centre filled to the brim with delegates to the Zanu PF congress, with an inscription “Zanu PF Congress”.

Then immediately below is a picture of CCC’s Nelson Chamisa and his sidekick Fadzayi Mahere seated in what looks like an office, accompanied by the words “CCC Congress”, and on the words is an emoji of a face wearing a wide smile and some tears of laughter.

While some could be tempted to dismiss the graphic just as one of the usual, whoever thought about it should be a close watcher of political developments in Zimbabwe.

The graphic is a true representative of the reality on the ground and is pregnant with lessons that depicts what some, although very few, do not want to accept.

From the graphic, one can easily deduce who is likely to be trusted with carrying forward the developmental agenda of Zimbabwe — a political party that has mass support or that being run by a few people who do not rely on mass structures.

What has popularised Zanu PF’s development agenda and the achievements it has done so far in terms of development is mainly because of its nature as a political party that depends on support from the grassroots.

When it comes to development, one has to have the people at the centre, and not only that, the development initiative has to be supported by the people.

Otherwise a development initiative that has no support of the people lacks merit because it eventually benefits no one.

The fact that Zanu PF has the people as demonstrated at the 7th National People’s Congress is a sure sign of the acceptability of the ruling party’s development programmes.

The delegates at the congress were just a representative group of millions of others who were left home because of the nature of such a political gathering.

Now, if Zanu PF has not been doing enough to cater for the people’s developmental needs, it would have been difficult or even impossible to get such a massive support from the people.

Well, people are attracted by different things to a political party, but development tops them all because it directly benefits them and uplifts their lives.

Development brings something tangible to the people and a political party can easily point to developmental projects as landmarks of its success.

People are always happy to associate with a political party that relates with their needs, not only in political speeches at rallies, but on the ground.

Zanu PF has taken development to the doorsteps of the people as the party moves towards turning Zimbabwe into an upper middle income economy by 2030.

In a very short time, the ruling party has changed the language and mindset of Zimbabweans to focus on development because of its actions and orientation.

In fact, President Mnangagwa’s stance on development has resulted in a new thinking that puts development at the apex.

With President Mnangagwa at the helm, Zanu PF speaks what it goes on to implement when it comes to development be it roads rehabilitation, upgrading of airports, construction of dams, establishment of irrigation schemes, rural industrialisation and modernisation, farming, infrastructure development, building of schools and clinics — the list is endless.

In short, the party’s speeches are not empty or political rhetoric, hence its capacity to organise such a huge congress that attracts delegates from every part of the country.

While Zanu PF has been promising and delivering to the electorate, the CCC led by Chamisa has been at crossroads, trying too hard to impress, but ending up offending the electorate.

It has been empty promises and hard to sell utterances by the CCC leaders.

There is no doubt that Chamisa and his ilk have been trying hard to impress thinking that they are outsmarting Zanu PF, when in actual fact they are pushing themselves further away from the electorate.

The pressure to impress has seen CCC leaders, and Chamisa in particular, ending up making promises to voters that border on insults, and this has not earned him any respect from the people.

Where Zanu PF has been reconstructing and rehabilitating roads throughout the country, Chamisa comes up with his out-of-this-world promise of turning every road into a spaghetti road if he happens to be elected.

Well, there is nothing wrong with spaghetti roads, but who believes that all Zimbabwe’s roads need to be turned into spaghetti roads. Zanu PF told the electorate that it was going to reconstruct and rehabilitate the roads and that is exactly what the party is delivering.

Spaghetti roads are being constructed in places where they are necessary, for example the Mbudzi Interchange that is under construction in Harare.

More spaghetti roads will be coming up under Zanu PF, but this did not take a misleading statement of wanting to turn every road into a spaghetti road.

Recently speaking at a rally in Masvingo, perhaps after being mesmerised by the reconstruction of the Harare-Beitbridge Road, Chamisa made an astonishing statement that showed he can now no longer bear the pressure coming from Zanu PF’s development agenda.

The highway’s reconstruction and rehabilitation is almost complete, being expanded from seven metres to 12 metres, while every 10-kilometre stretch on either side of towns along the way are being dualised.

In a bid to counter this top-notch developmental project, Chamisa told those who bothered to attend his rally that if it happened that he won, he would construct eight lanes each side of the road, making 16-lane highway.

If that was meant to be a joke, then it was in bad taste, with its import being to show contempt for the people.

Who will forget Chamisa’s legendary “airport pamba pako” statement, in which he promised to construct airports everywhere?

A political party that acts on kneejerk reactions to programmes of those it purports to compete with cannot be trusted to come up with a pro-people development programme.

This is because the political party would have showed its deficiency in ideas even before it is entrusted with leading the country.

The CCC and Chamisa in particular’s out-of-the-blue utterances are legendary.

For instance, Zanu PF came up with its well thought out campaign strategy through which it was confident it would bring home five million votes for both the party and President Mnangagwa.

This number did not come from nowhere as the party officials are aware of the state of their structures and the capacity of those structures to mobilise the needed votes.

Then and without any basis, and just because Zanu PF had targeted five million votes, Chamisa announced he was in fact garnering for six million votes.

Zimbabweans saw this political naivety and understood fully well that the six million votes announced by Chamisa had no other basis except as a reaction to Zanu PF’s five million.

Development does not just happen, it is structured and the programmes are deliberately crafted.

Now, how will a party that fails to put in place its own structures and lacks organisational capacity be able to come up with a well-structured development programme for Zimbabwe?

The point that the graphic cited above pushed home is that Zanu PF is a mass party which has the people and takes suggestions from the grassroots to craft its developmental programmes.

For CCC, without any structures and grassroots, it is the leaders who view themselves as the know-it-all, with a simple discussion between Chamisa and Mahere being announced as the party policy.

They practice the top-bottom approach, hence people like Chamisa are always at variance with what the people expect on development.

The difference that will have a huge bearing as we approach harmonised elections in 2023 is that CCC is just a cadre party which typically organizes a small number of party fanatics, while Zanu PF is a mass political party that has millions of faithful supporters.

Zanu PF’s best foot forward is its appeal to the masses.

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