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Financial Gazette (Harare)

Zimbabwe: Zanu-PF Plots Its Own Downfall

Rangarirai Mberi

10 April 2008

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Harare — FROM where we sat, on the highest tier of the City Sports Centre last December, we looked down on a once mighty liberation party busy planning its own demise.

They all cheered as the party took a decision not to reform itself or change how it conducts its business.

Today, nearly four months on, ZANU-PF has lost control of Parliament for the first time in close to three decades.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) did not need to do much to knock ZANU-PF off its pedestal.

Thin on talent and riding on nothing more than Pollyanna policies - "we have been promised 10 million pounds" - the MDC still wounded ZANU-PF and dented President Robert Mugabe's aura of invincibility.

With ZANU-PF's record, any nut with a bit of money was in with a chance. In fact, to many, it's a mystery how the election was even this close. ZANU-PF, they say, should really have been buried.

Even for ZANU-PF diehards, voting for their party was now more out of grudging duty than conviction.

ZANU-PF's decline started years ago, but it was back at congress where it drew closest to sealing its own downfall.

Few of its supporters had dared ask the one important question: what did President Mugabe want another five years for?

The agenda circulated ahead of the meeting put down ZANU-PF's plans for surviving the future. Number one; no, ZANU-PF would not renew leadership, the party leadership was fine as it was.

Second; no, ZANU-PF would not change the way it was running the economy. Here it was, ZANU-PF, 44 years old, smack in the middle of a midlife crisis and deep in denial.

"Mugabe chete (only), 2008," each speaker was compelled to chant into the microphone before they could say anything to congress.

For loyalists of President Mugabe, this was necessary, for there had been grumbling against the "Mugabe chete" mantra.

As Simba Makoni now puts it, "there was a yearning for renewal from within".

But ahead of congress, the cowardice of the so-called reformers had been no match for the iron fist and guile of the hardliners.

Where the reformers whispered "renewal", the bullies pulled out "a million" marchers onto Harare's streets to stomp every toe back into line.

The MDC, meanwhile, was just there, waiting. No need to impress anybody with any wasteful talk of issues. Nothing more than "chinja" required. Morgan was simply "more". ZANU-PF would soon just deliver itself into the hands of its enemies. And it did.

Formed in 1963, the Zimbabwe African National Union was established for a particular purpose; to help fight white rule.

But for 45 years, it has been shaking the fist. Very little else done.

ZANU-PF, and its sympathisers in the region, now have to deal with the jarring prospect of a Morgan Tsvangirai presidency, less a result of the opposition leader's brilliance, but more a consequence of ZANU-PF's own inability to change and make the country work for its people.

There must be anguish among the liberation movements in the region, watching a struggle comrade stumble.

The ANC of South Africa, SWAPO of Namibia, Mozambique's Frelimo and Chama Cha Mapinduzi in Tanzania were at congress last year, all declaring solidarity.

But there is no doubt all of them - despite the public show of support - quietly wished ZANU-PF would learn from them the one lesson; change isn't so bad.

All these parties preside over positive economic growth, not because their countries have mystic hills that dispense "purer" diesel, but because they learnt long ago the advantages of continuous renewal.

Instead, ZANU-PF simply refused to change.

There were imperialists at the gates, the party believed, and President Mugabe alone could defend the revolution.

Anybody suspected of seeking any kind of reform was picked out from the crowd, accused of peddling filth, dragged outside and crucified like a heretic.

"Ndiyaniko angazvigona zvaVaMugabe (literal translation; who can do it like Mugabe does)," a group of women sang as they queued for lunch one day at congress.

Now, defeated at the polls, ZANU-PF must be asking itself; where did we lose it?

A good place to start must surely be the grey space between, at one end, Herbert Chitepo and George Nyandoro - some of the deep men at the heart of early struggle - and, at the other end, Obadiah Musindo, just a model of the morally corrupt figures who now speak for the party and espouse what has become of its values.

It was never going to remain the revolutionary movement of Nyandoro, Chitepo, Ndangana, Takawira, Malianga, Zvobgo and even Mugabe.

But it resisted the kind of change that would have allowed it to retain these credentials, while still remaining sensitive to contemporary issues.

Instead, the kind of change it chose was that which collapsed what Eddison Zvobgo once described as "a glorious revolution" into a brew of mock patriotism, greed, superstition and incompetence.

In its arrogance, ZANU-PF probably saw other revolutionary parties that continuously renewed themselves as fools.

ZANU-PF alone knew what it was doing. Besides, it must have thought, the rest were not fighting "Bush naBlair".

The party passed up many chances to change, and to do so on its own terms.

Instead, depending on how it deals with this difficult period, ZANU-PF might well be pushed into forced change for its survival.

Its ranks swell with crafty, experienced strategists who may yet outthink the MDC.

But ZANU-PF knows that whatever emerges out of the transition will be far weaker than what could have been had it allowed a culture of internal change and renewal on its own terms.

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