Clemence Manyukwe, Political Editor
ZANU-PF Mashonaland West provincial Inter District conference held over the weekend endorsed President Robert Mugabe as the party’s candidate in the next election, sending a clear signal that there would be no changes or reforms in the party’s hierarchy any time soon. The endorsement comes six months after President Mugabe told a meeting with editors regarding his possible re-election that: “if ZANU-PF says yes, I will stand.”
His comments raised questions over the party’s succession policy, especially after recent revelations that a committee that had been established to work on the party’s renewal was dissolved before assuming its duties.
The ZANU-PF Politburo succession committee was ironically composed of party stalwarts with power ambitions who included Vice-President, John Nkomo, the party’s secretary for Legal Affairs and Defence, Minister, Emerson Mnangagwa, former army commander, Solomon Mujuru, Women’s League chairperson, Oppah Muchi-nguri, secretary for Admi-nistration, Didymus Mutasa and secretary for National Security, Sydney Sekeramayi.
At the weekend’s Masho-naland West provincial conference, attended by party heavyweights such as national commissar and secretary for lands, Webster Shamu and Ignatius Chombo respectively, Senate President, Edna Madzongwe and Nathan Shamuyarira, a former minister of information, also resolved that elections must be held as soon as the constitution–making process is over.
There were also resolutions that called for the timeous availing of agricultural inputs and mechanisms to ensure that offer letters and lease agreements are bankable.
But it was the conference’s decision to endorse President Mugabe that has upped the ante to end the marriage of convenience between the three governing powers, ZANU-PF and the two formations of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The resolution to have an early poll also disregards a recent warning by the chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, Justice Simpson Mutambanengwe, that the body is not yet ready to lead the holding of credible elections in the country.
This week the interim chairperson of the Zimbabwe Liberators Platform, Happyson Nenji, said the province’s latest resolution would open floodgates of endorsements from other party provinces, but this poses potential hazards for ZANU-PF.
The war veteran added that the endorsements were likely to be followed by “million-men” marches to unequivocally send a message to all and sundry within and outside the party that the incumbent is not to be challenged.
Asked why the province had chosen Presi-dent Mugabe for re-election, ZANU-PF’s Mashonaland West provincial chairperson, Robby Sikan-yika, said the party’s leader was in the process of effecting empowerment quotas that would see locals having 51 percent shareholding in foreign–owned firms and there is no other leader in the party who has the guts to see it through.
“There is no one else like him in the party. We are saying vanofanira kufira pa-nyanga (he should die in office),” said Sikanyika.
The country’s Indigenisation and Empowerment Act has been criticised locally and externally especially by mining firms and other businesses who contend that it would stifle investment.
Besides the controversial empowerment drive, the ZANU-PF leader has previously resisted all the pressure brought to bear upon him during the land reform exercise: two life-changing programmes — for better or for worse — that he would carry into history.
There have also been suggestions that ZANU-PF has no
room for the youth, unlike its rival the MDC-T, which has blended the young and the old in its corridors of power.
But Sikanyika scoffed at that thinking.
“I am one of the youngest provincial chairpersons, I am only 40 years. (Patrick) Zhuwao, (Saviour) Kasuku-were in the youth league but they are now in the politburo. We also have new Vice Presidents, they never used to be vice presidents so we are changing going upwards,” said the Mashonaland provincial chairperson.
But after being defeated by Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, in the inconclusive March 2008 general polls, can the President summon his magic of yester-year to cause an upset devoid of the condemnation that greeted the presidential run-off held the same year following the first round of voting that could not produce a clear winner?
According to political analyst, Eldred Masunungure, another election pitting the premier and the President any time soon is likely to yield the same outcome as that of March 2008: an inconclusive result requiring another presidential re-run.
“The result is a big unknown because the situation is extremely fluid and variables are very mobile and as such prediction is in the realm of speculation. Having said that, in politics as in economics there are certain fundamentals and it is those fundamentals that provide the capacity to predict. If those two — the President and the Prime minister — square up, the probability is that we will get a repeat of the March 2008 results,” said Masunungure.
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