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By Justice Alfred Mavedzenge

Introduction

At the center of Zimbabwe’s governance crisis is the toxic nature of the politics of both the ruling party and the opposition. In most of Zimbabwe’s political parties, politics is centered on advancing the interests of the individuals who are at the helm of the party and their families. Recently I watched a video where the former First lady, Mrs. Grace Mugabe was touring the construction site of the new African liberation museum in Harare. She was accompanied by persons whom she introduced as former President Robert Mugabe’s family members and these are Mr. Innocent Matibiri, Mr. Walter Chidhakwa and Mr. Leo Mugabe.

Mr Innocent Matibiri was a Deputy National Police Commissioner while Mr Walter Chidhakwa was Minister of Mines during the Mugabe administration. Both were quite incompetent in executing their duties. For me, the utterances of the former First lady in this video were a reminder of what is problematic with the Zimbabwean politics. From former President Robert Mugabe to the current administration of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, ZANU PF has continued to pursue politics that is centered on advancing the interests of individuals who are at the helm of the party, and their families. This kind of politics is anchored on ZANU PF’s “one center of power” doctrine. Under this doctrine, all the power is concentrated in whoever is the President and First Secretary of the party at that time, and his decisions cannot be challenged, including decisions to appoint incompetent relatives and friends into positions of power.   

In the opposition, the emergency of Nelson Chamisa in 2018 as the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance (and later the Citizen Coalition for Change) was also followed by the adoption of the “Chamisa Chete Chete” (translated to No-one but Nelson Chamisa is our leader) philosophy. This philosophy was later reinforced by the adoption of the “doctrine of strategic ambiguity” which Nelson Chamisa introduced purportedly to ensure that ZANU PF is kept unaware of the opposition party’s strategies. However, in reality the doctrine of strategic ambiguity became a cover for Nelson Chamisa and his inner circle to evade accountability for any of the major decisions they made on behalf of the party and the opposition movement. In essence, similar to the ZANU PF’s “one center of power doctrine”, Nelson Chamisa’s doctrine of strategic ambiguity (and the Chamisa chete chete philosophy) became a means of concentrating power in the party leader and shield the party leader from being held accountable. 

For the ruling party ZANU PF, this approach of individual centered politics has succeeded to keep the party in power, but it has not succeeded to bring about development to the nation. As a result, ZANU PF has been unable to address the challenges of poverty bedeviling the country since the 1990s, mainly due to government incompetence and corruption, which can be traced back to nepotism and absence of accountability. For the opposition, the individual centered politics has only but weakened the opposition and enabled ZANU PF to retain power. No single individual can succeed to remove a strong and vicious dictatorship such as ZANU PF.

There is a notion amongst some sections of the Zimbabwean population that Nelson Chamisa is anointed by God and he therefore can succeed to remove ZANU PF. While I do not subscribe to this notion, as a Christian I can see some evidence of God’s favour and grace upon Nelson Chamisa. However, there is no evidence even in biblical history, of a single person who succeeded to carryout God’s mission alone, especially where the removal of an oppressive system is concerned. Jesus Christ was anointed by God to bring salvation to the people, but he had to work with the 12 Apostles, amongst several others. Back in the Old Testament, Moses was anointed by God to lead the nation of Israel out of Egypt where they had endured slavery and oppression for about 450 years. Moses could not achieve his assignment without working with Aaron, Mirriam and Jethro. He also had to appoint leaders from amongst the Israelites to help him manage the people during the Exodus.

In contemporary human history, there is no evidence of an opposition leader who single handedly removed a dictatorship.  In 2021 in Zambia, the dictatorship of Edgar Lungu was removed as a result of the collective efforts of the church, civil society and the political actors led by now President Hakainde Hichilema. Similarly in Malawi in 2019, they succeeded to remove the dictatorship of Arthur Mutharika because they worked together collectively. The same can be said about South Africa’s struggle to end apartheid, and recent success by the Senegalese to stop former President Macky Sall from seeking a third term. How can the Zimbabwean opposition move towards the politics of collective effort? 

Renewal of leadership

The leadership of Zimbabwe’s opposition needs an overhaul. Since 1999 to date, Zimbabwe’s opposition has been led by individuals who belong to what I call “the class of 1999”, who founded the Movement for Democratic Change under Morgan Tsvangirai and Gibson Sibanda’s leadership. It is fair to describe the class of 1999 as the “Galácticos” of Zimbabwe’s opposition politics. In football circles, “galácticos” is a term that is used to refer to super stars who are exceptionally talented, expensive and world-famous football players. Under President Florentino Perez, Real Madrid (a Spanish football club) pursued what became to be known as the galácticos policy. This is a policy of assembling a team of football superstars.  However, this policy created problems for the club in the early 2000s when it was introduced. For example, between 2000 and 2006 the Real Madrid seriously underperformed, winning only 1 league title despite the exceptional individual talent amongst its players who included Zinadine Zidane, Raul, Ronaldo, David Beckham, Roberto Carlos and Louis Figo. The problem was that these individual players were unable to function as a team, even though they were superstars.  

One can draw parallels between Real Madrid’s galácticos of the early 2000s and the class of 1999 of the Zimbabwe opposition leaders, which included Morgan Tsvangirai, Gibson Sibanda, Grace Kwinjeh, Lucia Matibenga, Douglas Mwonzora, Nelson Chamisa, Tendai Biti, the late “Chairman” Isaac Matongo, Welshman Ncube, Job Sikhala, Prscilla Mushonga and the late Learnmore “Judah” Jongwe, to name just but a few. This generation of opposition leaders is immensely talented. They have amongst them, excellent community organizers, fundraisers, orators, sophisticated thinkers and exceptionally skilled administrators and communicators.

Through its trail blazing efforts and exceptional skills, the class of 1999 succeeded to push for certain critical democratic reforms, including the adoption of the 2013 Constitution and a variety of electoral reforms, which have been instrumental in mitigating against authoritarianism in Zimbabwe.  However, they failed to get the ultimate prize of unseating ZANU PF.  This generation has been terrible at working as a team, precisely because of their culture of individual centered politics. They are also strongly committed towards outshining each other, and this became their greatest undoing, notwithstanding their exceptional individual talents. This is why under Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC split several times, and under Nelson Chamisa, both the MDC and the Citizen Coalition for Change have all but collapsed.

These splits have been blamed on ZANU PF infiltration. It is true that ZANU PF has infiltrated the opposition, but such infiltration has been successful because of the failure by some of these talented opposition galacticos to work together as a team. There is no dictatorship that does not desire to infiltrate. However, when the opposition is bound together by a common sense of purpose, they become difficult to penetrate and infiltrate. In my view, the failure of this generation of opposition leaders to work as a team, and the politics of “the big man” are the main reasons for the splits in the opposition.  

The numerous splits have undermined unity and public confidence in the opposition. Of course, some of the individual leaders still enjoy popular support but insufficient to remove the ZANU PF dictatorship through elections in the near future.  In this context, the efforts to rebuild the opposition movement in Zimbabwe ought to avoid recycling the leadership of the class of 1999. Recycling these leaders will not inspire unity and public confidence. What is needed is fresh leadership that has the capacity to unite the masses of Zimbabwe across the traditional political, social and religious divides.  However, this does not mean that the class of 1999 can no longer serve any purpose. They have an immense responsibility to give advice, mentorship and general guidance as well as thought leadership to the new crop of opposition leaders. The class of 1999 has immense experience which the new crop of opposition leaders can tap into and utilise to build a stronger movement and give Zimbabweans a fighting chance for their freedom.  

A new approach to elections and organizing communities

The new Zimbabwe opposition movement needs to adopt a long-term strategy towards achieving electoral victory. At the minimum, they need a 10-year election strategy. The first phase of that strategy must involve renewing the leadership and the structures of the movement. In addition, competent community leaders (ambassadors) should be identified who will work within communities on a long-term basis to sell the vision of the movement to the people in their communities. These community leaders must be people who are genuinely connected to the communities they work in and should not be people who are outsiders to that community. They should be supported with resources, on a long-term basis to implement programs and activities which empower communities socially and economically, as a way of demonstrating that they are a genuine alternative to ZANU PF, but also as a way of providing genuine public service. The process of selecting such community leaders must be based on values that are not only democratic but meritocratic in nature, in order to ensure that the movement has ethical and technically competent ambassadors embedded in the local communities. From amongst these ambassadors, the movement will be able to identify some of the candidates who can contest in parliamentary elections and actually win those constituencies by large margins.

Some argue that it is impossible for the opposition to win because ZANU PF always rigs the elections. This is true but not entirely. Since the 1990s, we have had numerous cases where ZANU PF was defeated by individuals who stood as independent and opposition candidates, after having worked in their communities for a very long period of time. Some of these individuals were able to persuade some of the ZANU PF members to vote for them and thus, were able to divide the ZANU PF local support base. For example, in 2008, Professor Jonathan Moyo won the parliamentary seat of Tsholotsho North constituency, when he contested as an independent candidate, after his expulsion from ZANU PF. Another recent example is Temba Mliswa who won in Norton in 2016 as an independent candidate, contesting against ZANU PF. In 2008, Robert Mugabe of ZANU PF was defeated by the then opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the first round of the presidential election. Certainly, there is something the new opposition movement in Zimbabwe can learn from these examples and it is that, it’s possible to defeat ZANU PF in an election notwithstanding its manipulative tendencies. However, the opposition can only achieve such victories if they adopt a long-term approach of maximizing on working through ambassadors in communities.

What I am proposing here is a radical change from the current approach where the opposition’s parliamentary candidates attempt to win elections by reason of being associated with a particular national opposition leader. For example, in previous elections the main resource for the majority of the Citizens Coalition for Change candidates for their campaign in local constituencies was their association with Nelson Chamisa’s brand. Previously, the Movement for Democratic Change parliamentary candidates were canvassing for votes because “they were representing Morgan Tsvangirai” in the local communities. This is an ineffective strategy because it reinforces the “big man” syndrome while at the same time it does not give the opposition candidates any leverage to persuade the local ZANU PF members to vote for them.  

For these reasons, I am suggesting that the Zimbabwean opposition must stop relying on the brand of the national opposition leader to canvass for votes during elections. Rather the national opposition leader must rely on the work that has been done by local community leaders, to win the votes. In order to achieve this, the opposition must deploy all its resources towards supporting local community leaders/ambassadors to do projects and programs which uplift the lives of their local communities.

Of course, there will be attempts by the State to disrupt the work that is done by these community ambassadors. There will also be security risks. However, there are practical mitigatory solutions to these challenges which the thought leaders of the opposition movement can help to design and implement.

Renewing the value system

The opposition movement in Zimbabwe needs to renew its values. Because of the one center of power philosophy and absence of internal democracy, the current opposition movement has too many people within its leadership ranks who are seeking power as a way of self-actualization, while others rely on opposition politics to access resources for personal gain. The massive levels of corruption taking place in opposition led municipalities bear testimony to this. The embezzlement of party funds by some of the leaders is further evidence of this challenge. With such people in positions of leadership, there is no way such a leadership can function as a team or transform the movement into a strong organisation that is capable of defeating ZANU PF in elections. Therefore, the opposition is not only in need of new leaders but a new value system. There is need for a leadership team (at all levels of the movement) which is able to instill amongst its workers and members, the values of patriotism, selfless service, accountability and meritocracy. Opposition politics should not be perceived as an avenue for the elite in society to self-actualize or for the unemployed to gain access to resources. Opposition politics, in the context of Zimbabwe, should be perceived as a self-less sacrifice to rescue the country and complete the agenda of the liberation struggle, which was to free the country from the shackles of oppression.

Conclusion

In the next instalments, I will address the other crucial elements which are needed in order to reposition Zimbabwe’s opposition politics and encourage its transition from individual centered politics to people centered opposition politics of collective responsibility. In this installment, I am suggesting the renewal of the opposition leadership, approach and its values, as a starting point. It is not so much about “who” will lead the opposition campaign during elections in 2028 but “what kind of an organisation or movement should be established first”. The face of the opposition in Zimbabwe should not be an individual but the work that is done to build communities by ambassadors for change. The idea that Zimbabweans must suffer so that they can vote ZANU PF out of power is not only unpatriotic but is ineffective. The opposition should demonstrate, through community developmental work, and practising the values of accountability that they are a better alternative to ZANU PF. 

This article has been written by Justice Alfred Mavedzenge, a constitutional lawyer and Adjunct Senior Lecturer of Public Law at the University of Cape Town. He writes in his personal capacity.