The Zimbabwe Review: ZANU-PF

Showing posts with label ZANU-PF. Show all posts

A change is not gonna come

Sep 18, 2012

Chido Makunike

Many Zimbabweans hope that there will soon be a fundamental change in how the country's politics are conducted. Whatever change to a more 'free and democratic' dispensation takes place will likely be small and incremental, rather than revolutionary. Here's why.

The controversial MDC/ZANU-PF popularity poll result as a sign of a maturing Zimbabwean citizenry

Sep 3, 2012

by Chido Makunike

The opinion poll by U.S. think tank Freedom House suggesting reduced support for the MDC and an increase in support for ZANU-PF has caused an understandable stir. It has particularly done so by going against what had become, in some circles. the accepted wisdom of an impeding electoral landslide by the MDC over ZANU-PF.

The Zimbabwe Independent in delimma over Mugabe successor

Jan 20, 2012

The Zimbabwe Independent is an important newspaper. It mostly provides a good, deep weekly read. A streak of irreverence in some of its regular columns means it is one of the few papers to occasionally knock haughty politicians off their high horses. But on the twin issues of ZANU-PF ‘factions’ and the Mugabe ‘succession issue,’ the ZimInd has a puzzling penchant for featuring shallow, content-less articles. ‘Mugabe in dilemma over successor’ is the latest of many recent examples of this inexplicable trend.

ZANU-PF’ ‘empowerment, MDC’s ‘more investment’ need not be seen as contradictory

Dec 28, 2011

ZANU-PF and the MDC will start 2012 with a heightened awareness that a crucial election for them and for the country is not far away, whatever the final dates will be. As the parties sell themselves to the voters, it has become clear that their visions of how to bring about an economically prosperous Zimbabwe are starkly different. But are ‘empowerment’ and ‘attracting investment’ best thought of as opposing philosophies, or as two sides of the same coin?

At ZANU-PF conference, the Zimbabwe Independent again fails to solidify party factional fighting story

Dec 11, 2011

The Zimbabwe Independent has made itself an authority of sorts on ‘factionalism’ in ZANU-PF, if only by the sheer, astonishing number of leading stories it devotes to the subject. Given the frequency and prominence the paper has elected to give to this issue, a reader is often disappointed by how little meat and how much repetitious speculation and guesswork there in its ‘coverage’ of it. The just ended ZANU-PF conference in Bulawayo should have been a rare opportunity for the ZimInd to give the reader a more credible, newsworthy angle than usual to its favorite subject. Sadly but perhaps now predictably, it was not
to be.

ZANU-PF's 2011 conference is a lost final pre-election opportunity for reinvention

Dec 6, 2011

ZANU-PF is just about to hold a conference in Bulawayo, important for very likely being the last such party meeting before the next presidential and parliamentary elections are held. It is doing so in a political environment where in many ways it is the electoral underdog against the MDC. Yet there are no signs at all that ZANU-PF is willing to deal with some of big issues that could see the party being electorally wiped out by the MDC.

Militias and the privatization of ZANU-PF, MDC political violence

Nov 21, 2011

The leaders of ZANU-PF and the MDC recently made a big show of a joint appeal for the end of political violence between and amongst their supporters. However, the culture of political violence has become so entrenched in Zimbabwe that there are actors aligned to but outside the direct control of the political parties and their leaders who have their own interests in continuing to sponsor violence.

The Standard discovers yet two more ZANU-PF 'factions'

Sep 25, 2011

The Zimbabwe Independent has for years been tireless in writing about 'vicious factional fighting' between what it has long told us are the Mujuru and the Mnangagwa camps in ZANU-PF. Its sister paper The Standard has done one better by discovering at least two more 'factions' to make following that party's internal dynamics more entertaining.

The dangers of characterizing Zambia's election in Zimbabwean political terms

With the election of Michael Sata as president, Zambia continues to entrench its democratic tradition. It is impossible to ignore the contrast with the slow, reluctant moves towards a free system of elections and routine power transfer in Zimbabwe.

Even after Wikileaks, Mugabe still completely controls ZANU-PF leadership change process

Sep 20, 2011

As more U.S.diplomatic cables are leaked, the main collective response is still astonishment at the degree to which many people close to president Robert Mugabe apparently privately called for him to step down, with some even joining in half-hearted attempts to engineer that result. Lost in that astonishment is the fact that regardless of how widespread the sentiment in favor of leadership renewal in ZANU-PF was/is, the party today is no closer to getting rid of Mugabe than they were at the time most of the cables were written.

ZANU-PF leadership change before the next election: damned if they keep Mugabe, damned if they lose him

Sep 14, 2011

'Leadership renewal ' should be a continuous process in any political party. ZANU-PF in particular should have embarked on the process of 'Mugabe-renewal' ten or more years ago, when it could have been done in an orderly fashion, and without the pressure of an electoral threat from a major competing political grouping. However, having failed to carry out the process when they should have, on the eve of a major election under new rules, ZANU-PF are damned if they keep Mugabe and yet damned differently if he exits the scene now.

Mujuru: separating the ZANU-PF factions from the media fictions

Sep 3, 2011

The late Solomon Mujuru was unquestionably a distinguished soldier of Zimbabwe's war of independence. He certainly remained influential in ZANU-PF politics long after he retired as army commander. However, after his recent death the media is struggling to back up its implication, built up over many years, that Mujuru was so super-powerful that his absence will cause a fundamental shift in the country's politics.

With Solomon Mujuru's death, what are now the dynamics of ZANU-PF 'factions?'

Aug 30, 2011

The pre-occupation of most people interested in the subject is still with what and/or who might have killed Solomon Mujuru. The results of the ongoing official investigation into his death by fire is unlikely to end the speculation. While everybody plays armchair expert over issues that only forensic experts can even hope to find conclusive answers to, it is perhaps worthwhile to ask questions over the issue of 'factions' in ZANU-PF that Mujuru is said to have been at the center of.

Foreign-sponsored regime-change in Libya; effects on Zimbabwe

Deposed Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi is not in Zimbabwe and is unlikely to seek refuge there, but his months-long, carefully foreign-orchestrated, funded and armed fall is inevitably reverberating through Zimbabwe's politics.

On the death of Solomon Mujuru, intrigue and conspiracy theories galore

Aug 17, 2011

In Zimbabwe the death of any prominent senior member of the ruling elite is an occasion for mass catharsis on some level. Ordinary people discuss whether the deceased's life record was net positive or net negative, and what he or she could and should have done differently to contribute to shaping the country's trajectory. In all these respects and many more, Solomon Mujuru's death will be 'off the charts.'

Tsvangirai's risky, tactically ill-advised interview with the UK Telegraph

Jun 23, 2011

Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF have been relentless in accusing Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC of being 'puppets' of the West, and particularly of former colonial power Britain. The MDC's continuing significant support shows that that the electorate do not buy this, or perhaps that many of them don't care as much about this as they do about deposing Mugabe & Co. But it is still amazing how inept Tsvangirai and his team are at making sure that this charge does not stick to them.

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