IT was hardly doubtful that the resolutions of the Zanu PF National People’s Conference held in Bulawayo were to be the official onset of a season of political absurdities.
A few months on, we are full on in that season, albeit things are moving faster than many would have predicted.
Between recent events, tensions are rising within Zimbabwe’s political landscape. Vice-President (VP) Constantino Chiwenga delivered veiled speeches at the National Heroes Acre, confronting corruption and the corrupt.
In response, some individuals perceived as corrupt took to social media, indirectly labelling Chiwenga a failed opposition politician while pledging unwavering support for President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
At least two press conferences were held by war veterans’ groups, denouncing plans to extend Mnangagwa’s term in office under the so-called Agenda 2030. Additionally, Douglas Mahiya, the Zanu PF secretary for war veterans, conducted a media interview in which he engaged in name-calling. He criticised war veteran Blessing Runesu Geza and his affiliated war veterans’ groups.
Meanwhile, news articles have surfaced highlighting discontent within ruling party structures regarding Agenda 2030. Given these developments, the stage is set for political confrontation.
A few important points are worth observing.
In the end, whether or not the Constitution is changed to allow for an extended term for President Mnangagwa, Zanu PF’s political manoeuvres are a danger to national interest.
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Then Zimbabwe Defence Forces Commander General Chiwenga on November 13, 2017 at the infamous security presser spoke of how Zanu PF internal struggles are a danger to the national security and our constitutional order: “It is common cause that any instability within the party naturally impacts on their [Zimbabweans] social, political and economic lives”.
Centre is shaken
As much as possible, Zanu PF tries to deal with its matters internally, but frequently these spill into the public domain, and the last time such a nasty fallout ensured we got a coup that was sanitised as an operation to restore legacy and a “military-assisted transition”.
In the past, factions became almost official, the Lacoste and the G40, and before that, the Weevils and Gamatox.
Events of the last few months and weeks show that the centre cannot hold, and there is tangible decohesion on the Agenda 2030.
Internal power struggles
Zanu PF has shown us that their struggles are not the people’s struggles. Their battles have an agenda, and those agendas are power and access to wealth. And the players for the most part are not value- but interest-driven.
Thus, it is easy, as we often see, for the actors to change positions and allegiances seamlessly, contigent on what self-preservation in the moment demands. These are not people who can run a country.
There is too much at stake for them: protection of ill-gotten wealth, insulation from prosecution for human rights abuses, and preserving the loss of the life of power and comfort.
In all this, the people have nothing to gain.
The long-suffering people become smokescreens and pawns. The Agenda 2030 merchants claim to be doing this in the name of the people, yet their agenda is self-centred.
Even the war veterans at their press conferences, though they centred their agenda as being the people’s agenda, spoke first and foremost about their welfare, exclusion and their grievances. That is a fact we cannot ignore.
Diversion
What is occurring in and to Zanu PF has happened before, in various iterations. Naturally, as the ruling party, whatever transpires there affects the national body politic, such that there is a good case to observe and be concerned.
Moreso, because the divide between the state and Zanu PF has been deliberately blurred over the years, such that it is not far-fetched to say the ruling party does not or cannot exist outside the state.
Yet one must guard against diversion. Diversion happens through deliberate inducement or as a corollary of other actions.
Actions and reactions within the Zanu PF political arena have the tendency to divert attention from what ought to be the core focus on both the prodemocracy movement and citizens fixated on getting the country on track.
The critical issues remain to resist the creation of a one-party state and the mutilation of the country’s social contract, and to usher in true democracy that yields dividends for all.
This democracy, we have been yearning since the days of the liberation struggle and we are yet to achieve.
Coups beget coups
There is an ever-present danger in our politics of military action in one form or another, because of the party-military-state configuration of our politics, that is, the conflation between the three and/or the outsized role of the military in the party, which in turn is conflated with the state.
As someone says, lessons from observations in history are that the one, who got it through a coup, will often only be removed by a coup, and in turn another coup, and so on. Without deliberate action, we risk being entangled in a predictable vicious cycle.
Causalities
More than before, I now understand the extent of Zimbabwe’s battered image abroad.
Even in countries that do not by a mile compete with Zimbabwe in whatever realm, you will find people thinking of Zimbabwe as akin to war zone, an uninhabitable place.
This is because of steady stream of negative news and images constantly out of Zimbabwe. With current political developments, we are digging deeper.
Withdrawal of goodwill and support towards Zimbabwe becomes a by-product. In the end, it adds to political risk, which spills into economic risk. We, therefore, cannot wonder why foreign direct investment remains elusive.
Economic meltdown becomes inevitable. On January 26, 2025, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers issued a statement on the continued closure of formal retailers and wholesalers, sounding alarm on the closure of multiple retail outlets.
Meanwhile, shelves are getting empty in some of the larger retail outlets. Statutory Instruments, such as the recent Customs and Excise (Designated Deemed Smuggled Goods) Regulations, Statutory Instrument 7 of 2025, purporting to deal with the problem through counter-smuggling, measures are clearly misplaced.
Instead of focusing on fixing macro-economic issues and currency stability, we are focusing on political power play. That is the cost of our brand of politics. Meanwhile, standards of living continue to plumet for the majority of ordinary citizens.
The irony is that Zanu PF is the party that has appropriated to itself the legacy of the liberation of Zimbabwe and speaks endlessly of the non-reversal of the gains of the liberation struggle.
Yet the political manoeuvres of the party and its actors does exactly what the party speaks against: They reverse the gains of our political liberation.
So, what now?
We are to brace for a hard politics season. We are to brace for a season of implosion. As we do so, we must remember to remain fixated and resolute on Zimbabwe's true liberation, which is true democracy where people’s freedoms are respected and protected, and a thriving inclusive economy.
My admonition: Pound for pound in political strategy; Zanu PF’s hard politics must be met with such.
Democrats and constitutionalists intent on saving the nation must up their strategy in organising, think-tanking, and mobilising.
None of these is without precedent in other societies, just as dictators read from the same playbook and copy each other. Even in the face of what appears to be an unassailable intent to mutilate the social contract and permanently arrest the nation’s progress, hopelessness and defeatism ought not to be options.
- Kika is a Zimbabwean human rights and constitutional lawyer and a jurist. — [email protected]
