Mavaza: ZANU PF Differences Storm In A Teacup

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ZANU PF’S DIFFERENCES: A STORM IN A TEACUP IN A LONG REVOLUTIONARY JOURNEY

By Dr Masimba Mavaza

Those who are rushing to write the obituary of ZANU PF after the Chinhoyi Conference have not read history. They mistake debate for division, and they mistake robust dialogue for rupture. They do not know this Party.

Dr Masimba Mavaza and a colleague The differences we see today between cadres are not new. ZANU PF was born in difference. It was born in 1963 when we made the principled split from ZAPU because we believed the struggle needed sharper ideological clarity and more decisive action. It was born in a split from the ANC tradition because we refused to compromise with settler colonialism.

Since then, our journey has been marked by moments that would have destroyed lesser movements, but which made us stronger.

We have survived worse. Much worse.

We survived the Magagao crisis. We survived the Nachingwea shootout, when comrades turned guns on each other in the heat of the struggle. We survived the Nhari rebellion in the Zambezi Valley, when our own commanders rose against the leadership. We survived Vashandi, the most serious ideological challenge to Chairman Chitepo and the Dare. We survived the brutal internal contradictions of the armed struggle from 1970 to 2000, the era of intense infiltration and counter-infiltration.

If we survived bullets among comrades in the bush, how can we fail to survive ballots among comrades in Chinhoyi?

We survived even the greatest test of all – the historic and necessary divorce from our iconic leader, Comrade Robert Mugabe in 2017, and we emerged more united, launching the Second Republic. And we perfected the art of dialogue with our crowning achievement – the Unity Accord of 1987, when we ended the painful chapter of Gukurahundi and united ZANU and ZAPU into one indomitable force, ZANU PF.

This is our DNA. ZANU PF does not solve its contradictions through purges and zero-sum games. It solves them through dialogue. Through Gukurahundi, through Dare Rechimurenga, through endless hours of discussion under the trees of Mozambique and Zambia. We talk until we agree. That is African democracy. That is revolutionary democracy.

Therefore, the differences that we see in the ruling party today between ED and the General, between the men with guns and the men with money, are not as insurmountable as many think. They are manageable contradictions among comrades who fought together. They are the growing pains of a Party that is managing success, not failure.

What is needed now is what has always saved us: dialogue and an amicable, consensus-based solution instead of a winner-takes-all approach. A revolutionary movement cannot afford a winner-takes-all mentality, because if one revolutionary wins and another loses, the Revolution itself has lost.

I have absolute confidence that our leaders – leaders of Africa’s most revolutionary movement, a movement that defeated Smith, that defeated colonialism, that defeated apartheid’s machinations – will put Zimbabwe first. They will listen to all sides. They will reach a compromise and take us past this chapter.

There is just no prosperity in a zero-sum game for any Zimbabwean, especially with the growth we are experiencing right now under the Second Republic despite its shortcomings. The roads, the dams, the mines, the Pfumvudza – these are real. To jeopardize them for factional supremacy would be counter-revolutionary.

We need to put Zimbabwe first, and that requires unity of leadership, business, and the masses. The masses want development, not division.

ZANU PF has been declared dead many times since 1963. Yet here it stands, the oldest and most successful liberation movement in Southern Africa. Chinhoyi will not be its end. Chinhoyi will be remembered as another moment when we chose dialogue over division, and Zimbabwe over self.

Aluta Continua!