EDITORIAL COMMENT: Zimbabwe People First political miscalculation

Source: EDITORIAL COMMENT: Zimbabwe People First political miscalculation | The Financial Gazette January 12, 2017

THE Zimbabwe People First (ZPF) party, led by former vice president Joice Mujuru, will test its popularity by participating in the Bikita West by-election on January 21.
Following Temba Mliswa’s “giant-killing act” in the Norton by-election last October, there appears to be a misplaced belief among opposition political parties that the ground is now ripe for the total annihilation of the ruling ZANU-PF, which is far from being the case.
What seems to be lost to these opposition parties, including ZPF, is that ZANU-PF has always fared badly in urban constituencies since the advent of the MDC in 1999, except in cases where its rivals undermined themselves by splitting their votes like what happened in Norton in 2013.
Also, Mliswa has remained a hugely divisive figure in ZANU-PF in spite of his dismissal from the party in 2014. He still enjoys support across the warring ruling party factions, including among ZANU-PF’s paratroopers — the war veterans — hence President Robert Mugabe’s party was not able to confront its competitors in the Norton by-election as a cohesive force.
Ahead of the Chimanimani West by-election last November, ZANU-PF was able to put all that behind them by winning the seat resoundingly and this trend is certain to continue in the coming week, for the following reasons: Firstly, ZANU-PF has maintained its vice-like grip on rural constituencies, which no opposition party in Zimbabwe has attempted to undo. In the absence of electoral reforms, the ruling party has combined its use of coercive instruments, vote buying and the power of the incumbency to successfully shut out the opposition from rural constituencies.
Secondly, very few voters are likely to risk persecution by ZANU-PF by either campaigning for its rivals or being seen to be in support of them in an election that would not make a dent on the status quo in the sense that President Mugabe’s party already enjoys an overwhelming majority in the National Assembly that cannot be impacted on by the outcome of the Bikita West poll.
Thirdly, until the next harvest in April, people in areas that were worst affected by the 2015/16 drought, including the whole of Masvingo region, would desperately need the governing party to be able to access food aid. Doing anything to the contrary for the people of Bikita West would be akin to biting the hand that feeds them because ZANU-PF would surely respond by relapsing into its usual vindictiveness of denying them food handouts as a way of punishing them for voting for the opposition.
Against this background, it is the height of political immaturity for ZPF to contemplate a win in Bikita West, even after roping in MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, as has been suggested by the local media.
It would have been better for the party to pass by-elections and aggressively push for electoral reforms ahead of the 2018 polls, whose outcome would be significant in determining the direction the country would take.
Losing the Bikita poll would simply play into the hands of ZANU-PF, which is dying for some form of political capital to weaken the advancement of ZPF. A loss in Bikita West will also weaken ZPF’s momentum by fomenting disillusionment among its supporters.

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