The hiring of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to train Zanu PF officials on mobilisation in time for the 2018 watershed elections as President Robert Mugabe’s party gets increasingly jittery over the prospects of facing a united opposition, is clear testimony that the ruling party if suffering from legitimacy.
Comment: NewsDay Editor
Zimbabwe has had disputed elections in 2002, 2008 and 2013 where Mugabe has failed to beat the opposition MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai outrightly.
While Zanu PF’s choice of the CCP to train its commissariat department is theirs to make, Zimbabweans will have a problem entrusting the Chinese with the 2018 elections given the Chinese who support CCP hold anti-democratic perspectives that the government is legitimate not when people influence it, but when it represents their higher interests.
Zanu PF has already kick-started its election campaign with Mugabe visiting provinces to address so-called youth rallies.
Various opposition leaders are also criss-crossing the country urging their supporters to register to vote. But pleas for everyone to vote ignore the fact that not voting can itself be a way of voting.
The trumpery of the Zanu PF campaign and to some extent the opposition has led many to decide that they want no part of it and so will not vote. It’s hard, however, to distinguish such protest from mere apathy or forgetfulness, at the moment given that the campaign is at its infancy.
We are worried, however, that because Zanu PF and government roles are conflated the Chinese may be involved in the preparation of the next elections.
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Clearly the hiring of the Chinese is a clear indication that Zanu PF policies have failed. Otherwise would a party that has been in power since independence in 1980, need someone else to train them on how to handle party business in a manner that could ensure development and continued electoral success?
If this is not another ploy to rig the forthcoming plebiscite, we don’t know what it could. The CCP’s legitimacy lies in history and popular support from the people, according to its top officials.
The most obvious and perhaps oxymoronic explanation why Zanu PF hired the Chinese according to under-fire national commissar Saviour Kasukuwere is to prepare the party on how to select its leaders or representatives without having to subject everyone to the traditional primary elections.
Why should the party choose representatives for the people without the people themselves choosing who they want to represent them?
It is a known fact that China does not hold elections, but selects leaders who will lead the party and government.
We do not believe Kasukuwere’s façade that the Chinese were roped in to teach Zanu PF on how to win the elections ideologically – something does not add up. What is clear is that Zanu PF is eager to win the polls and could use State machinery, violence or arm-twist the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
We hope the opposition geared to battle it out with Zanu PF in the next election are able to see through the ruse. Zimbabweans must also be wary of Zanu PF shenanigans and stop it.
Sovereign power is in the citizens as a whole, and each vote has weight as part of the political community. And certainly not in an individual!
