New political parties spring up

Theoppy Ncube
Staff Reporter

BULAWAYO — A number of new political parties have sprung up in the aftermath of the July 31, 2013 elections, suggesting that the race for power could be tightly contested in the 2018 elections.The new political parties to emerge include: Transform Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Youth Council, the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), the Mthwakazi Republic Party (MRP) and the Independent Candidates Coalition.

Transform Zimbabwe was born from the Prayer Network Zimbabwe while the Independent Candidates Coalition was formed by disgruntled party cadres from different political parties who went it alone in the 2013 harmonised elections following what they believe was unfair treatment by their own comrades.
The MRP is a youth-oriented party, while the NCA has simply transformed itself from being a lobby group advocating for a people-driven constitution-making process to a political party.

MRP secretary for information and publicity, Mbonisi Gumbo, said their political party was aimed at changing things in Zimbabwe and wanted a youth-led government.
MRP is basically pursuing a secessionist agenda and wants the three Matabeleland provinces and the Midlands province to come together to form the Mthwakazi Republic.
“What we want is a free Mthwakazi Republic and the way we are achieving this goal is a bit different from other political parties as we are garnering support for Mthwakazi,” said Gumbo.

“In each and every generation there are heroes and we have not heard of a political party led by the youth and we intend to be the heroes of our own generation.
“We see that our elders are tired and they are not addressing our issues that is why we have formed our own party. It’s high time we have the youths leading and elders retiring.”
NCA’s chairperson, Lovemore Madhuku, said his political party was exercising its right of forming a political party and was preparing for the coming election.
“We are exercising our rights, that is the freedom to form any political party and the right to belong to any political party. We are still building our party and when we draw close to elections we will have a clear political structure,” he said.

But doubts remain over their ability of these political parties to end ZANU-PF’s political dominance.
ZANU-PF has dominated the political playing field over the past three decades, with the Movement for Democratic Change headed by former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai being the only party to come closer to removing it from power.
While the coming into the fray of more parties may provide a semblance of diversity in the political arena, it remains to be seen whether these parties have the stamina to dislodge the ruling party from power.

Inexperience is often cited as the biggest impediment working against the new political players not to mention ZANU-PF’s abuse of State machinery to make it difficult for its rivals to gain political space.
Analysts said in as much as diversity and plurality is usually celebrated in any democracy; it sometimes could be retrogressive and not strategic.
At the moment, Zimbabwe has numerous parties which usually sprout towards elections and fare badly, leading to some speculation that most of them could be mere political projects created to split the votes.

The biggest losers have been opposition parties that have to fight it out among  themselves, leaving the ruling party smiling all the way to Parliament and State House.
Political analyst, Thomas Sithole, said what people of Zimbabwe want is a democratic and ideological alternative to the ruling party.

“In the current political context and landscape, the more parties there are, the greater the chances of ZANU-PF remaining in power,” he observed.
Another school of thought is that the increase in political parties would not have any impact in Zimbabwe and might result in the confusion of voters, running the risk of the dividing up of votes, much to ZANU-PF’s gain.

In other words, the new political parties have no real chance of survival and would collapse after the 2018 elections.
Thabani Nyoni, a political commentator, observed that only three political parties have made an impact in Zimbabwe and the rest  have not made any impact at all.
“Most of these new political parties never make it past an election. Some would say that the multiplicity of parties is important, but one becomes concerned when most parties do not have any followers. It makes a mockery of politics and it is a serious business that deserves serious public attention,” Nyoni said.

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