Online Reporter
Ranga Mataire-Group Political Editor
When ZANU PF convenes its Annual National People’s Conference next month, it will do so in a mood not seen in two decades — confidence bordering on swagger.
This is a party that can point to tarred roads, to the Trabablas Interchange, to Hwange Unit 7 & 8, to dams, to grain surpluses, and say: we delivered.
The new funders
When ZANU PF Secretary for Youth Affairs and Minister of Youth Employment, Development and Vocational Training, Cde Tino Machakaire stood up to address people at Munhumutapa Day, he made it clear to everyone of the ruling party’s pride in nurturing young businesspeople who all have become active participants in national affairs issues.
He took the time to specifically honour the young businesspeople who bankrolled and played a part in the successful hosting of the event.
“Under your leadership (referring to President Mnangagwa), young people are not simply leaders of tomorrow, we are partners in building Zimbabwe today. You have listened to the youth, and most importantly, created opportunities for the youth,” said Cde Machakaire to the applause of the thousands who thronged Mvurwi to celebrate Munhumutapa Day, which coincides with President Mnangagwa’s birthday.
For the first time in ZANU PF’s history, the party displayed at Munhumutapa Day in Mvurwi, what insiders call its “new base” — young businesspeople, aged 30 to 50, in mining, construction, agriculture, transport, and tech, who openly attribute their wealth to Second Republic policies and who are now active funders and participants in the party’s politics.
The Second Republic has changed things. The party is producing its own capitalists. The Empowerment Bank, the Youth Fund, the deliberate localisation of tenders in road construction, mining concessions for youth, and agricultural subsidies have created a class of entrepreneurs whose loyalty is not based on liberation war nostalgia, but on economic pragmatism. They fund ZANU PF not out of fear, but out of interest. This is the politics typical of the US Republican Party or China’s CPC — a party of business that sustains the party that sustains business.
The ideological transition
President Mnangagwa’s Second Republic has quietly executed an ideological pivot without announcing it. The language has moved from mere sloganeering to “Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo”; a rallying call for every Zimbabwean to partake in the development of the country. The thrust has moved from expropriation to beneficiation; from indigenisation by seizure to empowerment by production.
At the coming conference, this transition will be formalised. Resolutions are no longer expected to be about political slogans, but about:
Value addition and beneficiation targets for lithium, gold and platinum
Youth quotas in mining claims and public procurement
Formalisation of the new youth housing schemes like Munhumutapa
The anti-drug war as an economic productivity issue
This is economic pragmatism at play.
Why this matters for Zimbabwean politics
Opposition politics in Zimbabwe has for 25 years thrived on one warped accusation: ZANU PF destroys wealth; it does not create it. That line is becoming harder to sustain when, at every ZANU PF event, you see young men and women who were given a mine, a farm, a truck, a stand, and turned it into a company that employs 50 people and funds party activities.
The ruling party is learning what Lee Kuan Yeew (LKY) did in Singapore: a liberation party only survives if it becomes a prosperity party.
The forthcoming conference, therefore, is not just an annual ritual. The war veterans remain the moral conscience and the young business class is becoming the financial engine.
ZANU PF is likely to emerge from this year’s conference not just as a liberation movement that won a liberation war, but an economic movement whose focus is on delivering prosperity to all Zimbabweans.
ZANU PF’s First Secretary and President, Cde Mnangagwa has already set the agenda tone for the conference. He has persistently and consistently said delegates needed to focus on implementation, “moving from resolutions to results” by turning past party decisions into practical, measurable economic programmes.
The theme itself: “From Resolutions to Results: Consolidating Economic Development and Deepening Economic Empowerment Towards Vision 2030” shows the party’s clear intent in pivoting the goal on economic prosperity. For efficient delivery, the conference will also deliberate on the need to re-align the party’s administrative structures to ensure high performance, discipline, and measurable impact on livelihoods.
