Online Reporter
Dr Obert Moses Mpofu
MANY political movements have come and gone, but only ZANU PF has endured beyond the momentary “trending”.
Our party is the trendsetter.
It continues to attract interest from every corner of Zimbabwean society.
It is forever the talk of town — on the streets, in the workplace, at market stalls, on radio call-in shows and in every digital chat room. Almost everyone claims a stake in what we do.
That is because ZANU PF is a living, breathing movement into which the nation has poured its hopes since the days of the liberation struggle.
At critical epochs in our history — resistance to colonialism, reconstruction, land reform, indigenisation and now accelerated modernisation — the party has remained the people’s compass. Yet endurance is not an accident.
In my earlier instalment, “No life beyond the political grave”, I argued that the longevity of a party is measured by its capacity for self-renewal and its fidelity to the national interest.
Many opposition factions have mistaken brief media buzz for ideological grounding. They confused fleeting applause with patience of the masses.
When the hashtags faded, they found themselves in the political graveyard, remembered only as footnotes in our electoral history. ZANU PF survived the same unforgiving political terrain because it never reduced politics to a fashion show. It embedded itself in the everyday realities of the people — tilling the land, defending sovereignty and incubating enterprises that speak to bread-and-butter issues.
Deep institutional roots
A central pillar of our survival is organisational depth. From the cell to the province, each rung of the party ladder performs a specific function.
These structures are not decorative — they are transmission belts through which policy decisions ascend from the grassroots and cascade back as actionable programmes. A decision taken at the Central Committee or Politburo level is not left to gather dust in minutes; it is translated into ward-level projects that the community can touch, taste and account for.
Conversely, a concern raised in a village development committee travels upwards with equal speed, ensuring that the leadership governs with its ear to the ground.
It is this symmetry that many start-up parties lack. They run sleek social-media dashboards but have no engine under the bonnet.
Another driver of longevity is ideological clarity. ZANU PF is anchored in three unshakeable convictions: liberation heritage, Pan-African solidarity and people-centred economic empowerment. We are heirs of a painful yet triumphant history, and that heritage bestows upon us the duty to defend independence in all its economic and cultural dimensions.
We stand in organic camaraderie with fellow African nations still negotiating the final mile from colonial dependency to full sovereignty.
At home, we champion empowerment because political freedom rings hollow if the ordinary man and woman cannot turn the key to a decent life. Because these convictions are taught relentlessly at our Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology, our cadres neither lose their moral compass nor become seduced by transient slogans of convenience.
Youthful energy in the digital era
Endurance means cross-generational conversation.
Some mistake an established movement for an ageing one, but ZANU PF is the quintessential youth magnet.
Our Youth League is not a sideshow for the exuberant; it is the nerve centre of policy innovation on technology, climate adaptation, sports and the creative economy. Yes, we trend on TikTok and X, but we do so guided by a revolutionary ethic: social media is a megaphone, not a manifesto. It broadcasts the substance that our think tanks and professional leagues distil. In that synergy, the party remains trendy without becoming trivial.
People identify with us because they see transformation in their households. Land reform placed arable plots in formerly dispossessed hands.
The current rural industrialisation drive puts solar-powered boreholes, agro-processing plants and digital learning hubs within reach of every district. The Presidential Livestock Scheme is not merely fodder for headlines; it increases protein intake and income streams in underserved wards.
When residents of Zhombe or Chipinge open their first bank accounts because of earnings from horticulture, they associate that tangible progress with the party that championed their right to the soil and to capital.
No movement stays relevant by reciting yesterday’s slogans. Under the leadership of President Mnangagwa, ZANU PF has sharpened its focus on good governance, accountability and responsive service delivery.
Devolution has indeed taken effect, not in textbook diagrams but in real decentralised budgets that empower provincial councils to decide on roads, clinics and vocational centres.
The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission now has teeth to bite where graft threatens our development momentum. Our legal reforms, be they in mining cadastre digitisation or public procurement transparency, signal a party that develops as the national aspiration evolves.
Young politicians must be wary of mistaking virality for viability.
A party must stand for something more durable than a fundraising concert or a celebrity endorsement.
Our compatriots in certain opposition quarters bet everything on foreign headlines, litigious theatrics or boutique manifestos too sterile for rural reality.
The electorate quickly discerns posturing from principle. That is why ZANU PF, after each electoral cycle, emerges with renewed intimacy with the voter, while many rivals, shocked by a defeat they thought impossible, splinter, rebrand or vanish entirely.
Building an upper middle-income Zimbabwe
Endurance also means horizon thinking.
Vision 2030 is our contract with posterity: to lift Zimbabwe into upper middle-income status by the end of this decade. It is not a dream scribbled in campaign flyers but a matrix of benchmarks: US$8 billion mining industry, 100 000 hectares under irrigation, universal primary healthcare coverage and a five-fold increase in information and communication technology (ICT) penetration. Every flagship infrastructure project — the Beitbridge One-Stop Border Post, the Trabablas Traffic Interchange, the Hwange Units 7 and 8 expansion — forms a brick in that archway to shared prosperity.
When a family in Mutare notices shorter border queues for export produce or a commuter in Harare experiences smoother traffic flow, Vision 2030 ceases to be a statistic; it becomes a lived reality.
Perpetual renewal
For ZANU PF to remain the ever-trending, ever-relevant force, we must safeguard the revolutionary ethic of self-criticism.
Our annual conferences and people’s congresses are not ceremonial; they are audits of conscience where successes are consolidated and missteps corrected.
We must guard against complacency, for the greatest danger is internal decay.
Each cadre, from the humblest cell chairperson to the loftiest office bearer, must remember that political power is exercised on behalf of the people. When we deliver, they grant us renewed legitimacy; when we falter, they chastise us. Our collective pledge, therefore, is to listen harder, act faster and govern smarter.
In a world where attention spans grow shorter and digital applause can be purchased by the click, ZANU PF’s real currency remains trust earned in blood during the liberation war and paid forward in developmental dividends today. Trends may flicker and hashtags may fade, but the party’s covenant with Zimbabwe endures.
As we stride towards Vision 2030 and beyond, let every member recommit to service, innovation and unity so that generations yet unborn will inherit not merely a party that survived the tides of history, but one that mastered them for the good of all.
Dr Obert Moses Mpofu is an academic and the Secretary-General of ZANU PF. He writes in his own capacity.
Online Reporter