Online Reporter
Gibson Nyikadzino
Zimpapers Politics Hub
In the next 10 years, statistics indicate that in Africa, at least 100 million people will be registered as first-time voters.
These new voters will be drawn from one important group in the post-modern or post-millennial era – centennials.
The natural presence of this group, born between 1997 and 2012, has shifted global security dynamics, the numbers of national voters, political participation and coming with new dimensions and disruptive ideas that need to be attended to.
This generation is considered as the most restless in the Global South, hence the need to have them understand the dynamics the nations they are coming from are going through.
Of all the continents, Africa is the youngest, with an average age of at least 19.
This is different from other continents which are aging and getting old.
To understand this, countries like Hungary, Poland, Italy, Spain, China and Russia are now pronatalist states; they are incentivising their populations to give birth as a response to declining birth rates. They are on the edge because an aging population has an impact on the economic and social being of their states, yet in Africa, population growth is a natural historical and present progression of society.
Building from past blocks
Africa’s road to independence was characterised by efforts of two key generations of leaders, liberation fighters and politicians.
During the continent’s independence trajectory, pan-Africanists and nationalists maintained an ideological, moral, humanitarian and logistical bond that advanced the right for blacks to self-determination.
It did not matter from which region the pan-Africanist or nationalist leaders emerged from, their relations were cross-cultural and transcended colonial boundaries. People like Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, Algeria’s Ben Bella, Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, Guinea’s Sekou Toure and Mali’s Modibo Keita, among others, played their role in giving sanctuary and support to African nationalist leaders and the liberation armies they fought.
The independence and freedom struggle of countries like Mozambique, Namibia, Angola, Zimbabwe and South Africa were tied to efforts made by the pan-Africanists and nationalist leaders.
There has been no separation of thought and principle between the two generations.
They fulfilled their mission, partly or entirely. Since then, new generations have emerged.
From Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, the liberation agenda by the nationalists coincided with the birth of a new generation, the millennials (those born from 1981 to 1996).
The nationalists and millennials forged the transfer of continuities for the total liberation and emancipation of the masses under the leadership of ZANU PF.
A great political advantage that ZANU PF has over other political parties, past and present, is its ability to be fluid in organising the masses, recruiting new members and having a multi-dimensional approach to relate with new generations.
Besides relating well with millennials, ZANU PF has managed to build a consensus with the centennials, those born from 1997-2012.
In its longevity, it will do the same with the succeeding generations, including the Generation Alpha, born from 2013.
Thus, for ZANU PF, there has to be an everlasting umbilical connection from the pan-Africanists, nationalists, millennials and centennials.
The ability to reach out to the centennials reflects ZANU PF’s ability to use soft power to achieve its goals through attraction and persuasion.
Thinking transnationally, yet are a people born at a time the world was being transformed and altered in its communication infrastructure.
They were born at a time the communication space was booming and new platforms emerged to interconnect the people.
As a result, the centennials are now actively shaping political and social discourse in either professional or amateur ways. And they are a proof that they are going to remain active for a long time.
They were born in an era they have access to instruments that many generations before them did not have; social media. In their millions they are now able to organise and rally around a cause faster than witnessed before.
In March 2018, President Mnangagwa noted that and urged the ZANU PF Youth League to make use of social media to push the ideological imperatives of the party and use the platforms to reach out to the youth.
These young people are digital natives and are beginning to think transnationally, instead of thinking internationally.
In their orbit, they acknowledge that social spaces and identities are not automatically linked to a single territory, but they form their imagined or virtual geographies that have no boundary or demarcation.
They are not formal in their approach, nor are they linear in their thinking patterns. They focus on multiple links and interactions across national borders, using informal everyday life connections.
Not only that, they go further to use youth-led movements to learn from one another and they share similarities in strategies like the rapid circulation of digital content, and now even the use of shared cultural symbols.
However, this generation also has its challenges.
They seem less capable when it comes to dealing with stress and failure than previous generations.
Because they are good at curating content in their imagined world that is Facebook, Instagram or TikTok driven, they are good at showing the outside world the life they want people to think that they lead.
They are good at presenting a confidence that they do not have. They sound as if they have all the answers, yet they do not have them.
Giving centennials guidance
Because digital natives are one of the significant voter groups, it attracts the attention of political parties due to their large number of votes.
However, this generation often exhibits apathy and a lack of political knowledge.
The group needs to be ideologised and educated politically.
And ZANU PF cannot cheat itself and turn a blind eye to this generation, which is a significant constituency in its political organisation, maturity and longevity.
This is a significant group that is becoming a dominant force among Zimbabwe’s electorate and many African countries.
Their pattern of engagement sees a continuance in their high engagement using social media.
They experiment with social media, and such experiments, if not properly guided, can lead to negative implications that can border on threatening the national social and security fabric.
ZANU PF, as it has done previously with the other generation, should not neglect the young people. It is the party’s responsibility to give guidance to this constituency.
Their pleas and requests for broader opportunities in the economy, empowerment programmes and access to financing should be structurally be done to reach to all, in both urban and rural areas.
These challenges that need to be addressed are not problem of this community alone.
All people are affected hence ZANU PF should manage every developmental progression with a great liberal precision.
