ZANU PF leaders, functionaries and activists will today start arriving in Bulawayo for the party’s 21st National People’s Conference which begins tomorrow at the ZITF grounds.
The conference will run until Saturday while the central committee and politburo meetings are likely to be held in Harare, if the party follows the trend used over the years.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa is expected to officially open the conference on Friday while the closing ceremony will be held the following day.
However, the Zanu PF love-fest, as described by observers, roars into life in an area bedevilled by several challenges that have made the country’s second largest city a shadow of its former self.
Perennial water challenges have worsened over the years with the Bulawayo City Council only providing two days’ supply of water each week.
Bulawayo’s famous industrial base has also succumbed to years of economic challenges that have ground its operations to a halt.
In an interview, Bulawayo United Residents Association Winos Dube bemoaned the lack of engagement of local stakeholders at such conferences.
“It is very sad and disappointing that the ruling party Zanu PF, which actually forms the government that runs the country, when it is having these national conferences, sometimes they do not give any recognition to some other stakeholders like ourselves as residents’ associations.
- Corruption Watch: Get scared, 2023 is coming
- Corruption Watch: Get scared, 2023 is coming
- Letters: Ensuring Africa’s food security through availability of quality seeds
- Is military's involvement in politics compatible with democracy?
Keep Reading
“If only we could be invited so that we are even allowed and given a platform where we just express some concerns as mere citizens as residents in the country who are actually touched by some certain happenings,” he said.
Dube said the residents wanted to take advantage of the conference to highlight their challenges to the ruling elites.
“We have got a crisis with water. Water is one crisis that has gone long. It is always a challenge year in year out in Bulawayo.
“As residents of Bulawayo, we are always in a serious predicament when it comes to water situation and it would appear like there are no solutions that are being really worked and put in place to rectify this,” he said.
Dube also noted the rising unemployment in Bulawayo that has led to residents to turn to the informal sector in a bid to eke a living.
“Most of them, their activities would need electricity and would need water but without these key things, water and electricity, you can imagine people are seriously affected.
He also bemoaned the economic challenges bedevilling the country.
“What is it that fails us to rectify our economy and have a smooth running economy? Now there has been an introduction of the local currency.
“There it is again, it has been devalued to such an extent that prices are unaffordable. Things are just running as if there is no one who is monitoring, ready to put really a control measure on them.
He appealed to the Zanu PF leadership to give the residents a platform to share their views.
“Water is one product that will even attract investors to come and invest in the city. Without water, there is no one who would want to take it down.
Public Policy and Research Institute of Zimbabwe (PPRIZ) director Gorden Moyo said the Zanu PF leaders were aware of the challenges in Bulawayo but the ruling elite had become impervious to advice, ideas and wise counsel.
“Their visit to the city this week will not be different to the habitual trade incursions. They will fly in and out and drive in and out of the city.
“They will not even bother to hear the alternative voices that will tell them that joining the Rand Monetary Area is the only way out of the currency crisis,” he said
“That will challenge them to go back to the Structured Dialogue Platform championed by former President Joaquim Chissano and the African Development Bank president Akinwumi Adesina and address the debt crisis, governance reforms and land tenure issues.”
He said the ruling elites will also ignore the voices that will remind them to implement devolution for the greater good and not for narrow and parochial political gains.
University of London Professor of World Politics Stephen Chan also concurred with Moyo.
“The Zanu PF conference will likely be a love-fest of party unity for public consumption. Behind the scenes, and in more private meetings, there will be much plotting and planning about succession scenarios,” he said.
Chan said Zanu PF was doing what it wants because the country currently lacks a noticeable opposition movement.
“The different factions won't want to do that. At a certain point, they will hold back. But the factions represent old men.
“The Achilles Heel of Zanu PF is the lack of young leadership blood, unlike Mozambique or Senegal. Not one of the faction leaders actually understands the complex modern world. They lead the country from the past, and it shows.”
