Responsive Zanu PF gives electorate what it wants

THE internecine warfare and total disorganisation within the ranks of the CCC has seen in two sets of by-elections triggered by the recall of CCC legislators a total of 13 constituency seats pass from CCC to Zanu PF as voters in the affected constituencies either switched parties or at least just stayed at home.

In other words, the support that the CCC felt it could rely on as a matter of right in urban constituencies, or at least those with a large urban element such as the belt of National Assembly seats around Harare Metropolitan, has proved to be a lot more ephemeral and more like a block of ice cream on a hot day than the solid support CCC bigwigs were expecting.

Zanu PF won 136 of the 210 National Assembly constituency seats in the August election, plus the 137th in a by-election triggered by the death of a candidate before the August vote.

It then picked up another seven, including critically a block of Bulawayo Metropolitan constituencies in the first set of by-elections triggered by CCC recalls, and then all six of the seats contested last weekend to take its total up to 150 constituencies.

The distribution of the seats for the women’s and youth quotas were on the August results, the rounded off ratio in each province between the total constituency votes for Zanu PF and the CCC, the other parties having too small a total to count.

While proportional representation does tend to flatten the gaps seen in first-past-the-post constituency elections, Zanu PF did win 33 of the 60 women’s quota seats and seven of the 10 youth quota seats, a significant majority of 40 to 30 even in a proportional representation section of the National Assembly poll, and the sort of majority uncommon in proportional representation election.

The net result is that Zanu PF now has a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly of 190 of the 280 seats, but as the party has explained while this was pleasing, showing the sort of support it and President Mnangagwa now enjoys, it does not affect the sort of work the National Assembly does, since Zanu PF did already have a substantial and very safe majority after the August election.

The biggest difference, of course, is that another 13 constituencies have an MP who will be working hard to represent and develop their constituency.

Zanu PF tends to insist on this activism, rather than relaxing in a hammock, and practically each Zanu PF legislator has to face a primary in four-and-a-half years, and party members, and Zanu PF has a huge formal membership, tend to vote against the lazy and the useless.

Or, to be more precise since Zanu PF is a mass party and has a strong and complex party structure that tends to eliminate the useless long before a primary, the actual primary polls see a contest between good candidates, any of whom could do the job well, and so it is the best of the good ones who win.

That is why even good MPs can, and on occasion have, be defeated by someone even better.

Those 13 MPs have an additional responsibility, to prove to their constituencies that the active voters did not make a mistake in the two sets of by-elections and that although many of the reasons and grievances why the CCC won majorities in August still exist, the new MPs are ready to work with all shades of opinion in their constituencies to sort these out.

The other gain from the National Assembly by-elections should be to persuade outsiders that favoured the CCC in the August polls, and tried to dismiss Zanu PF victories as a fix, that Zanu PF is in fact a winning party, and that the CCC is not what they might have thought it was.

The CCC is, in effect, a very small party of a few score politicians who rose to prominence in the old MDC and all its splits and internecine wars.

They have never been confirmed in leadership positions because there is no mechanism to do this, since there is no formal connection between that thin leader level and the supporters who they want to back them in national elections.

No one can sign on as a party member as there is not even a list to sign onto.

Zanu PF is the direct opposite, with a huge mass membership, a large block in every constituency, and a detailed structure connecting the party organs, all the way from the cell to the Central Committee.

That means ideas and grievances can move up and down the chain, and those aspiring to leadership positions have to move and gather support, and prove their ability while doing so, along the chain.

President Mnangagwa in particular has made it clear that he sees the party as belonging to the members, not the leaders, and as a consequence has enhanced that responsiveness of the party and leadership and its contingents of legislators and councillors to what the members are thinking and what sort of results they want. It is not surprising that it wins a lot more constituencies and wards.

The big switches in the National Assembly tend to push the changes in local authorities into the background, but these are just as important.

There has been a much-needed injection of sober-minded and qualified Zanu-PF councillors into some of the urban councils dominated by the CCC, which we hope will at least upgrade debate in these councils, and provide support for sensible measures that are so desperately needed.

We doubt that the Zanu PF contingents in the urban councils will oppose for the sake of opposing, but we do expect them to use what will be a generally higher average level of education and other qualifications to push the councils they sit on into more effective action and tighter financial controls.

Local authority councils are executive bodies more than legislative bodies, although they do set the rates and budgets and make the by-laws.

But they also run the local authority as an executive body and make the decisions on who develops what, on who is allocated stands, on how the money is spent, on how the town planning is done and all the detailed work.

Having councillors now on these councils who can ask difficult questions at public council meetings, like why the purchase of garbage trucks has been delayed to buy new executive luxury vehicles for department heads, will be useful. It is also important that more councillors can check the sums, and can delve into the reasons why some dubious planning and land allocations have been made.

So while still a minority on most urban councils, the Zanu PF contingent now exists and can help in the essential and difficult process of making these councils more effective, more representative, and do something useful instead of just wringing their hands.

Zanu PF won the by-elections for the National Assembly and the councils because it could present respectable candidates, had a clear record of success, and was responsive to the needs of the people.

It is a simple formula, although needs a lot of hard work and organisation to achieve, but it is the only formula that leads to political success.