Dr Phillan Zamchiya: Time for a winning rural formula for the MDC

By Dr Phillan Zamchiya

Reader, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Advocate Nelson Chamisa needs a new rural strategy. A series of recent electoral defeats in the rural areas is not auguring well for the party especially when the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) is at its lowest ebb.

ZANU PF is plagued by an incompetent leader, cumulative political legitimacy deficit, elite fissures and illness. In addition, it is running a cartoon economy. Why then is the MDC failing to capitalise and increase its gains in the rural areas?

There are external and internal problems and a natural inclination for MDC leaders will be to focus on the former but at the party’s peril. Indeed, ZANU PF uses a wide range of election manipulation strategies.

These include the partisan role played by traditional leaders, use of coercion, harvest of fear (intimidation), use of patronage, financialisation of elections, Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) capture, undiluted propaganda and militarisation of the village.

Miles Tendi has also pointed to the attractive elements used by ZANU PF such as the consistent use of a compelling political narrative known as ‘patriotic history’ and having organised structures at cell level. That acknowledged, the MDC must also confront the internal weaknesses.

Reader, first there is need to understand the political economy of the rural areas. There is a rapid growth of the informal mining sector which provides a new dynamic social base. On the other hand, fast track land reform resulted in a new base of about a million people with new needs in the countryside.

In addition, millions of people still eke their livelihoods on 16 million hectares of land in the communal areas. Their livelihoods are diversified but largely agrarian based.

How then does one capture the peasantry? As Lenin remarked, they are probably not a sack of potatoes but potatoes in a sack. Differentiated. The small capitalists (well-to-do) are the minority and the majority are horseless (poor) peasants.

The MDC‘s dominant political messaging has the potential to capture the small capitalists. They envy for new markets, electricity, to enter into loose value chains, expand production, sound fiscal policies and even for bullet trains to ferry their horticultural and floricultural products.

To them, the MDC messaging resonates. A survey I did in Chipinge district, showed that the majority of the small capitalists support the MDC. Nevertheless, even after capturing them, the party seems not to be doing enough to leverage on these opinion makers who are numerically few but are ‘masters’ of the countryside. The majority, however, remain the horseless peasants.

In the immediacy, they clamour for poverty reduction and household food security. The provision of food aid and farming inputs-albeit in a partisan manner-locks them within the ZANU PF web of politics. A blanket policy approach will therefore not work to capture a broader social base.

If one looks at the recent MDC communiques there is a good focus on the need for national dialogue, electoral and economic reforms, political and civil rights, illegitimacy and corruption which is all good but inadequate. The leadership needs to start debating and make resolutions on day to day issues that affect the rural be it farmers and the coming rain season, informal miners et cetera.

Second, is an issue to deal with the urbanised character of the leadership. The top echelons of the MDC leadership is largely constituted by the urban middle class. Most originate from the villages but they do not realise how years and years of urban life have morphed them.

Only a few of the top leaders can relate with a village elder under the baobab tree for 30 minutes. I have travelled with Morgan Tsvangirai and Nelson Chamisa and they were good at charming the village elders. Tsvangirai would go an extra mile to share traditional brew.

However, over relying on a party leader is a recipe for disaster. The party needs to identify a team with a rural touch and strategically deploy. A person like Elias Mudzuri comes into mind.

Third, is the failure to build strong party structures in the countryside. I was impressed by the party’s spokesperson, Daniel Molokele, who acknowledged that the party has no structures in some rural areas. Jacob Mafume, the elections secretary, seems alive to this fact as well.

However, they must go beyond acknowledging and start to build the structures bit by bit and far away from the city lights. The failure to have structures at the ward level has resulted in ZANU PF winning hundreds of rural wards in each of the general elections uncontested.

Fourth, is the failure to understand the rural geography. Most of the campaign rallies are held at growth points. The party machinery rarely penetrates into the rural hinterland where there is no electricity, no roads and where the leadership will have to remove their shoes and cross rivers to reach the people. The growth point is not the rural area and the rural area is not the growth point. It is a matter of going deeper. Simple.

Fifth, an election centric approach in mobilising the rural communities is flawed. The MDC leadership must be more than socially embedded in the village and not appear during election time as if they are a seasonal flower. An everyday form of politics will win the rural heart.

It must become a way of life. For example, traditional leaders are a way of life, they are more than politically embedded and are not seasonal. In the aftermath of a general election, the MDC leadership usually retreats to its default urban centre. Related to this is timing.

In the red zones (violence prone areas), campaigns must start well before they become no go areas. If the leadership is socially embedded even a whisper campaign will work.

This is not to deny the fact that ZANU PF manipulates elections. But that unfairness is even a bigger call for the MDC leadership to leverage on what it can to minimise the detrimental effects.

Unless the choice is to suspend elections for a period in order to reform the state as articulated by Ibbo Mandaza. Which, in my view will not happen because of a high penchant for elections among national and local political leaders across and within the main political parties.

MDC can therefore hope that, though current electoral practices favour the ruling party, effective strategies might serve to improve its faring in the rural areas.

You can reach Dr Phillan Zamchiya on [email protected]