The recently concluded ZANU PF Primary Elections brought to the fore the newest ZANU PF Affiliate, Forever Associates of Zimbabwe simply known as FAZ.

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2 years ago admin

By VVivian Banhire

Forever Associates of Zimbabwe is a registered Trust, which is about Youth involvement in positive patriotic politics as well as youth participation and mainstreaming in the broader national economy.

As an Affiliate of the Party, ZANU PF, it’s mandate is to help with intimate voter contact intended to garner the 5 million votes for the President and the Party.

In the just ended ZANU PF Primary Elections, FAZ together with Heritage Trust, another affiliate were assigned by the Commissariat Department to conduct the elections.

Those who lost the elections, fronted by an irate Themba Mliswa who had his sister beaten in Hurungwe West went ballistic against FAZ, accusing them of failure to properly run the elections and favouritism.

Some went further on to accuse the National Political Commissar of having failed his mandate by hiring an affiliate of the Party to run the election on behalf of the Party.
But what is the truth, who has been running the Party Primary Elections in the past?

The 2013 Primary Election Officers were drawn from War Veterans, Ex Detainees and Mujibha and Chimbwido, which were the 3 most important Affiliates of the Party back then.

In 2018 it was also the same, with members of those Affiliates helped by a few senior Party official who weren’t running for positions conducting the Primary Elections.

The use of Affiliates is the norm in Zimbabwe as even the main opposition Party has used ZESN, ERC, Crisis Coalition as well as ZCTU amongst other US/Western Governments sponsored NGOs to run their internal elections.

Some people would want to speak of the 2015 Primary Elections when Central Committee Members were deployed to other Provinces to conduct the Elections, let’s remember those were by-elections, different from general elections were most of these Central Committee Members are either Candidates in various positions or are part of the campaigns in the Constituencies. Removing them on the ground would change the political dynamics. Imagine being deployed to another Province when you are a Candidate in the same Election.

In terms of numbers and spread, FAZ was the only Party Affiliate with enough membership to cover all the 210 Constituencies as they have at least 20 members per each Constituency. We should also remember most Members of the War Veterans Association are now part and parcel of the Party Structure in the newly established Veterans League.

The major challenge which was faced by FAZ is that they were assigned to help run the Primary Elections 72 hours away from the Election and there was no adequate time to train and prepare FAZ members as Presiding Officers in a complicated election where members were electing Councillors, MPs, Women’s Qouta MP, Youth Qouta MP, Senators, Women’s Qouta Council etc.

So with this, the Election Officers, Candidates, Agents as well as the voters were confused that is why we ended up with a lot of spoiled papers and mistakes which some losing Candidates tried to cling on to, to reject the choice of the people.

Another challenge was the number of personnel required to run the Elections as the Party had set up 4013 Polling Stations (4013 Districts) throughout the Country with each Station needing at least 6 Officers to cater for the 4 300 000 registered Party Members. FAZ went on to recruit 20 000+ Party and Affiliates members to augment its numbers.

The Commissariat Department quickly realized the challenges of inadequate preparation of Presiding Officers and rectified the mistake ahead of the reruns as the Polling Officers underwent training.
The reruns were held professionally and the will of the people was clearly heard, going forward, FAZ is the starting point, as they now have the experience of running the elections.

Those who want to know more about the Forever Associates of Zimbabwe (FAZ) can visit their exhibition stand at the forthcoming Zimbabwe International Trade Fair in Bulawayo.