There have been different takes on why the military coup in Zimbabwe happened. Without taking sides, it is almost impossible to ignore the fact that the disagreements (be it over ideas or personal animosity) between the Lacoste and G40-aligned individuals plunged the country into uncharted waters.
Earlier in ZANU history, Robert Mugabe had pushed for a one-party state with some minimal, albeit weak and uncoordinated opposition. There was a faction opposed to a one-party state. There was no openness within the party and room for accommodating different ideas without being excommunicated.
As a result, Edgar Tekere left and formed his Zimbabwe Unity Movement. At a press conference, he argued: “The ruling party is vigorously advocating the conversion of Zimbabwe into a one-party state and thereby seeking to entrench its internally undemocratic self as a state dictatorship.”
Predictably, Tekere was accused of sowing seeds of division in the party and across the country. There are some important lessons from the Tekere affair.
Tekere’s important contribution was to prove that Mugabe could be challenged. Secondly, Tekere would soon repeat the very same things he disagreed with when he was within ZANU PF. When he left, some people thought he was a genuine reformer with a deep respect for institutionalism and democracy.
ZUM was established as an alternative to the undemocratic nature of ZANU PF. However, like Nkomo in the early 1960s suspending his VP Michael Mawema for disagreeing with him, Tekere would subject those who criticised him to the same fate.
A faction, including Emmanuel Magoche, Alois Masepe, and Wurayayi Zembe, would eventually break away and form the Democratic Party.
Anyone critical of Tekere’s undemocratic leadership was either suspended or expelled from the party, a plague that has remained a common occurrence across the political divide.
This second lesson is important and prompts ‘us’ to critically think about the democratic and undemocratic nature of the opposition parties. There were no particularly big names or a group that left ZANU PF with Tekere into ZUM. He did not depart ZANU PF with a contingent coalescing around an idea or policy.
Some possible explanations could be that the so-called reformers within ZANU PF did not think Tekere was any different from the leader he was fighting and the party he was criticising, or it could have been down to groupthink nearing hysteria. The events that followed underlined the intolerance and violence that befalls divergent views.
It was not uncharacteristic for a liberation party in Zimbabwe not to tolerate a political faction. In the formative days of the struggle, ZAPU split into two because different factions disagreed on the direction the party was to take for liberating the people of Zimbabwe.
The faction – including Robert Mugabe, Leopold Takawira, Morton Malianga, Herbert Chitepo, Nathan Shamuyarira, Ndabaningi Sithole, and others – argued that Nkomo was indecisive.
Political mudslinging and violence followed the split. The Nkomo and Sithole factions traded toxic rhetoric. ZANU comrades were labeled as sellouts and imperialist stooges. YES!, ZANU was accused of being a front for American interests and dividing the struggle. Chikerema led the “Tshombe” (sellout) charges. The rhetorical back and forth reflected a continuation of the disagreement between the former two factions. In the 1980 elections because of unresolved factional problems, there were two ZANU formations. Even the deep distrust between ZAPU and the two ZANU formations outlasted the liberation struggle.
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Those factions, along with stupids like chamisa, and vote rigging, will guarantee zpf victory, time after time. Greed and stupidity are the only things in plentiful supply in Zimbabwe, as proven beyond ANY DOUBT, by the last election.