THE ruling Zanu PF party’s push for professionals and government employees to undergo re-orientation at the Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology is meant to create a one-party State, experts said this week.
The party’s national political commissar Munyaradzi Machacha, who is also the head of Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology, on Wednesday told council mayors and chairpersons that the institution is no longer a Zanu PF project, but a national programme and re-orientation workshops will be extended to lecturers at Zimbabwe’s institution of higher education.
A Zanu PF central committee report in 2022 disclosed that some police officers attended the ruling party’s Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology to “re-orient” them ahead of the August 2023 harmonised elections.
Citizens Coalition for Change spokesperson Promise Mkwananzi yesterday said there had to be a distinction between Zanu PF party ideology and national programmes.
“This is not a national programme, but a political partyabusing State institutions to indoctrinate and impose its ideology on the people. It will fail dismally,” he said.
“It is unlawful and criminal to impose an ideology of one political party over national institutions. Citizens are advised to resist the imposition of a party ideology over national institutions.
“We have no problem with Zanu PF educating their members on their ideology, but we have a problem when they frog-march our deployees on the threat of recalling them if they do not attend. In effect, the programme is duress.”
Political analysts also expressed concern over the Zanu PF project, arguing that party projects should not be forced on citizens.
- 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
Analyst Rashweat Mukundu yesterday said the whole programme was meant to consolidate power.
“It is a total disregard of constitutional provisions that seeks to separate the party from the State and depoliticise the civil service,” he said.
“What we are seeing from Zanu PF is a return to the 1980s project, which is a project of a one-party State.
“All actions point to a one-party State. The starting point being the decimation of the opposition, the capture of the Judiciary and Parliament which answer to Zanu PF and now it’s a capture of the whole civil service.”
He accused Zanu PF of perpetuating the one-party State project that was begun by the late former President Robert Mugabe in the 1980s.
“Zanu PF never abandoned it. What we are seeing with this indoctrination is an attempt to fulfil the dominance of one political party against the wishes of Zimbabweans as stated in the Constitution,” Mukundu said.
Another political analyst Ruben Mbofana said the ruling party’s project was not only unconstitutional, but also illegal.
“When someone is elected to be an office bearer, a public servant, you are supposed to be apolitical. You are now supposed to serve the nation rather than your party,” he said.
“It is wrong to force someone elected on an opposition ticket to attend an ideological school and indoctrination school of another political party.”
The Chitepo School of Ideology is a political institution named after Herbert Chitepo, a prominent Zimbabwean nationalist and former chairperson of the Zimbabwe African National Union.
The school’s curriculum focuses on topics such as patriotism, national security and the history of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle.
Its primary objective is to inculcate a strong sense of national identity and loyalty among participants, mostly aligned to the ruling party’s ideology.
Zimbabwe’s top civil servants in 2022 were forced to undergo indoctrination lessons under the same programme.
The Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology was mooted immediately after the country gained independence from British colonial rule in 1980.
A push to operationalise the college gathered momentum in 2016 to allegedly instil a sense of patriotism and understanding of Zanu PF’s ideology in civil servants and others, who did not participate in the liberation struggle.
In 2016, a resolution was passed by Zanu PF that no candidate will represent the party in national elections without having passed through Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology.
