We’re not monsters: FAZ

A ZANU party affiliate, Forever Associates Zimbabwe (FAZ) has rubbished claims that its members rigged last month’s elections in favour of President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the ruling party. NewsDay Weekender (ND) reporter Sharon Buwerimwe spoke to FAZ president Kudakwashe Munsaka (KM) on the organisation's role in the just -ended elections among other contentious issues. Below are the excerpts.

ND: What influenced the birth of this organisation and when did it become a Zanu PF affiliate?

KM :  I introduced this idea to my colleagues  and some  rubbished it. But later on some people wanted to join it.  We wanted to have an organisation that can make noise everywhere, in politics, in mines and the economy.  So we called ourselves ‘Forever Associates Zimbabwe’, we were in the polytechnics, universities, teachers colleges and so on. This organisation started in 2010. We also created our own database across the country and we registered the trust.

So things were not moving well and then we became an affiliate of Zanu PF. We assist Zanu PF to win elections, and when it wins elections, it becomes easy for us to penetrate the economic cluster. Now that we have achieved on the politics side, we are now focusing on the economy. We wanted Zanu PF to win elections; we wanted regime continuity because we have seen that there are other entities like Election Resource Centre (ERC) and Team Pachedu which wanted to push for regime change. So we became an affiliate of Zanu PF sometime last year after being accepted into the party.

ND: Are you linked to the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) and the military? There are some reports that you are connected, what is your comment?

KM: FAZ is just an innocent organisation. We are not linked to the military or anything.  The organisation is just affiliated to Zanu PF and is just there to ensure that the party achieves its 2030 vision.

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ND: FAZ was accused of rigging Zanu PF primary elections, is this true?

KM: From what I have just told you, you can see that FAZ is just a baby organisation which has no capacity to rig. Our only advantage is that the only moment we say FAZ, we managed to have a membership across the country in all constituencies. We have FAZ volunteers, so Zanu PF realised that we have enough manpower to be able to run the elections because they were trying to run away from traditional methods of using their own internal structures who are at times conflicted to run elections. As a result, we created ourselves as an independent organisation to be able to run their primary elections and we did a very good job, we don’t know why they say that we rigged because we just took the voice of the people into the ballot. What people wanted is exactly what they got.

ND: What is your position on the reports that you have been intimidating voters during the election period?

KM: That one is just a creation of the West and their Western-aligned members and the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC). What one has to know and understand about FAZ is that it volunteers some duties from the communities where they stay.

These guys are not even uniformed and would not carry a gun. We don’t expect anyone to have said that they have been intimidated by their own children, brothers and sisters. Our strategy was based on what we call ‘intimate voter strategy’, which is a one-on-one strategy. We would not see FAZ gathering people and harassing them. We only did door-to-door watch tower strategy where people would be talking about what our President would have achieved in his last six years in office.

They spoke about the achievements that he had made and also convinced other people to vote for him in the elections.  We also went into the voter registration exercise where we encouraged young people to register to vote and we even transported them. So many young people actually voted for Zanu PF. 

ND: FAZ is accused of abducting, assaulting, torturing and intimidating CCC supporters in a retributive campaign. Why and what is your response to these claims?

FAZ, like I said, is a registered trust and being a registered trust,  it means its a legal persona. Generally this means that it can be sued. So if there is anyone who would have felt intimidated or harassed or beaten up by FAZ members, the courts were there to entertain such reports. To my surprise, I only hear it from the media reports that we are intimidating people but there are no police reports that point that we have actually done it. 

We are only being turned and used as a monster where everyone who would want to have a scapegoat would point at FAZ. Everything is now about FAZ even though we are not even involved. There is no proof to all this, so we dismiss that. We did not intimidate anyone.  I don’t even think our people shout at anyone, we are an innocent organisation.  In addition to that, people even ignore the good things that we have been doing.

We have been doing a lot of charity work and we can’t be intimidating the same people that we would be supporting in terms of charity. We have been building homes for victims of political violence. We have evidence, there are some houses in Binga that were burnt and we assisted. We also assisted accident victims, when Stallion (bus) had an accident, I personally went to give the victims money so that they get assisted. In summary, we are just a peace-loving organisation that has just been painted black.

ND: There are reports that FAZ is President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s factional war chest. Any truth in that? Is FAZ a personal project for Mnangagwa to prolong his stay in office?

KM: We are not a faction of an individual, we are an organisation that is affiliated to Zanu PF. We are not affiliated to the President of the party. So currently Mnangagwa is the face of Zanu PF and he was the face of Zanu PF in the August 23 election. As an organisation, we stood to defend the face of Zanu PF. We are not a factional organisation and if elections were to come, which we intend to participate in by the way, we are going to move with whoever Zanu PF puts as the presidential candidate.  So those are just silly accusations, we are here to support Zanu PF as a party.

ND: How much did FAZ spend on Mnangagwa and Zanu PF campaigns?

KM: Look, we don’t have figures that we might have spent. Even if right now if you go to any Member of Parliament and ask them on how much they spent on their campaigns, they won’t even have the figures.  We were not funded by anyone, we raise money through crowd funding, well-wishers and donors. These people assist here and there. From those resources we would then give our volunteers some allowances, airtime and food while they are doing door-to-door campaigns. Sometimes we fail to get funders and then those volunteers would go for months without stipends. So we don’t have a figure because it’s not much that we spend after all.

ND: Why is FAZ acting shadowy? There are fears that FAZ can easily be like Boko Haram or any radical terrorist group. Should people fear FAZ? 

KM: Like I said, it’s just a creation of the media that we are a shadowy group.  Our volunteers are open. If you go to any community and look for FAZ volunteers, you find them. You also know our offices and where to find us. There is nothing to hide. We wonder why people say that our operations are shadowy, we are not.

ND: There are reports that some Zanu PF members hate FAZ and want it disbanded. Have you heard of such reports?

KM: I really haven’t heard of such reports, but I wonder why Zanu PF members would want their child disbanded. As far as we are concerned, we are a child of Zanu PF and we respect the party so much. We have not come across any incident where we exchanged harsh words with members of Zanu PF. We have always worked in harmony. They have always cooperated whenever we request their cooperation. We also did the same in exchange. Maybe there are certain individuals in certain constituencies who might have different views on some of our work. Generally we have no problem with Zanu PF.