Talk:ZANU–PF

ZANU-PF added the "PF" to its name prior to Independence in 1980, and was known as ZANU-PF long before the merger with ZAPU. (Indeed, ZAPU was called PF-ZAPU in the same period.) The text on the page is factually incorrect.

• The link at the bottom that claims to be the official ZANU-PF website is actually an anti ZANU-PF website. I think this is official site but it is down http://www.zanupfpub.co.zw/

Skeeter08865 20:46, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Marxist-Leninist?

I realize that the ZANU believed in Marxism like most other third world liberation movements during the cold war (the MPLA, FRELIMO, FLN, Official IRA, ETA, FSLN, FMLN, ELN, Black Panther Party, Vietminh, Khmer Rouge, even the ANC flirted with the Communists, etc, etc.) But can the ideology of the ZANU - PF really be described even today as Marxist-Leninist? I mean Zimbabwe's economy, aside from being in a total shambles is predominately a market economy. Aside from land reform which entirely benefits ZANU - PF supporters there hasn't been a single attempt since they came to power in 1980 to redistribute wealth or to collectivize anything. I realize that Leninism serves as the model which the ZANU - PF operates on, ie centralized "democracy" or centralism. But do they really see themselves as being Marxists, or even leftwing at all? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.239.32.173 (talk) 22:27, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Supported: Before independence ZANU was avowedly Marxist-Leninist, as some of their education materials showed. However, ZANU (PF) governments have never been remotely Marxist-Leninist. In the 1980s they could be described as social-democratic. From the late 1990s, they followed standard IMF structural adjustment policies. Describing their current ideology is probably original research, but I would argue for fascist. Babakathy (talk) 17:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Zimbabwe3.png

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BetacommandBot 19:51, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Racists

Maybe someone should put a section in about the racist policies enforced by Mugabe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.175.157 (talk) 10:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Slogan?

What is the slogan of the party? Seems as if knowing it is of great importance to the people of Zimbabwe. 82.16.1.141 (talk) 02:24, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

How about 'Comrade Mugabe is Always Right'? 170.170.59.138 (talk) 06:42, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Split of re-organized ZAPU

Please can someone who is up to date on what happened add some (balanced) detail ton this section? And sources. Babakathy (talk) 12:34, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

"Far Left?"

Is it really appropriate to describe the ZANU-PF as belonging to the "far left?" As this party formed the institutional basis for what was until recently a dominant/single-party system, it would make a bit more sense to describe it as not only belonging to but defining the center of Zimbabwean politics. Either that, or we could do what I would support for all political party articles, and scrap the whole "left, center, right" thing altogether as an irrelevant anachronism. --Apjohns54 (talk) 03:39, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

There are still 'left' and 'right' in one party states. But I agree with you that intellectually it should not be used. Socialism as far left like Mugabe, social demcorats(aka progressives in the US) as center left, classic liberals(aka libertarians in the US) and conservatives as center right and fascist as far right doesnt cut it for me. If you look at todays world, the far left and far right leaders are allies and the center left, center right are allies and even left and right anarchists are allied on some fronts so that should tell us something is incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.95.129.245 (talk) 08:36, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Zimbabwe: The Political Economy of Transformation by Hevina S. Dashwood from 2000 is a good analysis of how and why they changed from socialism to a de facto neo-liberal economy (with strong cronyist elements).--Batmacumba (talk) 22:43, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

As the info was unsourced a no one has provided an argument for why it should be considered "far left" in four years, I have removed the term. Its a nominally left wing party of state that administer a market economy (and de facto a form of crony capitalism). There is nothing far left about their policies.--Batmacumba (talk) 19:10, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Ideology

Using a book from 1991 to source its ideology is no good. Its no better than unsourced info.--Batmacumba (talk) 02:58, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I disagree. Sourced information is always more preferable than unsourced information. However, newer sourced information is, by the same measure, more preferable than older sourced information. If you have anything on ZANU-PF's ideology that is more up to date, I suggest you incorporate that into the article accordingly, with the proper citations. --Katangais (talk) 04:11, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

That is the dogmatic position, but I am talking about actual quality, not wiki norms and procedures. Info that old is basically worthless when it comes to political parties (especially in the developing world). The sensible think would be to leave the ideology entry blank, which could easily be justified as ideology isn't what ZANU-PF politics is about (or Zimbabwean politics in general for that matter).--Batmacumba (talk) 08:08, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

If you disagree with the accuracy of the ideologies listed, feel free to replace it with your own, sourced entries which are more up to date. I don't see that as being an unreasonably dogmatic position. Why are you so reluctant to do so? --Katangais (talk) 16:21, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

• Katangais, I'm happy you break a lance for reliable sources, and in that spirit I want to ask you to reconsider this edit summary. I can't judge how reliable those sources are or how relevant the content (which is why I'm not reverting you, but "self-identification" only goes so far, and it does not apply to politics. If reliable sources state that a party has a particular conviction and stance, no amount of denial (for whatever reason) can undo that. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 18:17, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi Drmies, that's a fair point but I would respectfully disagree with your opinion that self-identification does not apply to politics. Wherever possible I like to favour sources which indicate what a given party/individual states are their philosophies, not what the author of said source thinks about said the validity of said philosophies as practiced by that party or individual. From my perspective, any political party in the world like the African National Congress or the South West African People's Organization (or in this case, ZANU-PF) may be regarded as the ultimate reliable source on what kind of values and principles it chooses to espouse. Surely it makes sense that what someone says their ideology ultimately trumps what other people think their ideology is when it comes to sourcing. Thanks, --Katangais (talk) 18:41, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, not so in the case of white nationalists/white supremacists/neo-Nazis etc. I'm sure the Party for Freedom doesn't mind being called "Euro-skeptic", but I doubt they like the moniker "right-wing populist", though that is undeniably true and verified. Remember also that successive USSR leaders have claimed to be real socialists, for instance. Drmies (talk) 20:15, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

The Communist Party of China is described as "communist" and "socialist" in its party infobox despite the fact that many scholars would debate that it truly continues to adhere to the traditions of Marx or Mao. Likewise, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is also described as "communist" and "Marxist-Leninist" in the infobox although you could dispute that its 1991 incarnation could not be considered socialist in any meaningful sense of the word. Self-identification does appear to be given precedence where possible in Wikipedia articles about political parties, although of course outside the infobox a section backed by reliable sources disputing that movement's ideological commitments seems perfectly appropriate. --Katangais (talk) 20:28, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm appealing to everybody who keeps removing sourced information from the infobox (and indeed, adding blatantly false information by misrepresenting sources) to please discuss matters of what ideologies should be included here.

This week that infobox has cycled through - at a dizzying pace - ZANU-PF being described as being everything from right-wing to centrist to left-wing to far-left. This is precisely why I want sources which describe what the party's official view on its own ideology is, because there's so much confusion over what exactly that constitutes outside Zimbabwe, and this confusion has in turn coloured how people interpret source material. The moment we as contributors go into this with the preconception of what a party's ideology is, it becomes an impossibly gray area. Let us refrain from doing so. --Katangais (talk) 20:16, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

The official position is kind of "iffy" and hard to pinpoint however the latest 2018 manifesto for the party seems to outline a social democratic-esque (centre-left) political platform with a mixed economy. Thus, I decided to use that as a source for making the political position as centre-left. If anyone can offer a better source either proving or disproving this, feel free to change it, but I would recommend we all stop with the unsourced political positions. Hunter9502 (talk) 20:34, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Ideology Redux

As one can see from the discussion above, this is not a new topic to come under discussion. Due to the vast menagerie of international and domestic commentators who all choose to subjectively describe ZANU-PF as being everything from right-wing to left-wing to centrist (I'd argue a big part of this is ideological dissonance due to the post-Cold War confusion over what exactly constitutes left-wing in the absence of the traditional ideological power blocs), I'm going to request that any sourced information pertaining to this party's ideology be left alone and unaltered unless a source can be provided to the contrary. Thanks, --Katangais (talk) 18:17, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

National chairman

Please could you quote any source of Moyo being national chairman after 2015?

For me, he was national chairman until 2015 and spokesperson since

http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/opinion/chipanga-simon-khaya-moyo-implications/

https://www.pindula.co.zw/Simon_Khaya_Moyo

http://www.zanupf.org.zw/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/CC-Press-Statement-1.jpeg here from official source quoted as "secretary for information and publicity", which is an important charge and should be mentioned in the template, but is not "national chairman". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.252.86.154 (talk) 18:56, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

User JLo-Watson added Simon Khaya Moyo as Chairman without quoting any source. I quote here 2 sources in order to prove that he is spokesperson and not Chairman.

I think that as I am a non registered user, I am should not engage in an edit war. If JLo-Watson fails to provide any source for Moyo being party national chairman after 2015, could please someone revert his unsourced modification which he did on 19 November 2017 without quoting any source. Thank you in advance

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.252.86.154 (talk) 17:26, 19 November 2017 (UTC) 

Pages On Political Factions (Merge Proposal)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I propose that Lacoste (Political Faction) and Generation 40 (Political Faction) be merged into the article on ZANU-PF. I think that both of these political factions could be easily explained in a new section of 'Political Factions' with sub-headings for each. It is unreasonable to assume that either of the two pages pertaining to the political factions will be anything more than stub pages if they are kept as individual articles. GippoHippo (talk) 10:10, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Merge - What I have written above is my reasoning for this suggestion. GippoHippo (talk) 10:21, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Not sure - that would be fair enough unless more info could be found about each? That sounds fine to me I really don't mind, but wouldn't that make the Zanu-PF article too long if we wanted to fit everything about these factions into it? :) Fourdots2 (talk) 13:42, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose very famous faction. --Panam2014 (talk) 21:11, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose as both are independently notable factions. It appears the fractioning of ZANU-PF seems to be deepening and it is too early to tell if the G40 will simply disappear. We cannot say if the expulsion of the G40 members will lead to a new power balance or the formation of a new party. —አቤል ዳዊት^?(Janweh64) (talk) 04:50, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Not Merged I doubt anyone else will contribute to this discussion. The consensus drawn here is to not merge. Therefore, the merger notices will be removed. –GippoHippo (talk) 10:41, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Original research in the "Ideology" section and elsewhere

Parts of this article, particularly under the ideology section, appear to be an editor's analysis based on the synthesis of multiple sources. CentreLeftRight ✉ 02:22, 30 August 2021 (UTC)