Zimbabwe’s non-aligned political parties in 2018 electoral pact

By Wallace Mawire
Marginalised Zimbabwe’s parties to contest in the forthcoming 2018 watershed elections have signed an MOU (PACT) in a bid to work together as a collaborative force to dislodge the ZANU (PF) ruling party.
The memorandum of understanding signed this Saturday is known as the Zimbabwe Non-Aligned Political Parties (ZINAPP). According to ZINAPP the Zimbabwean political space has 35 active political parties.
ZINAPP is a group of egalitarian political parties that are not in a cartel and not monopolistic, according to the spokesperson Welcome Shumba.
ZINAPP has agreed to form an amalgamation to work as one political outfit named Zimbabwe’s Political Party (ZPP).It is reported that each political party will be represented in the national, provincial and district structures of the ZPP.
ZPP says that egalitarian political parties are those concerned with the suffering of the people, especially the future generations who require sound governance and accountability. The party says that monopolistic parties, which have been thriving in Zimbabwe, are those that are egocentric and do whatever it takes to remain in power and do not have a succession plan.
Cartel political parties are those that require the support of other political parties to ascend to power and do not have a sound succession plan, have secret meetings amongst themselves and sway the public to think that they are representing very political party, according to ZPP.
Parties that have agreed to form an amalgamation with the ZPP at the recent pact signing ceremony held in Harare include the Freedom and Justice Coalition Zimbabwe (FJCZ), the Good People’s Movement Zimbabwe People’s Party (GPM-ZPP), Progressive and Innovative Movement of Zimbabwe (PIMZ), Rebuilding Zimbabwe Party (RZP), Rise Up Party (TUP), Suffering Voices of Zimbabwe (SUVOZ), United Crusade for Achieving Democracy (UCAD), Zimbabwe Development Political Party (ZDPP) and the Zimbabwe National Congress (ZINACO).
Shumba said that the parties who have signed the pact are parties who have been sidelined and are neither affiliated to the National Elections Reform Agenda (NERA) or the Coalition for Democratic Elections (CODE), who are accussed of using a brotherhood mentality nor shunning parties deemed small.
Shumba has said that they are not happy with the way some parties are being treated by ZANU (PF) and MDC who are in the NERA.Shumba has also called for reforming  of the Political Parties Finance Act which he says is disadvantaging small and upcoming parties which are not being equally resourced to contest fairly in elections.