Twenty-five-year-old Varaidzo Mupunga calls herself Zanu-PF’s 'new blood'.
She is the youngest Zanu-PF candidate, and probably one of the youngest of all Parliamentary candidates in the July 31 election. She has a tough job winning Harare West, a suburban area that has gone to the Movement for Democratic Change since 2000.
Mupunga is part of a party that has struggled to sell an aged leadership – including 89-year-old President Robert Mugabe – to a largely young voter base. For voters born after 1980, the party’s revolutionary rhetoric has failed to stick.
So, many are surprised when they meet a 25-year-old, middle-class woman who is an enthusiastic supporter of Mugabe, and is standing for Zanu-PF. It is a question Mupunga has faced frequently.
“Zanu-PF is a political party for both the young and the old and it is a party that has bridged the generational gap well. All age groups are represented in Zanu-PF,” she insists.
On why she supports Zanu-PF: “I support Zanu-PF mainly because of its policies, principles and ideology. I am a firm believer in the teachings of Chairman Mao Tse Tung and Zanu-PF borrows from some of them. That is what draws me to the party, not only as a supporter, but also as a member.”
Zanu-PF has constantly faced criticism that it stifles new blood. Recently, when asked about the emergence of “young Turks” in his party, Zanu-PF secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa – one of the top six of the party – dismissed their ambitions: “What young Turks? They should go to Turkey.”
Injecting new blood
But Mupunga says she is evidence of the fact that her party is in fact injecting new blood into its leadership and is reaching out to younger voters.
“I am representing Zanu-PF because the opportunity was accorded to every youth league member in Zanu-PF,” she says.
She talks tough and appears determined to pull the constituency from the MDC, but, unlike the older members of her party, she treats her rivals as opponents, not enemies. The constituency is being contested by female candidates.
“I treat them as my aunties,” she laughs. “We are not sworn enemies. We are just women who have shown interest in the same field and wish and promise to represent differently. In fact, I often joke with them, telling them to make way for new blood.”
It would be a major upset if she won, as voters tend to go with their parties and care little for the identity of the person on the ballot. But she is betting the voters are “going to vote for a youth because I represent the future and, in my view, the future of Harare West looks bright with me serving”.
She joined Zanu-PF as a 17-year-old high school student, serving as a junior councillor for two years.
"Beginning of a new era"
“I chose Harare West because that is where I grew up. I understand and know the problems of Harare Westerners first hand,” Mupunga says.
She is not the only young candidate to stand for Zanu-PF. Among others are Acie Lumumba, standing in Harare’s Hatfield constituency, and Tendai Wenyika, both in their 20s. To Mupunga, all this points to “the beginning of a new era on the Zimbabwean political landscape”.
She even dips into Greek to describe the servant leadership she says is needed now.
“It is essentially a revisit of the principle of diakoneo, which is the Greek root of the word minister, meaning to serve,” she explains.
“Under the new dispensation which Varaidzo Mupunga is trailblazing traditional politics will be made irrelevant and obsolete. The aim is to serve and not to be served.”
She wants to be an MP who gets directly involved in her area – she describes it as “a feet in the mud” type of MP – saying the old style of aloof MPs who demand reverence from their subjects is gone.
July 31 will show whether Harare West buys into Mupunga’s ideals.