ZANU PF UK BLOG: THE ZANU PF CONSTITUTION

With the 2015 Annual Conference underway, there has been a lot of confusion and speculations regarding the functions of various organs of the party, the purpose of the Conference (which some are confusing with a Congress) and other speculations regarding seniority in the party and succession among others. An understanding of the ZANU PF Constitution would clear most of the confusion, speculation and controversy.

The new, amended ZANU PF constitution was adopted at the 6^th National People’s Congress in 2014. The constitution comprises of 4 Chapters and 29 Articles which describes among others, the Principal Organs and Structure of the Party, the National People’s Congress (Article 5) and the National People’s Conference (Article 6).

The Congress is the supreme organ of the Party, which is held in ordinary session every 5 years. An extraordinary session of the congress may be convened under various conditions as shown in the extract below:

The powers of the National People’s Conference are also clearly laid out in Article 6 (33) among which are to coordinate and implement decisions and programmes of the Congress and Central Committee, and “to declare the President of the Party elected at Congress as the State Presidential Candidate of the Party”. An extract from the constitution clarifying this position is shown below. It is hoped this will clarify any confusion regarding the purpose of the Annual Conference.

In between Congresses, the Central Committee is the Principal Organ of the Party, and consists of 300 members, which includes the President and First Secretary, the two Vice Presidents and Second Secretaries, The National Chairperson (all appointed by the President), and members from different provinces and organs (including the Secretaries for the Women’s and Youth’s Leagues). An extract from Article 7 is shown below:

Article 8 clarifies the composition of the Political Bureau which is led by the Presidium and comprises of Secretaries of various functionalities, such as administration, finance, commissariat, women’s league and youth league among others. The Politiburo is the administrative organ of the Central Cmmittee.

The Party document also clarifies the hierarchy of the party and the election and appointment process; there are no muddy areas on this one and this is laid out in a crystal clear manner. It is unfortunate that there may be elements within the party who are unclear on certain issues; they are encouraged to read the constitution. Those mischief makers (or simply ignorant individuals) in the media and social circles are also encouraged to download and read a copy of the constitution.

For closure and clarity, the issue of succession which is unnecessarily doing rounds is also clearly covered by the National Constitution - the ZANU PF constitution also clarifies this.

According to Section 26(2) of the ZANU PF constitution as shown in the extract above; an extraordinary session of congress may be convened “in the event of a vacancy occurring in the Office of National President requiring the party to nominate a successor, at the instance of the secretary for administration”. There is no such vacancy at the moment.

The national constitution, states if the president resigns, is incapacitated or dies, the last acting president takes over for 90 days. In this period the party would then hold an extraordinary congress after which the party has to elect a successor for the remainder of the tenure. This successor will be “nominated by at least two provinces and elected nationally by party members” which means the person will be have to be elected in a national “primary election” by card-carrying party members.