Failure ought to be an educational opportunity not a burial ceremony. There has never been a crisis of political innovation in Matabeleland; indeed, we are the founding region for many political organisations from the colonial times to the postcolonial period; the desire for better political systems burns within and so is the motivation for change. The biggest downfall, however, has been the failure to expand on the dream. Self-reflection, as opposed to blame and victimhood, will lead us to sustainable solutions. Political parties need to look beyond addressing short-term grievances to developing medium to long-term strategies for their sustenance and growth.
To start off, let us objectively face the reality that political parties, too many to mention, different in their visions and architecture but all sharing the goal for establishing systems that reflect the culture and customs of the people of Matabeleland have come and gone but the dream is no closer to being accomplished today than it was yesterday.
Focusing on short-term issues has left our political parties exposed and vulnerable; they have failed to build the capacity to look ahead and anticipate developments to prepare themselves adequately for the changing local political dynamics and societal demands.
Developing a medium and long-term strategy is essential for the sustenance and growth of Matabeleland political organisations. However, Matabeleland faces a paradox: as alluded to above, local political parties have the ambition to govern the region, but they have tended to be poorly governed themselves. Arguably, the biggest weakness has been the mismatch between the projected goals of the parties and what the public needs and is prepared to be a part of.
Membership and its retention are the oxygen that keeps any political party in business, and to gain that you need to inject motivation among the public, that means paying attention to detail: the content of the message and the quality of the messaging.
Colourful placards and spicy social media posts are nothing if they do not speak to the guts of the public. Parties need to endear themselves to the public and not appear aloof. Local political parties have failed to connect with the public as their narrative is often a disconnect from the public interests; parties have tended to be blindly reactionary in nature, only responding to real and perceived injustices of the Harare regime and ethnic Shona people and thus, struggled to maintain a balance between the short-term need to respond to the electorate and the development of medium to long-term goals and strategies.
It is telling that the parties find themselves perpetually responding to short-term external crises brought about by mainstream parties of Zimbabwe to the detriment of the medium and long-term development of their strategies and the internal organisations to support these strategies which has tended to weaken political parties’ prospects for survival. Predictably, this weakens public trust in the political parties as a vehicle for representation and governance.
We do not want to paint a picture of doom and gloom because there is hope for revival; Matabeleland political parties can restructure, reboot, sustain themselves and grow. We need to build verifiable strategies for survival. Adapting the motivation (reasons), trigger (opportunities to join or sell the party agenda, e.g., election rallies, commemoration events, etc.), and process (how membership operates) model which is an informative model for up-and-coming political parties would be a huge boost to informed membership recruitment.
Developed by Kate Demmett and Sam Power (2018), the model helps organisations seeking to boost their membership to maintain their focus on these three fundamental questions:
- Why would someone be motivated to join your organisation?
- How easy is the process of joining?
- What are the kinds of triggers that would spur someone to join?
Getting members more involved in programmes is key to any organisation’s growth and survival chances. It is not uncommon for many members of an organisation to be comfortable with a passive role, and this has been the biggest problem in Matabeleland. To address this problem of having many non-active members, organisations should ask themselves:
- Why would members be motivated to become active?
- How easy is the process of getting involved?
- What would trigger involvement?
As organisations grow, so does internal divisions and views; it is inevitable that changes will take place – some cosmetic and some major. Shifts in focus, policy, and approach may be necessary for the party to achieve its goals and remain relevant in an ever-evolving political space, but such changes may cause seismic internal instabilities leading to some members opting leave due to incompatibility of principles and policies. However, retention of members must be prioritised, and efforts made to stop members from leaving.
Ask the following:
- Why would people be motivated to remain?
- Does the process of membership encourage retention?
- What triggers people to leave?
We believe that active engagement and retention of members is paramount and must be prioritised for the sustenance and growth of Matabeleland politics. Transparency is essential, members must receive updates of a party’s activities, how they (members) matter and what the future looks like. We must make it clear to the public that Matabeleland’s needs cannot be met via mainstream politics whose target has always been the management rather than empowerment of Matabeleland. Joining organisations needs to be easy as is educating and finding roles for people to play in organisations.
MTHWAKAZI INDEPENDENT 