Abstract
This chapter examines strategies that were used by the ZANU–PF’s women’s league in influencing succession within the party. Against the background of seeing African politics as masculine, the study argues that succession which culminated to the fall of late Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, was for the first time in the history of Zimbabwean politics seen ZANU–PF’s women’s league, being the key players. Informed by framing theory and post-colonial feminist theory, the study used The Herald as the case study to analyse strategies that the ZANU–PF women’s league used to politically communicate their succession position before the fall of Robert Mugabe through a coup in November 2017. Through the use of discourse analysis, the study found that the league framed itself as the custodians of the party, and it worked with the party’s youth league in solving the succession matrix.
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Notes
- 1.
Zanu–PF (Zimbabwe African national union patriotic front) is the Zimbabwe’s ruling party. Its leader is Emmerson Mnangagwa. The party has got three organs, the main wing, youth league and the women’s league which is the subject of discussion.
- 2.
Robert Mugabe resigned as the president of Zimbabwe following a military coup that took in November last year. The coup came after Mugabe fired his deputy Emmerson Mnangagwa for many issues but chief among them being accused of trying to topple his boss.
- 3.
The 5th brigade was an army which was assembled by Robert Mugabe led Zanu–PF government in 1983 to deal with perceived ZAPU supports. The operation was later called Gukurahundi. Gukurahundi is a Shona term that means the “rain that washes away the chaff from the last harvest, before the spring rain” (CCJP & LRF 2007: xiii). The genocide killed more than 20 000 people (Ndlovu 2017; Mpofu 2014).
- 4.
ZAPU was an opposition political party which at independence had managed to get the majority of votes in the southern part of the country and this unsettled ZANU which wanted to establish a one-party state.
- 5.
In November 2004, a group of ZANU–PF leaders mainly chairpersons drawn from all the provinces assembled at Dinyane High School in Tsholotsho district in Matabeleland north province, where they sought the elevation of Emmerson Mnangagwa ahead of Joyce Mujuru.
- 6.
Mujuru was fired as the party’s second secretary and also the country’s vice president in 2015. She was accused of trying to topple Mugabe. Her dismissal marked the rise of her rival Emmerson Mnangagwa who is now the president of the country.
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Tshuma, L.A. (2020). ZANU–PF Women’s League and the (Re)configuration of Political Power in Influencing Succession Politics in Zimbabwe. In: Omotoso, S. (eds) Women's Political Communication in Africa. Contributions to Political Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42827-3_5
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