office of the vice president

Key Note Address By Hon. J.T.R. Mujuru, Vice President And Second Secretary Of ZANU PF, on the Occasion of Training Workshop for ZANU PF provincial chairperson, provincial political commissars, DCC Chairperson and DCC Political Commissars: Management Training Bureau.

National Chairman and Speaker of the House of Assembly Hon J.LNkomo
The Chinese Ambassador; Your Excellency Yuan Nan Sheng
Members of the Politburo
Members of the Central Committee
All Provincial Chairpersons
All Provincial Commissars
DCC Leadership
Comrades and Friends

It is a great honour for me to be invited to deliver a keynote address and officially open this very important workshop, which brings together the Party's provincial leadership from the country's ten provinces. This workshop is designed to strengthen Party leadership through training, as shown by its theme which reads "Strengthening Party Leadership through Training on Party Constitution, Party Ideology and Issues of National Development"

Let me however begin by thanking the Commissariat Department for organizing this workshop at this critical time when we are putting in place measures to consolidate our land reform programme. I also want to acknowledge and thank all those who have worked to make this workshop a reality.

This training workshop will cover various important aspects central to the Party. These include Party organization, protocol, procedures and discipline; administration of Party programmes; understanding the Party Constitution and regulations, ideology of the party, its values and norms; information dissemination in a dynamic political environment and understanding the electoral processes as well as the need for voter education.

In addition, issues pertaining to women, youth and mobilization of members into the Party will also be covered. Another important aspect is the monitoring of the implementation of Party resolutions.

Thus, this programme is designed to equip you, as foot soldiers of the Party, with the necessary ammunition to go and educate members of the Party and the general public on what ZANU PF can offer in confronting the challenges we are facing. It is unfortunate to note that at times the Party is unjustifiably blamed because the local leadership lacks information to explain misconceptions orchestrated to demonize and undermine ZANU PF and its government.

Fellow comrades, I also note, with satisfaction that this training will also cover global politics and its implications on Zimbabwean politics. This is very critical at this moment when Zimbabwe is repeatedly being attacked by Anglo-Saxon governments over a bilateral issue with Britain. Delegates will have an opportunity to fully analyse how, and why there is a major push to transform a bilateral dispute between Zimbabwe and Britain into an international issue.

It is now apparent that the current machinations are a calculated move to cause civil disobedience, fronted by the opposition forces in order to effect a regime change and thus reverse the gains that ZANU PF and its government has achieved in empowering the black majority. By distributing land to the black Zimbabweans, we obviously touched a raw nerve, for which our former colonial masters will work day and night to ensure other former colonies do not follow suit. In other former colonies, political independence has not been followed by economic empowerment of the indigenous population. The former colonial masters will therefore do everything in their capacity to ensure that the model adopted by Zimbabwe does not succeed.

Just like we sacrificed to liberate this country politically, we should expect to be demonized as we fight to control the key means of production. The dream of an independent African country where the black majority control their key factors of production and where the indigenous population legitimately become very rich, should however spur us on!
In opening this workshop, I must point out that as a Party with a revolutionary history, ZANU PF is guided by clear ethical standards, values and norms.

The above underpin the guiding philosophy that has continued to provide the ideological focus for ZANU PF as a mass Party. Today the Party has continued to subsist, deriving its support from the following groups;

i. The Peasants - an integral pillar of our liberation struggle;
ii. The workers - the majority of whom were getting subhuman wages prior to our hard won independence;
iii.The business people - the majority of these are direct beneficiaries of our indigenisation drive;
iv. Women - vana amai vaibikira nguva yehondo uye varamba vari musimboti womusangano wedu; and
v. Progressive youth and students - the future leaders to whom we have a duty to pass on a strong, united and ideologically sound party.

The above social groups remain very critical in the survival of the Party. It is therefore a big challenge that the grassroots leadership must find ways of winning the hearts and minds of these groups and keep them in the fold of the Party. Expectedly, they have become prime targets for regime change agents, especially the youth, students and the workers. It is your key role to ensure that those bent on reversing our hard won freedom do not win the hearts and minds of the above critical groups.

I am glad that progressive students' leaders have been invited to this training workshop. This is necessary in bridging that generation gap between the Party and intellectuals and youths. We must continue giving them political guidance. In the process, they must be mobilized around a national agenda for socio-economic development, social transformation, advancement of the struggle against imperialism and all its machinations. It is this group that will ensure, even if we are dead and gone, that what we fought for is not lost. It is this same group that will ensure that Zimbabwe will never be a colony again!

Our efforts must also be directed to mobilize the business persons in our society so that they become active members of the Party. A lot of successful business-persons are where they are because of our pro-indigenous policies. It would therefore be very regrettable and unfortunate if we loose them to those who had nothing to do with their success.

Another critical aspect that has been lacking, which I believe this workshop must address, is to put clearly the mandate that the Party has in the formulation of policy and supervision of Government. Allow me to categorically state that the Party has always been, and remains supreme to Government. This is because in modern day democracy, the Party that wins general elections forms a Government whose responsibility is to implement projects and programmes in order to fulfill the ruling Party's promises to the people.

In Zimbabwe, we inherited a system that emphasises the separation of politics from government administration but we know, by way of comparison, that in America the Republicans dictate the politics of the day, similarly the Labour Party in Britain does the same. Indeed such is the trend throughout the world. As such, the leadership ought to understand their role in making sure that Government delivers and you must execute this mandate with full confidence knowing you have the full backing of the Presidium, the Politburo and the Central Committee.

I wish to emphasize the importance of unity of purpose in the Party. We must work as one and realize that we all belong to one big family called ZANU PF. On the same token you must note and emphasise to our members that the Party has its own procedures, protocol, rules and regulations which must be respected by those who volunteer to be its members. This ensures that we have discipline within the Party. Those who do not want to observe the Party rules automatically disqualify themselves from being its members.

I hope this training workshop will leave you energized and refreshed to be at the front in the management and implementation of Party programmes. At the same time, you must have a "hands on" approach to Party work and tasks, be more judicious in the way you conduct Party business and prevent detractors from dividing our Party.

With these words it is my honour and priviledge to declare this workshop official opened!

-1 thank you
- Ndatenda
- Ngiyabonga!