Political analyst Dr Nkululeko Sibanda says Zimbabwe’s politics has become so heavily commodified that political influence and economic opportunity are now inseparable, raising fresh concerns over whether leaders genuinely represent ordinary citizens.
Speaking during This Morning on Asakhe, a daily current affairs programme hosted by CITE on X, Dr Sibanda said political action in Zimbabwe had increasingly been reduced to transactions involving money, vehicles and patronage.
“There is no line between political action and economic offence where you see the passing out of money and cars as part of the mainstream political strategy by this government,” said Sibanda.
He argued that since 2017, politics had evolved into a system where economic success was increasingly tied to political connections.
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“What Mnangagwa has done since 2017, in a manner that I haven’t seen world over, not even in Nigeria, is that they have commodified political action to the extent that there is no meaning. It creates an idea that in order to succeed economically, you’ve got to have an attachment to politics,” he said.
Sibanda warned that such a system risks becoming deeply entrenched unless urgent reforms are made.
He said the merging of political influence and economic opportunity had created a culture where access to resources depended less on merit and more on political affiliation.
“Small miners in rural areas will tell you that it is important for them to have a political link in some shape or form,” he said.
His remarks came amid growing debate over who truly speaks for Zimbabweans, as political parties, civic groups and religious leaders continue to claim they represent citizens while many ordinary people feel excluded from decision-making.
Also contributing to the discussion, Mthwakazi Republic Party Secretary for Information and Publicity Mbonisi Gumbo said Zimbabwe’s representative structures had been captured by political elites.
He argued that while leadership structures are necessary in any society, those in positions of influence had increasingly become detached from the people they claim to represent.
“People have always believed in leadership structures… but over time ZANU PF identified that people will always want to be led,” Gumbo said.
According to Gumbo, political elites had focused on influencing key individuals in institutions rather than attempting to win over the broader population.
“Instead of worrying about corrupting everyone among the 16 million citizens, they decided to target leaders in different structures — whether in civic society, political parties or even within their own party,” he said.
He alleged that bribery and patronage had weakened institutions meant to hold power accountable.
“Those leaders have been paid money and bought with cars and so on. They no longer represent the interests of the people but the interests of the ZANU PF elite,” he said.
Gumbo said this had weakened opposition parties, Parliament and local councils, leaving many citizens without meaningful representation.
He argued that the erosion of representative institutions had also affected national development by excluding citizens from meaningful participation.
“To develop a nation or province, people need to actively participate. But many have been removed from participating because these structures have been captured,” he said.
Gumbo said free, fair and credible elections remained the most effective mechanism for ensuring genuine representation.
“A free, fair and credible election is the best process for choosing leaders who speak for us,” he said, adding that Zimbabwe had yet to fully achieve that standard.
Sibanda said meaningful representation would only become possible when citizens recognised their own agency and demanded accountability from those elected to represent them.
“It is impossible to achieve true representation until you have activated the people, until the people understand that it is them that matter,” he said.
He was particularly critical of Parliament, arguing that it had largely failed to serve as an effective representative institution.
“In Zimbabwe, no one represents anyone. Your Parliament is one of the most useless parliaments in the world,” Sibanda said.
He said Parliament had only demonstrated meaningful influence during a handful of major national events, including the adoption of the 2013 Constitution and the impeachment process against Robert Mugabe during the events surrounding the 2017 Zimbabwean coup d’état.
Sibanda said Parliament’s recent reactivation had come under troubling circumstances, alleging that financial inducements were increasingly shaping political behaviour.
“Parliament was reactivated now in the worst manner possible because money is being passed around,” he said.
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