Former ZAPU Secretary General Dr Strike Mkandla is standing as an independent parliamentary candidate following squabbles with the party leadership that resulted in his unceremonious expulsion.
Dr Mkandla and the ZAPU leadership fell out following squabbles at the party’s 2021 congress, where he and other members claimed that current leader Sibangilizwe Nkomo was ineligible to run since he had not been a party member for the required five years.
After the congress, squabbles intensified and the new ZAPU leadership expelled Dr Mkandla and four other members in November 2022.
Dr Mkandla refused to back down and sought reasons for his expulsion because no charges were brought against him and he did not appear before the party’s disciplinary committee hearing led by the Council of Elders.
Dr Mkandla told CITE that he refused to be booted out of politics because ZAPU values had instilled in him a responsibility that they had a duty to represent people.
“When I was assaulted in a truly thuggish manner by the party of my youth and recent ten years of work under DD ( the late Dr Dumiso Dabengwa), I made it known that I would not take it lying down,” he said and is one of the candidates who filed his papers at the Nomination Court on June 21, 2023.
The aspiring MP claimed that in light of Nkomo and his supporters’ unprincipled effort to obliterate his political existence, he decided to take an unequivocal stand.
“I am now nominated to stand as an independent in Mpopoma-Mzilikazi which took the bigger chunk of my old constituency (after delimitation changes),” Dr Mkandla said.
He noted that the current situation in ZAPU showed what the mother party struggled hard to build for ten years since 2010 has been “(un)systematically smashed in 18 months of incompetence and ill-will.”
“The struggle to reverse this hurricane to hell will not be easy, but for now all means at our disposal must be unleashed. We need to keep our original priority of fighting for the public good and accountable governance,” Dr Mkandla said.
“For me, the small contribution begins with being truly independent of internal and external reactionaries that push personality cults, even where there is hardly any recognizable personality. The fight is at our doorstep. Zindala Zombili!”
Dr Mkandla also urged the electorate to come forward so that they could all work together for the better.
“You are also encouraged to think of practical ways to move on,” he said, noting that he grew up in Pelandaba, as his family moved there when he was 10 years old.
Before the delimitation changes, the constituency Dr Mkandla was contesting used to be Pelandaba – Mpopoma but now Pelandaba had merged with Tshabalala.
“The people I have been working with the most are in Mpopoma, which has now been combined with Mzilikazi and these are the people who have brought me here. Now we have to reach people in Mzilikazi and see how we can draw them in,” said the aspiring MP.
Dr Mkandla said his wish was to fully represent people’s interests, “not be a visitor in the constituency” but provide oversight and contribute to policy-making.
“The government must know that people are watching. People’s views should be heard and their respective representatives should know they have been sent to Parliament to represent them.”
Dr Mkandla’s election emblem is a light bulb, which he says represents the power of light, moving away from darkness and toward accountability.
“The light represents the power people have. We must have access to power and use that power so that those on top know the needs of those on the bottom,” he said.
“I am not leaving ZAPU because the principles that ZAPU represents are what I believe in. Those that expelled me did so automatically expelled themselves because they do not understand what ZAPU stands for, its history, or where it is going. We couldn’t just fire somebody without first going through a hearing committee.”
The former ZAPU SG also declared that he “would not be told not to stand up and represent people in Bulawayo especially those in the constituency” where he grew up.
