The politics of Zimbabwe occurs in a society deeply divided along lines of race, ethnicity, gender and geography. The ZANU–PF party has historically been dominant in Zimbabwe politics. The party, which was led by Robert Mugabe from 1980 to 2017, has used the powers of the state to intimidate, imprison and otherwise hobble political opposition in Zimbabwe, as well as use state funds and state media to advance the interests of the party.
Samora Moisés Machel was a Mozambican politician and revolutionary. A socialist in the tradition of Marxism–Leninism, he served as the first President of Mozambique from the country's independence in 1975 until his death in a plane crash in 1986.
The Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF) is a political organisation which has been the ruling party of Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. The party was led for many years by Robert Mugabe, first as prime minister with the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and then as president from 1987 after the merger with the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) and retaining the name ZANU–PF, until 2017, when he was removed as leader.
The Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) was a militant socialist organisation that fought against white-minority rule in Rhodesia, formed as a split from the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) in 1963. ZANU split in 1975 into wings loyal to Robert Mugabe and Ndabaningi Sithole, later respectively called ZANU–PF and ZANU–Ndonga. These two sub-divisions ran separately at the 1980 general election, where ZANU–PF has been in power ever since, and ZANU–Ndonga a minor opposition party.
The Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) is a Zimbabwean political party. It is a militant communist organization and political party that campaigned for majority rule in Rhodesia, from its founding in 1961 until 1980. In 1987, it merged with the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is an inter-governmental organization headquartered in Gaborone, Botswana.
Ndabaningi Sithole was a Zimbabwean politician and statesman who was the founder of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), a militant, nationalist organisation that opposed the government of Rhodesia, in July 1963. He worked as a United Church of Christ in Zimbabwe (UCCZ) minister. He spent 10 years in prison after the government banned ZANU. A rift along tribal lines split ZANU in 1975, and he lost the 1980 elections to Robert Mugabe.
The Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), the forerunner of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), was a memorandum of understanding on common economic development signed in Lusaka, Zambia, on 1 April 1980. It is formalised as the Lusaka Declaration ratified by the nine signing states. Some of the main goals for the Member States were to be less dependent on apartheid South Africa and to introduce programmes and projects which would influence the Southern African countries and whole region.
The Frontline States (FLS) were a loose coalition of African countries from the 1960s to the early 1990s committed to ending apartheid in South Africa and South West Africa, and white minority rule in Rhodesia to 1980. The FLS included Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The FLS disbanded after Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa in 1994.
Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa is a Zimbabwean politician who is serving as the third president of Zimbabwe since 2017. A member of ZANU–PF and a longtime ally of former President Robert Mugabe, he held a series of cabinet portfolios and he was Mugabe's first-vice president from 2014 until 2017, when he was dismissed before coming to power in a coup d'état. He secured his first full term as president in the disputed 2018 general election. Mnangagwa was re-elected in the August 2023 general election with 52.6% of the vote.
Sydney Tigere Sekeramayi is a Zimbabwean politician who served in the government of Zimbabwe as Minister of Defence between 2013 and 2017. He has been a minister in the Cabinet since independence in 1980, serving as Minister of Defence from 2001 to 2009 and Minister of State Security from 2009 to 2013.
Joseph Chinotimba is a Zimbabwean political figure. He rose to prominence during the invasions of white-owned commercial farms that started after the 2000 constitutional referendum in Zimbabwe. He is widely regarded as a militant ZANU-PF cadre with unquestionable allegiance to the old guard of the ruling party. He is the national vice-chairman of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association.
Daniel Kuzozvirava Shumba is a former Zimbabwe Army colonel and businessman; he returned to active politics and rose to Masvingo Provincial Chairman and member of the Central Committee [(the highest organ)] of the ZANU-PF political party. He is a son of a founding member of ZANU, and had a strong political background. He underwent Zanla's basic military training at Chisamba, Zambia, in 1978 before continuing with his academics. Shumba's accolades extend to having served in the Special Forces of the Zimbabwe National Army from 1983 to 1989.
The Geneva Conference took place in Geneva, Switzerland during the Rhodesian Bush War. Held under British mediation, its participants were the unrecognised government of Rhodesia, led by Ian Smith, and a number of rival Rhodesian black nationalist parties: the African National Council, led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa; the Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe, led by James Chikerema; and a joint "Patriotic Front" made up of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union and the Zimbabwe African People's Union led by Joshua Nkomo. The purpose of the conference was to attempt to agree on a new constitution for Rhodesia and in doing so find a way to end the Bush War raging between the government and the guerrillas commanded by Mugabe and Nkomo respectively.
The Victoria Falls Conference took place on 26 August 1975 aboard a South African Railways train halfway across the Victoria Falls Bridge on the border between the unrecognised state of Rhodesia and Zambia. It was the culmination of the "détente" policy introduced and championed by B. J. Vorster, the Prime Minister of South Africa, which was then under apartheid and was attempting to improve its relations with the Frontline States to Rhodesia's north, west and east by helping to produce a settlement in Rhodesia. The participants in the conference were a delegation led by the Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith on behalf of his government, and a nationalist delegation attending under the banner of Abel Muzorewa's African National Council (UANC), which for this conference also incorporated delegates from the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) and the Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe (FROLIZI). Vorster and the Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda acted as mediators in the conference, which was held on the border in an attempt to provide a venue both sides would accept as neutral.
General elections were held in Zimbabwe on 31 July 2013. Incumbent President Robert Mugabe was re-elected, whilst his ZANU–PF party won a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly.
The Lusaka Manifesto is a document created by the Fifth Summit Conference of East and Central African States which took place between 14 and 16 April 1969 in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. Produced at a time when the Republic of South Africa and its affiliated white-ruled regimes in Mozambique, Rhodesia, and Angola were relatively strong but politically isolated, the Manifesto called upon them to relinquish white supremacy and minority rule and singled out apartheid South Africa for violation of human rights. In the manifesto, which was subsequently adopted both by the Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations, thirteen Heads of State offered dialogue with the rulers of these Southern African states under the condition that they accept basic principles of human rights and human liberties. They also threatened to support the various liberation wars if negotiations failed.
Joseph Kalimbwe is a Zambian politician, author and activist. Previously, he was president of the African Union youth simulation in 2014 and president of the student representative council of the University of Namibia in 2017. He has written for the Namibian Sun, and has published three books including Persecuted in Search of Change in 2017, The Pain of An Empty Stomach in 2015 and Teenage-Hood & the Impact of the Western World in 2014.
The ZANU–PF Women's League is the women's wing of the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF), the ruling political party of Zimbabwe.
Botswana–Zimbabwe relations are bilateral relations between two neighbouring landlocked Southern African nations of Botswana and Zimbabwe. Both nations are members of the African Union, United Nations, Southern African Development Community and the Non-Aligned Movement. Botswana has an embassy in Harare. Zimbabwe has an embassy in Gaborone.
African National Congress 
South Africa 
Botswana Democratic Party 
Botswana 
Chama Cha Mapinduzi 
Tanzania 
Liberation Front of Mozambique 
Mozambique 
People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola 
Angola 
SWAPO Party of Namibia 
Namibia 
Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front 
Zimbabwe 
