This article is about the political party founded by Ndabaningi Sithole. For the political organisation during the period 1963–1980, see ZANU. For the ruling party of Zimbabwe, see ZANU–PF.
This article is missing information about the party's ideology. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page.(November 2017)
Zimbabwe African National Union – Ndonga (ZANU–Ndonga; formerly officially ZANU and unofficially ZANU Mwenje or ZANU Sithole[1]) is a minor political party in Zimbabwe. Its members were originally part of Zimbabwe African National Union, but split with what would become ZANU–PF over tribal tensions. A portion of the party reunified with ZANU-PF in 2015.
After Chitepo's assassination on 18 March 1975, Robert Mugabe, in Mozambique at the time, unilaterally assumed control of ZANU. Later that year there was a factional split along tribal lines caused the Ndebele to follow Sithole into the moderate ZANU–Ndonga party, who renounced violent struggle, while the Shona followed Mugabe with a more militant agenda.
Sithole joined a transitional government of whites and blacks in 1979, led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa. When sanctions remained in place, he joined Muzorewa for the Lancaster House Agreement in London, where a new constitution and elections were prepared. ZANU–Ndonga failed to win any seats in independent elections that swept Mugabe under the ZANU flag to power in 1980.
Declaring that his life was in danger from political enemies, Sithole went into self-imposed exile in the United States city of Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1983, returning to Zimbabwe nine years later to re-enter the political arena.
Sithole was elected a lawmaker for his tribal stronghold of Chipinge in southeastern Zimbabwe in 1995, as was a colleague. In December 1997 he was tried and convicted for conspiring to kill Mugabe and disqualified from attending the Harare parliament. He was granted the right to appeal, but no appeal was filed.
Sithole again won the Chipinge seat in June 2000, as ZANU–Ndonga's only representative. Sithole died on 12 December 2000, aged 80, in Philadelphia, after going there for medical treatment.
^Shadur, Mark A. (1994). Labour relations in a developing country: a case study on Zimbabwe. Avebury. pp. ?? fn.2. ISBN9781856289023. The parenthetical extension "Sithole", or "Mwenje", is often added to avoid confusion with ZANU (PF); however, the correct name is ZANU. "Mwenje" means light or torch, the symbol of ZANU.; Chung, Fay (2006). Re-living the Second Chimurenga: Memories from the Liberation Struggle in Zimbabwe. African Books Collective. p. 165. ISBN9781779220462. Retrieved 20 November 2017.
