At the 2008 parliamentary election, the ZANU–PF lost sole control of parliament for the first time in party history and brokered a difficult power-sharing deal with the Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai (MDC).

On 19 November 2017, following a coup d'état, ZANU–PF sacked Robert Mugabe as party leader, who resigned two days later, and appointed former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa in his place.

[8] The first militant African nationalist organisation in Southern Rhodesia was the City Youth League (CYL), formed in the colony's capital, Salisbury, in August 1955 by James Chikerema, Dunduzu Chisiza, George Nyandoro, and Edson Sithole.

[12][19] According to Nkomo, he had received permission to form a government in exile, but by the time the rest of ZAPU's leadership arrived in Dar es Salaam, he had changed his mind and was opposed the idea.

[12][16] President Julius Nyerere told the assembled ZAPU leaders that neither he nor other African heads of state supported the idea of a government in exile and that "victory" could only be achieved within Rhodesia.

[12] Nkomo returned to Salisbury on 2 July 1963, after which a majority of the party executive that had remained in Dar es Salaam voted to remove him as president of ZAPU.

[11] On 8 August 1963, Sithole, Herbert Chitepo, Leopold Takawira, Edgar Tekere, Henry Hamadziripi, and Mukudzei Midzi gathered at the Highfield home of Enos Nkala to form the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU).

[16][19][20][21] In response to ZANU's formation, Nkomo called a mass meeting on 10 August 1963 at Cold Comfort Farm, a multiracial cooperative outside Salisbury, where he formed a new organisation, the People's Caretaker Council (PCP), to replace ZAPU, which was still banned.

[12][16][22] To preempt ZANU's growth, Nkomo took steps to solidify his hold on the masses, replacing ZAPU's existing centralised structure with a larger number of new, smaller branches.

[12] In the ZAPU–ZANU split, most of Nkomo's longtime allies who had been with him since the SRANC's formation in 1957—including Jason Moyo and George Nyandoro—stayed with ZAPU, while many nationalist leaders who had come to prominence in 1960 or later—like Sithole and Mugabe—joined the new party.

"[23] Sithole told the reporters that ZANU was "nonracial" and would accommodate "people who share a common destiny and democratic rule by the majority, regardless of race, colour, creed, or tribe.

[11][18][25] Compared to ZAPU, ZANU branded itself as taking a more confrontational approach to white-minority rule, while portraying Nkomo as weak, indecisive, and insufficiently revolutionary.

[25][27][28][29] There, Ndabaningi Sithole was elected as the party's first president, Leopold Takawira as vice-president, Robert Mugabe as secretary-general, Herbert Chitepo as national chairman, and Enos Nkala as treasurer.

[21][27][28] In his presidential address, Sithole told the congress that ZANU "stands for democracy, socialism, nationalism, one man/one vote, freedom, pan-Africanism, non-racism, and republicanism.

[25] The Patriotic Front (PF) was formed as a political and military alliance between ZAPU and ZANU during the war against white minority rule in Rhodesia (now called Zimbabwe).

The objective of the PF was to overthrow the predominantly white minority government, headed by the Prime Minister Ian Smith, through political pressure and military force.

[30] In December 1981, agents of South Africa's apartheid government bombed party headquarters, nearly killing many senior ZANU–PF leaders, including Robert Mugabe.

[31] In December 1987, after five years of the low-level civil war known as Gukurahundi, the opposition ZAPU, led by Nkomo, was absorbed through the Unity Accord with ZANU to form an official ZANU–PF.

The leader of the opposition MDC party said, "We are deeply disturbed by the fraudulent activities we have unearthed", and various human rights groups reported that hundreds of thousands of "ghost voters" had appeared on the electoral roll of 5.8 million people.

Morgan Tsvangirai initially stated he intended to contest the second round but pulled out of the runoff saying a free and fair election was impossible in the current climate.

[47] Mugabe pursued a more left-wing populist policy on the issue of land redistribution in 2000s, encouraging seizure of commercial farms—usually owned by Zimbabwe's white minority—"for the benefit of landless black majority".

[53] The other three members of the party's presidium, appointed by Mnangagwa on 29 October 2022, are Second Secretaries Constantino Chiwenga and Kembo Mohadi, and National Chairperson Oppah Muchinguri.