As they arrive in the grandiose glass-and-steel entrance hall of the $55-million leadership academy, past the neatly groomed lawns and rows of newly planted palm trees, the cadres from some of Africa’s most powerful political parties are greeted by a large portrait of Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.

Decades after defeating their colonial enemies, the former liberation parties of southern Africa have no intention of loosening their grip on power. And with help from the Chinese instructors at a new political school in Tanzania, their leaders are mapping strategy and co-ordinating plans to prolong their lengthy rule.

The academy, dubbed the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School in honour of Tanzania’s first president after independence, is a joint project of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the ruling parties of six countries in southern Africa – none of which has lost even a single election in their history after colonialism or white minority rule.

Since its opening last year, the school has spearheaded China’s efforts to spread its ideological influence among the continent’s biggest political parties, and to ensure the perpetuation of their rule.

“We must make sure we are in power,” said Richard Kasesela, a prominent member of Tanzania’s governing Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, at a conference called the “leading cadres workshop” at the school in June.

“That’s critical,” he told his fellow politicians, as shown in a video posted online. “For this success, liberation movement parties have to continue running [their states]. CCM has to continue running Tanzania for the rest of time, as CPC does.”

He rhymed off the names of the ruling parties in five other countries – South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe – and he noted that elections were approaching in several of them. “We must support each other during election campaigns, during political programs, during development,” he said.

He asked the ruling parties to “focus on Zimbabwe” and provide help to ZANU-PF, the party that has governed Zimbabwe for the past 43 years, as it prepared for an election in August. (Unsurprisingly, ZANU-PF won the election, although opponents accused it of rigging the vote.)

Most of the six African parties have been in power since the 1980s or early 1990s, and some have ruled even longer. Mozambique’s governing party, FRELIMO, has been in power since 1975. Tanzania’s ruling CCM has held power, under different names, since 1964. Several of the parties have veered into authoritarian rule, sometimes using fraud and violence to retain their dominance.

But today they face new challenges from increasingly disillusioned voters. Their liberation credentials are fading, especially as corruption and economic struggles become more widespread. So the six parties have turned for help to China’s Communist Party, which has maintained a state monopoly for an even longer period of time: 74 years, without any elections at all.