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Zimbabwe: Hard Road to Reform
AfricaFocus Bulletin
Apr 14, 2011 (110414)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
"[The] seeming lethargy of the SADC facilitation took a dramatic
turn at the SADC Troika summit in Zambia on the 31st March. [It
noted] with 'grave concern' the political polarization in
Zimbabwe characterised by the 'resurgence of violence, arrests
and intimidation.' ... Without naming Mugabe directly, [the
summit's] resolutions were arguably the most forthright
diplomatic criticism that SADC had issued of the Mugabe regime,
with the recommendations largely echoing the demands that the
MDCs and the civic movement had been making since 2009." -
Solidarity Peace Trust
The latest report from Solidarity Peace Trust, released on April
13 and entitled "The Hard Road to Reform," discounts
"overoptimistic hopes for an 'Egypt moment' in Zimbabwe," but
notes that the Global Political Agreement (GPA) does still offer
hope for change, despite the fact that ZANU PF has consistently
blocked its full implementation. Civil society groups noted with
approval the recent sharpening of SADC criticism, but warned that
it remains to be seen how much pressure will be sustained.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from the first
section of this report from Solidarity Peace Trust, analyzing the
current political situation and the road ahead. A second section
of the report, not excerpted here, contains a detailed accounting
of recent developments restricting political space, including
political violence. The full report is available on the
Solidarity Peace Trust website
(http://www.solidaritypeacetrust.org; direct link to report is
http://tinyurl.com/3tjqgz3
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Zimbabwe, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/country/zimbabwe.php
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Update
After two days of protests, met with repression including arrests
of large numbers of protest leaders, raids on organizations
involved, and heavy police presence and roadblocks, the Swaziland
Democracy Campaign has temporarily suspended the protests. Prodemocracy
campaigners, however, say the regime has won only a
hollow victory, as the actions have called unprecedented world
attention, particularly in neighboring South Africa. Notably, the
South African government has issued a statement urging "all the
relevant parties in the Kingdom of Swaziland to begin a political
dialogue with a view to seek a speedy and peaceful solution to
the current situation."
See http://swazimedia.blogspot.com for regular updates. For
additional sources, see
http://www.africafocus.org/docs11/swaz1104.php
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++
The Hard Road to Reform
Solidarity Peace trust, Johannesburg
13 April 2011
http://www.solidaritypeacetrust.org
I. The Hard Road to Reform
1. Introduction
Since the signing and initiation of the Global Political
Agreement in Zimbabwe in September 2008 and February 2009
respectively, the politics of the country has been convulsed with
a recurring set of problems even as it has allowed for a certain
political and economic stabilization. The agreement, with its
attendant Inclusive Government, was set up to establish the
conditions for a free and fair election. However it was always
clear that, in a more determinate sense, it would provide the
site for intense struggles over the state between the contending
parties, with Zanu PF always in an advantageous position because
of its control of the coercive arms of the state.
It is thus not surprising that the Mugabe regime has used its
control of the police, security and military sectors to contain
the constrained promise of the GPA to open up democratic spaces.
It is also clear that both MDCs have made strategic mistakes that
have added to the already difficult challenges that confronted
them at the outset of the process. Moreover the problems of the
GPA have, on occasion, been compounded by the different roles of
SADC and the West.
In recent months the Zimbabwean crisis has been somewhat
overshadowed by the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle
East, as well as the violence that has broken out over the
contested election in the Ivory Coast. Both events, but
particularly the developments in North Africa, have predictably
forced comparisons with the Zimbabwe situation. This has often
lead to overoptimistic hopes for an 'Egypt moment' in Zimbabwe,
that are based less on a concrete analysis of the conditions in
the country, than a desperate yearning that Zimbabwe's
authoritarian state face such a reckoning. The complex politics
of the GPA in the context of the particularities of Zimbabwe's
history make any simple comparisons with North Africa difficult
to sustain. This report thus sets out to think through the
politics of the last two years in Zimbabwe, setting out the
challenges that have had to be confronted, but also noting the
opportunities it has provided, and the possibilities for the near
future.
2. The Ambiguities of the GPA
There is no shortage of preliminary analyses of the GPA that
provide details of its failures and deadlocks around all the key
articles of the agreement. Whether on the constitutional process,
electoral reforms, the legislative reform agenda, the media,
national healing, sanctions or the constitutional commissions, it
is clear that Zanu PF has continually blocked serious reform
measures through its monopoly hold over the instruments of force.
It has also done this through a combination of simply ignoring
those areas of the GPA it found inconvenient, and manipulating
the ambiguities of the agreement, for the most part under the
nose of the SADC facilitator. In recent months MDC?T ministers
have been arrested and harassed on spurious charges while the
capacity of both MDCs to conduct their party campaigns has been
undermined by state interventions. In addition civic leaders and
human rights defenders have also been subject to state
harassment. Overall attempts to deal with the outstanding issues
of the GPA have been 'negligible.' Under these circumstances
Morgan Tsvangirai has expressed frustration at Mugabe's
unwillingness, or inability to stop the continued, though
admittedly lower levels of violence, against his membership.
...
The response of the Mugabe regime to the GPA is based on the fact
that it draws its legitimacy, less from a representative and
democratic state than from its legacy in the liberation struggle.
The party's conception of sovereignty is thus based on its self
perception as a revolutionary vanguard party that embodies the
general will of the people of Zimbabwe, not through elections but
because of blood spilled under its auspices during the war of
liberation. This makes it extremely difficult for Zanu PF to
formulate its conception of sovereignty in a settled fashion,
through more stable functioning state institutions, because it
views itself as a privileged minority that persistently
distinguishes itself from the rest of the citizenry through a
state that it regards as a party state.
Moreover while it controls this state it also regards itself as
above any structures of accountability within it, and within this
view there is no substantive place for stable representative
institutions. In the last decade Zanu PF has consistently
undermined and weakened functioning state structures.
...
With the Zanu PF elite having spread its tentacles in several key
areas in the economy such as the land and the diamonds, the party
must nevertheless continually confront the disparities between
its elite and the growing number of the poor in the country. This
it has done, since 2000 in particular, through a combination of
coercion and a repertoire of election mobilization strategies
relating to various aspects of the liberation struggle.
...
One of the problems with the many commentaries of the GPA that
have been written by the civic groups, is that thy have
overlooked or underestimated the fact that the agreement,
notwithstanding its multiple problems, has provided certain
parameters of accountability for Zanu PF. This has taken various
forms that have had different levels of effectiveness. In cabinet
and parliament, Zanu PF have had to deal with serious
contestations over their interventions, that have then provided
markers of the ways in which the Mugabe regime has obstructed the
full implementation of the GPA.
...
In the constitutional process which has seen many delays,
logistical and funding challenges, the arrest of the co?chair of
COPAC MDC?T MP Douglas Mwonzora, and varying levels of
intimidation, the outreach programme has nevertheless provided an
important means for Zimbabweans to air some of their views on
constitutional reform. A report by Freedom House and the Mass
Public Opinion Institute published in March 2011 observed on the
COPAC process:
"Despite the expectations that the COPAC process would be
violent, due to the contested nature of a new constitution and
politicization of the process, the survey trend was one of
relative contentment with the process, and observations that
violence only played a small role in it. This was the case in
both rural and urban areas, and across the provinces. Harare
province reported the highest incidence of violence in the COPAC
process…"
In the economic sphere the MDC?T has demanded more accountability
over missing diamond revenues amounting to some US$300 million,
and an audit of public sector employees.
...
Thus in all these areas the Mugabe regime has had to face greater
accountability, a condition it is unaccustomed to. It was
therefore predictable that Zanu PF, always uncomfortable in more
stable structures of accountability, would start pushing for the
end of the GPA, in order to attempt to end even the limited power
sharing arrangements of the GPA. Additionally there are
additional factors that may have propelled this strategy. Firstly
Mugabe's age and health have become a serious concern for the
Zanu PF hardliners, who would prefer Mugabe at the helm of any
election campaign in the near future, because of the continued
succession battles in the party. Secondly Zanu PF is feeling
stronger than it did in 2008 and perceives that the MDCs have
been weakened over the last two years. ... Thirdly, at least
until the SADC Troika summit in Zambia in March 2011, Zanu PF
felt confident of the solidarity support of the regional body,
particularly around the sanctions issue. Moreover with the AU
preoccupied with events in the Ivory Coast and North Africa,
Zimbabwe had become a less contentious issue for the continental
body.
Given this position Zanu PF intensified its obstructive behavior
with regard to the GPA from 2010 with Mugabe giving notice in
October 2010 that he was reluctant for the Inclusive Government
to go beyond the two year mark in February 2010 because of what
he claimed were the 'absolutely foolish and stupid' things
happening in the Inclusive Government. Thereafter and quite
arbitrarily Mugabe made claims that the Inclusive Government must
end in February 2011.
...
From the preceding discussion it could be inferred that Zanu PF's
strategy is thus to push for an early election, while Mugabe is
still alive, and to aim for at least 10?15 more seats that would
give the party a majority in Parliament. Zanu PF may feel that
through a combination of fear, their own support base and a
decline in MDC?T support they could achieve this, while
maintaining the presence of the MDC?T in parliament as a junior
partner, with whom it no longer had to share some of its power.
...
In early 2011 Zanu PF set about putting its resolutions into
action. Against the background of the wave of uprisings in North
Africa, Zanu PF preemptively organized its own 'popular'
demonstrations in Harare with Zanu PF supporters carrying banners
reading 'No to foreigners controlling our economy' and
'Foreigners, sanctions have destroyed our economy so we want to
control our wealth.' The demonstrations were violent and
destructive causing enormous damage to property at the Gulf
shopping mall in the city. They were also carried out on the eve
of the EU meeting to review the targeted measures against key
Zanu PF figures, almost in an attempt to ensure that measures
were not removed as the sanctions issue was a key message in the
Zanu PF election campaign.
Moreover Zanu PF began a clampdown on any attempts to organize
Egypt style demonstrations. In February 45 civic activists were
arrested while watching a video and having discussions on the
events in North Africa, and charged with treason for plotting to
overthrow a constitutionally elected government. Zanu PF's
Defense Minister Mnangagwa warned activists: "Those who may want
to emulate what happened in Egypt and Tunisia will regret.
Everybody is warned to keep the peace in the country. The police
are told that wherever violence rears its ugly head it should be
crushed."
...
It was around the combined sanctions and indigenization campaign
however that Zanu PF placed enormous energy. In early March 2011
Zanu PF launched its National Anti?Sanctions Campaign seeking to
gather two million signatures from Zimbabweans opposed to
sanctions.
...
In taking this message forward, Zanu PF tied this strategy to its
indigenization strategy of ensuring that foreign businesses with
an asset base of more than US$500,000 submit plans to localize at
least a 51% share of their holdings. The indigenization debate
began in earnest in the mid 1990s during the economic
liberalization policy phase in the country, when emerging
business people formed organizations like the Indigenous Business
Development Centre (IBDC) and the Affirmative Action Group (AAG)
to lobby the state for cheaper credit in order to be able to
enter the private sector on more competitive terms. These groups
had close links with the state and their ideas grew in influence
in the late 1990's, with their programme largely being overtaken
by the land seizures of the 2000's. As the land programme
declined in resonance after the late 2000's a new mobilization
strategy developed around the sanctions/indigenization coupling.
...
3. The MDCs and the GPA
Over the period of the GPA the MDCs and the civic movement have
faced major challenges. Looking firstly at the MDCs, both faced
problems of capacity on entering the Inclusive Government, having
for the most part, had no experience of utilizing the structures
of the state. The task of deploying suitable individuals,
particularly in the case of the MDC?T which had to deal with more
appointments, proved difficult and placed the parties on a very
steep learning curve against an adversary that had become adept
at manipulating and undermining the instruments of the state.
This was particularly difficult because of the lack of an
alternative military power base, and the problems of the GPA
document itself. In coming to terms with some very limited
measure of state power
...
The focus on state power under the Inclusive Government also led
to increasing tensions within both MDC formations. In 2010 the
internal struggles reported in the MDC?T were in important ways
reminiscent of the tragic battles that had led to the split in
the unified MDC in 2005, while the smaller MDC formation was
further handicapped by another break?away group, MDC99 led by Job
Sikhala.
...
At a strategic level, the MDC?T in particular, had to deal in the
first part of 2011 with increased state harassment of its senior
figures, while both formations have, since 2009, had to confront
the obstructionist tactics of Zanu PF over the full
implementation of the GPA. By October 2010 Tsvangirai, frustrated
by the inability of the Principals of the GPA to deal with the
outstanding issues over key unilateral appointments by Mugabe,
declared that there was 'nothing short of a Constitutional
crisis' in the country, in which he had asked SADC to intervene.
...
Responding to the Zanu PF strategy to frustrate the GPA and rush
to an early election, the MDC?T threatened to boycott such an
election. Additionally Tsvangirai embarked on a widespread visit
to SADC leaders to lobby them ahead of the SADC Summit in Lusaka
at the end of March 2011. Prior to this however both MDC
formations had cooperated in the vote for a new speaker of
parliament, in a way that they had not been able to do since the
MDC split in 2005. Following a long standing case brought by
Jonathan Moyo and MDC?M against the election of MDC?T member
Lovemore Moyo as speaker of the House of Assembly, the Supreme
Court set aside the election of the latter in 2011. In the vote
for a new speaker the smaller MDC formation members voted for the
MDC?T candidate thus returning Lovemore Moyo to the post, with a
total of 105 votes against 93 for the Zanu PF candidate. The vote
count indicated that not only had the Ncube formation voted for
Moyo, but so had two members of Zanu PF, showing the continuing
tensions within the party.
...
4. SADC and the GPA
Since 2009 the SADC facilitation team has struggled to find ways
to ensure the full implementation of the GPA, largely due to the
refusal of the Mugabe regime to move on the outstanding issues.
At the SADC summit in Namibia in August 2010 the parties agreed
that the completion of the constitutional reform process and the
referendum should be followed by an election. Moreover the Summit
agreed that:
- The parties, assisted by the Troika, should discuss the
outstanding issues in keeping with the decisions of the Maputo
Troika summit and resolve them within one month as part of a
confidence?building measure, based on appropriate consultation in
keeping with Zimbabwe's law and any other relevant instrument.
- The Inclusive Government and the Zimbabwe political parties
should find an uninterrupted path towards free and fair elections
and the removal of impediments as and when they arise.
*The Troika should persuade SADC to help Zimbabwe to draw up
guidelines for a free and fair election where intimidation and
violence would not play any part and where the result of such
elections would be credible.
Following this summit there was continued lack of movement on the
GPA, with Zanu PF persisting in its refrain that it would make no
further 'concessions' until sanctions had been lifted. ...
...
This seeming lethargy of the SADC facilitation took a dramatic
turn at the SADC Troika summit in Zambia on the 31st March.
Noting with 'grave concern' the political polarization in
Zimbabwe characterised by the 'resurgence of violence, arrests
and intimidation', the Summit made five resolutions on Zimbabwe:
- There must be an immediate end of violence, intimidation, hate
speech, harassment, and any other form of action that contradicts
the letter and spirit of the GPA.
- All stakeholders to the GPA should implement all the provisions
of the GPA and create a conducive environment for peace,
security, and free political activity.
- The Inclusive Government should complete all the steps for the
holding of the election including the finalization of the
constitutional amendment and the referendum;
- SADC should assist Zimbabwe to formulate guidelines that will
assist in holding an election that will be peaceful, free and
fair, in accordance with the SADC Principles and Guidelines
Governing Democratic Elections.
- The Troika of the Organ shall appoint a team of officials to
join the Facilitation Team and work with the Joint Monitoring and
Implementation Committee (JOMIC) to ensure monitoring, evaluation
and implementation of the GPA. ...
Without naming Mugabe directly, these resolutions were arguably
the most forthright diplomatic criticism that SADC had issued of
the Mugabe regime, with the recommendations largely echoing the
demands that the MDCs and the civic movement had been making
since 2009. Moreover for the first time since SADC began
discussing the outstanding issues of the GPA the sanctions issue
was not mentioned, an issue that consistently kept the region in
solidarity with Mugabe. The style of diplomatic intervention
shifted significantly from Mbeki's 'quiet diplomacy', which the
Zuma team had largely adopted on taking over the reins of the
facilitation.
At this point it might be argued that the reasons for the change
in SADC's approach were the result of a combination of factors.
These included: increased international pressure in the wake of
events in North Africa; the growing frustration of SADC with the
obstructive behavior of the Mugabe regime; and the persistent
pressure of the lobbying of the MDCs and civil society in both
Zimbabwe and South Africa. It remains to be seen whether SADC has
the united political will to follow this through.
The response to the SADC resolutions by the Mugabe regime was, to
say the least, apoplectic. ...
the most extended diatribe came from chief Zanu PF propagandist
Jonathan Moyo:
...
Zimbabwe cannot be expected to accept an intrusive SADC team of
so?called officials funded by regime change donors to come and
work in our country to plot the so?called electoral roadmap with
a view to ensuring that the forthcoming general election is
decidedly organized in a manner that ensures regime change with
President Zuma's endorsement simply because he has been used to
make the ridiculous proposal. We will not allow that to happen.
Never ever!..
...
These statements clearly showed that for Zanu PF and Mugabe, who
had since 2000 clearly articulated a strategy that sought to
displace the Zimbabwe crisis on to the SADC region and the
African continent through a discourse of Pan Africanism and
anti?imperialism and in so doing tie both into a solidarity pact,
the Troika resolutions in Livingstone represented a decisive
crack in the strategy.
...
5. Conclusion and Way Forward
This report has argued that it is a mistake to overlook the
ambiguities of the GPA and the opportunities it has provided for
moving Zimbabwe politics forward, notwithstanding its
limitations. Through the structures of the agreement and the
broader regional accountability it provided, the GPA forced Zanu
PF into forms of accountability that it would not have tolerated
before 2008, and which it continued to find unpalatable. Thus the
politics of the GPA, in the context of wider regional,
continental and international pressures, reminded Zanu PF that
its narrow and selective idea of sovereignty, lauded arrogantly
over the generality of the Zimbabwean citizenry for so long, was
unsustainable. In the words of the Zambian President Rupiah
Banda, at the beginning of the SADC summit in Livingstone, 'If
there is anything that we must learn from the upheavals going on
in the northern part of our continent it is that the legitimate
expectations of the citizens of our countries cannot be taken for
granted.'
For authoritarian regimes like Zanu PF it is often the slow,
cumulative processes of reform that are most troublesome for
their agendas. For once such processes begin to gain traction,
especially under structures of accountability that go beyond the
national sphere, the possibility of a diffusion of power to
broader levels of society increases, making the control of the
outcomes of such processes, much more problematic. The GPA has
been fraught with difficulties but given the balance of forces in
Zimbabwe that gave rise to the Agreement, it also provided
opportunities for its weaker participants. Within a very short
period of time at the end of March, Zanu PF suffered two serious
political setbacks, the first through the loss of the Speakership
in Parliament and the second through the new diplomatic position
taken by SADC. In the first case it robbed Zanu PF of control of
a key position in the legislature in the event of a succession
vote in Parliament should Mugabe pass on in the near future. In
the second the setback temporarily dislocated a key aspect of the
Mugabe regime's survival strategy through regional solidarity.
These developments by no means sealed the fate of Zanu PF, but
they provided important indications of hope, especially with the
possibility of more considered cooperation between the two MDCs.
As a way forward there are a number of steps that need to be
taken:
- Lobbying by both the MDCs and the civic movement needs to be
heightened within SADC and the AU in order to ensure that the
resolutions of the Livingstone summit are enforced as fully as
possible.
- Efforts must be made to draw Zanu PF's international allies,
particularly the Chinese Government, into a more constructive
dialogue over its continued support for authoritarian politics in
Zimbabwe.
- Zimbabwean civic groups must mobilize civil society in the
region into more extended cooperation in order to sustain the
pressure on SADC and the AU.
- Continuous and up to date monitoring of the situation in
Zimbabwe.
- It is unlikely that the Mugabe regime will simply ignore the
SADC resolutions. However if they decide to follow such a course
and to call for an early election without SADC approval, then the
democratic forces in Zimbabwe must unite in a boycott of such an
election and mobilize a campaign for a global isolation of the
regime.
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues,
with a particular focus on U.S. and international policies.
AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
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