New leader:
The former vicepresident of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, paid a courtesy call on President Jacob Zuma before heading back to Harare on Wednesday. Mnangagwa will be sworn in as president on Friday.
Anyone astounded by the euphoria ignited by the resignation of 93year-old former president Robert Mugabe should consider the experience of Mathanda Mbo-Dube.
He was enjoying drinks with friends in a sports bar in Matobo, in southwestern Zimbabwe, when Mugabe, then 88, appeared on television. Mbo-Dube wryly remarked:
“Mugabe is too old and must retire.”
He was overheard by police officers in the bar, then arrested and jailed for “undermining and insulting the president”.
Dozens of Zimbabweans — from villagers to activists and opposition politicians — are currently facing charges for the codified crime of “insulting and undermining” the president.
Such had become the omnipresence of Mugabe’s cruelty that Zimbabweans are likely to remain transfixed in their euphoria about his resignation at the expense of debating what the country needs to do to secure a better future.
The world ought to deal with Zimbabwe’s future now, especially key development partners like Britain and the EU, which have long promised the dollars needed for post-Mugabe reconstruction.
British Prime Minister Theresa May, her Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and the EU are calling for expedited free and fair elections. This is the wrong call.
Granted, credible free and fair elections are the ultimate panacea for Zimbabwe’s crisis but there is no way of achieving them within the short period between Mugabe’s ouster and their deadline of September 2018 — even if a three-month extension allowed in the constitution is factored in.
The machinery of rigging and repression that Mugabe entrenched over the years cannot be undone in a year, or even two. The army generals whose soft coup kick-started the process of their former boss’s demise were the main architects and operators of this machinery.
The generals did not initiate Mugabe’s toppling because they transmogrified into genuine democrats. They had no other choice as Mugabe’s powerful wife, “Gucci Grace”, had put them on notice that she was on the path to the presidency — going as far as accusing the army of plotting to kill one of her sons.
Anyone chastised by Grace Mugabe over the years met their Waterloo. Mugabe’s longserving deputies Joice Mujuru and Emmerson Mnangagwa were both axed from their powerful positions.
So the army bosses had to save their own skins by transferring power to their trusted ally Mnangagwa. He is their best insurance against any future repercussions over their ubiquitous past misdeeds.
They will now want to keep him in power for as long as possible, using the very machinery they used to prop up Mugabe. Mnangagwa may promise free and fair elections, but reality will dictate to him that he do otherwise.
This is, of course, not to be ungrateful for the generals’ actions. They did a tremendous job of initiating Mugabe’s ouster. Removing him, by whatever means, was always going to be the first step towards resolving Zimbabwe’s crisis.
There is no incentive for the generals and Zanu-PF to move swiftly to dismantle the system they created and that they now desperately need to retain power via Mnangagwa.
If the 2018 elections proceed, they are likely to be a walk-over for Zanu-PF. Mugabe was a total disaster, Mnangagwa cannot possibly do any worse. If Mnangagwa maintains his pragmatism and engages the world, as he certainly will, he may well devise cosmetic reforms to hoodwink the world into believing that he is interested in free and fair elections, but without dismantling the edifice of repression that Mugabe entrenched.
Zimbabwe deserves better.
Prof Ibbo Mandaza, a respected Zimbabwean academic, has called for a transitional authority in the form of a government of national unity to last for two years, followed by elections. There is no other way.
Zimbabwe and its people badly need a period of healing and economic recovery. Fierce contestation for political power will not achieve that. Only a transitional authority incorporating key opposition voices such as Morgan Tsvangirai, Dumiso Dabengwa, Mujuru, Welshman Ncube, Nkosana Moyo and Tendai Biti, prioritising economic recovery and eradicating Mugabe’s insane policies will finally lead to credible elections.
A transitional authority may make it easier for the nation to mobilise the quick aid needed to restore basic services badly needed for the country to have a functional society again. Donors might be inclined to sit on the fence to assess Mnangagwa’s policies before committing themselves.
In Chitungwiza, a dormitory town of Harare, there has been no municipal water for eight years. Hospitals have become places of death. Infrastructure across the country is severely run down. The economy is back to its 1960s levels.
Stampeding such traumatised people into elections is unhelpful.
Attempts aimed at introducing a biometric voter registration system to replace Mugabe’s voters roll stuffed with hundreds of thousands of ghost voters have been fraught with problems.
Voter registration centres are reportedly easily accessible in Zanu-PF strongholds and it takes more than an hour to process one voter in other areas. Zanu-PF officials, according to reports from several NGOs, are telling gullible and frightened rural voters that the biometric system will make it easier for the governing party to know who voted for the opposition.
It is impossible to establish a credible voter registration process before the mid-January 2018 deadline and account for every voter.
More worrying is the fact that the Zimbabwean diaspora remains completely excluded from the electoral process. A credible, free and fair poll would require constitutional changes for the participation of the diaspora and the overhaul of key electoral bodies run by Zanu-PF cronies.
The critical broadcasting sector, from which independent players have been completely excluded for years, also needs serious attention.
Elections under Mugabe had essentially become meaningless routines to legitimise his tyranny. There is absolutely no incentive for Mnangagwa to rush to overhaul a system he will need to remain in power unless he is pressured by Zimbabweans and the international donor community.
The army generals responsible for his rise to power are yet to recant their vow never to let anyone who did not participate in the 1970s liberation struggle rule Zimbabwe. The fact that they were so bold to forestall the ambitions of Grace Mugabe, who did not fight in the war, shows they meant what they said. They could very well repeat their actions if Tsvangirai were to win an election.
Fortunately, the war veterans who were instrumental in crafting Mugabe’s departure have spoken in favour of a transitional authority. The opposition stands a better chance of influencing positive electoral reforms by participating in a transitional authority than by trying to coax a Mnangagwa government to do so.
Hurried elections will only perpetuate Zanu-PF hegemony. Not because of the party’s popularity but because Mnangagwa would want to exploit and benefit from a system that he helped create.
It is naive to believe that Mnangagwa’s ascendancy marks the dawn of a new era without the necessary pressures or carrots and sticks that the world must use to ensure that he breaks completely with his predecessor’s innumerate and illiterate policies of the past.