Power gained by undermining legitimacy is illegitimate
It is not a legitimate political method to try to diminish the capacity of a democratically chosen political institution to govern.
THE relationship between the government and the governed is a very complex one. We all wish it was simple, but we have to learn to deal with the hand that we have. The people should accept and acknowledge the right of a government to make decisions on their behalf. If we end up with a few people who are not happy with the government, undermining every effort of that government to serve the majority, then we have a problem like the one we have in Zimbabwe.
An example is the issue of the Bond Notes which a few vociferous individuals tried to veto against the wishes of the silent majority. But the rules of our political system are that once a Government has been elected it governs based on that mandate. It does not govern by holding a referendum on each and every decision it makes. Its policies are interrogated on and counter-checked by Parliament. Parliament does surgeries and outreaches to the electorate to collect their views and sentiments.
Those who still feel that the Government is not playing fair can take the Government to court. This has been done so many times before and it is still being done. So mediating the relationship between the government should be quite simple. In between elections, the opposition is expected to show that they are a government-in-waiting. They would project themselves as the alternative and have alternative policies and programmes. Come election time, the opposition uses that as the “regime change” time. The people would now make a choice between what they have had and the alternative being offered by the opposition. Whoever the people choose forms the legitimate government.
The reader might be asking themselves why somebody sat down just to write the obvious. The reason is simple, the opposition and individuals opposed to the government in Zimbabwe are not playing by the rules. Instead of offering an alternative vision, bring suffering and offer an alternative government as the panacea to that suffering. That’s not only heartless, but cynically cruel.
We saw a group of Zimbabweans signing a petition and asking both the American and British governments to stop Zimbabwe from issuing Bond Notes. If people are looking for a way of losing credibility, this was a very assured one.
In September 2016, we saw some people, including opposition figures, petitioning the World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim, asking the international financial institutions not to give Zimbabwe any new credit lines as punishment. God knows for what. This was undermining the Lima arrangements. And with so much antagonism generated by the Zimbabweans, the very people that were meant to benefit from the new credit lines, the arrangements were doomed.
This is just flawed reasoning because the Zimbabwean Government has already faced the eye of the sanctions storm in 2007-8 and survived. It should be clear now that this is a Government that is too resourceful to be collapsed by these machinations. It is the people that suffer in these circumstances, not the Government. The worst that can happen to the Government is that it would spend even more money sending officials all over the world looking for alternatives. And of course a little bit more on security apparatus to maintain law and order, as well as stability.
This argument that if the suffering of the people is abated then that would perpetuate Zanu-PF’s stay in power is collateral damage sadism. In summary, what it says is that the only way Zanu-PF could get out of power is by bumping up the suffering of the masses. That way there would be a protest vote or even a rebellion. So the people are considered expendable pawns in this high stakes political game.
This is the reason why in July 2016, Minister Chinamasa had to contend with opposition figures flying into the UK to try to weaken his efforts to invite investors to Zimbabwe as well as lure funding for local companies. He did not only have to deal with one party leader and former minister who was literally stalking him by going everywhere he had gone to make a counter presentation to negate any progress made.
Minister Chinamasa’s efforts were meant to bring a welcome relief to the long suffering people of Zimbabwe. In the warped minds of these purveyors of misery, if Zimbabwe goes on the up then their political chances, which are underwritten by the sweat and tears of the Zimbabwean people, would go up in smoke. So some politicians had to dog Minister Chinamasa’s footsteps to make sure success would not happen.
Strangely, how people would not want to gain power through selling positive programmes is a wonder. Why are they not offering Zimbabweans opportunities? Why are they choosing to put Zimbabweans through hell so that they can ascend to political power? This is the argument which makes others say that the general elections held in 2008 were very unfair to Zanu-PF.
Isn’t one of the most essential features of a democracy that all citizens are equal and the choice of the majority determines who governs? Why then not just sit down and make better offers to the people for legitimacy rather call for and then celebrate the suffering? Some were even celebrating the drought. This is why some argue that if you cause untold suffering to be visited upon your own people and then win an election on the backdrop of that suffering it is not democracy and you have no legitimacy.
There should be a moral way of earning power. It is a paradox that one can persistently undermine a legitimate democratic authority in the name of democracy. And deliberately generate a negative perception of one’s country persistently in a way that adversely affects the performance of the legitimate democratic authority.
Is this not only a subversion of that authority, but also a rigging of the next election? So when we talk of reforms it means those in opposition should reform their ways of bringing suffering upon the people so as to agitate them to vote them into power. This is democracy in regression and there is a big debate whether power gained through those sadistic means is legitimate.
It is the citizens’ right not to be satisfied by the performance of a government and the Government of Zimbabwe has a lot to account for. But it is not right for reactionaries and those forces opposed to a government to deliberately create a crisis or sabotage solutions as a pathway to power. Democracy should be about who or which party brings more positive change than creating suffering among people because you can’t think positively. It is not a legitimate political method to try to diminish the capacity of a democratically chosen political institution to govern.
When we talk of citizens’ free choice we are saying that there shouldn’t be external coercion to one’s choice of who governs them. That means no violence, no threats to harm of any sort. But then when you call for sanctions against your country so as to coerce the populace to choose you to lead as an alternative, does that give people a free will? When you gain power through this way do you have legitimacy? Is this any different from those that use violence, threats or intimidation? Does such a party have legitimacy to govern?
Genuine legitimacy comes from very minimal force. It is for the choice which the people make on who should advance the common good by the use of very minimal force. Not who should bring suffering to the people and then come galloping on a horse like a knight to the rescue. You cannot deliberately make a State more fragile so you can gain power and call that legitimacy.
When those who seek relevance and power deliberately set to degrade the perceived authority of an elected government that they force it to use censure to enforce order, that is wrong.
To help alleviate the suffering of the people, let us all acknowledge the legitimate authority of the Government of Zimbabwe to formulate policies on our behalf and enforce same.
When citizens have played this role, it now behoves the authorities to build on that legitimacy through delivery of services, and punishing those that don’t play by the rules. That way the perceived legitimacy of the authorities is realised. But if the rules which all citizens are supposed to live by are only applied to some and exempted from the rest then it is the State which is undermining its own legitimacy.
But if power is gained through the persistent and deliberate undermining of legitimate authorities, that is not legitimacy. We only progress as a nation if the opposition offer alternative programmes rather than create artificial perceptions of crisis and a crisis itself as their only way of gaining power. One that with so many political parties on our landscape, the more the parties the more the alternative ideas. But alas!