adminRichard Runyararo Mahomva
The 29th of March — the noon I am chasing the submission deadline for this instalment marks a decade of history’s recollection of the 2008 election.
There is a debate whether that election was a farce or a candid depiction of the country’s democracy outlook. To establish a position as to whether that election was reflective of the egalitarian outcome it espoused, it is crucial to discuss the context to which its results were determined.
The common civic society unanimity adopted the view that there was need for the Mugabe-led administration to relinquish power to usher in a democratic transition in favour of the late opposition leader Dr Morgan Tsvangirai.
In the previous elections, Robert Mugabe and his party, the Zimbabwean African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) continued to draw their mandate from elections dating back to the time Tsvangirai’s MDC was born and later disjoining into innumerable factions. The road to 2008 was characterised by a countrywide decline in the standards and accessibility of social goods and services.
The 2008 election came amid a cash crisis and a hyper-inflation. The general populace depended on imported basic commodities — even our own grain was not accessible. Zanu-PF was problematised for single-handled failing the economy. The academia also pointed out that Zimbabwe was held hostage to political and media authoritarianism and massive corruption.
Strikes and demonstrations became the order of the day. The public resorted to a plethora of illicit activities just to make ends meet. Zanu-PF had lost its traction within the urban polity and much of its collateral to power resided in the rural vote.
This led to the massive hesitance towards the legitimacy of Zanu-PF victory even after the run-off which conceived the Government of National Unity.
History is the present
I make reference to the past as a vivid mirror of the present in relation to the Zimbabwean’s current election mode. This position is drawn from the work of Benedetto Croce (1951), an Italian philosopher. In his thesis, History as a Thought and Action, Croce argues that “all history is contemporary”.
According to Croce the old is in irretrievable degeneration yet it frames the actuality of the contemporary — whose life originates from the old. As such, a people have historically specific tasks intended to supersede the old and in some cases using the old as lens to reading the future.
In this case, the present political disposition in Zimbabwe requires a robust appreciation of the significance of history in drawing connexions and disparities of what is influencing the directional currencies of the 2018 election and its outcome.
Through this approach to analysis, I will not pretend to be a historian, I am only using political science as a tool of observation for this discussion.
Guided by John Seeley’s perspective, “History without Political Science has no fruit, Political Science without History has no root” — I hereby submit that the contemporaneous contours of the questions of power need to be located in history so that we can assess how “come-backs”, traditions and emerging trends in the life cycle of politics will influence the outcome of this elections.
Economic context
According to the RBZ (2017:1) in the height of the recently escalated cash crisis:
“Zimbabwe’s inflation moved from being negative to positive for the first time since the deflation period, which had lasted for more than two years.
While high inflation is undesirable, moderate level of inflation is required to generate domestic demand necessary for sustainable economic growth.
Annual inflation for Zimbabwe, which stood at 2,24 percent for October 2017, is below the Sadc inflation convergence target range of 3 percent to 7 percent.
There are some inflation methodologies being thrown around in the media which are based on ad hoc estimation and/or calculation methods that are not in line with international best practice.
Such methodologies are designed to cause panic and despondency with the national economy through fomenting negative inflation expectations in the country.”
Moreover, there are unresolved questions of upsurge in unemployment rates, need to resuscitate the function of the public administration.
A more 2008-like cash crisis state of affairs is incontrovertible — however, what is worse is that unlike in 2008 we are in a multi-currency shortage dilemma. Foreign currency depletion naturally brokers the collapse of the country’s capacity to import goods and services. As such, many sectors are in a state of paralysis.
The new establishment has been pro-active in creating an optimist promise for economic revitalisation. This has been achieved by the state’s pronouncement to liberate the markets and make Zimbabwe “open for business”.
This position of re-engagement with the world for attracting investment provides the much needed public hope for the country’s economic revival to the electorate and that is one way the ruling party will consolidate its power.
The Government’s pronouncement of Zimbabwe’s openness for business (even with the former colonialists) indubitably secures the neo-liberal vote.
Moreover, the current Zanu-PF Government has promised eradicating all corruption — as part of instigating this process, it has unveiled a report to unearth and correct the vice of illicit financial flows. This has already built public confidence for the ruling party ahead of the 2018 race.
At the same time, the Zanu-PF Government also has a mandate to expose the illicit diamond transactions which debatably led to massive looting — hence the $15 billion elephant in the room.
On the other hand, Zanu-PF’s political capital lies in the recent industrial recapitalisation projects it has initiated.
As a result, it can meaningfully use those projects to validate its employment creation narrative.
Now where does this leave the opposition? Zanu-PF seems to have taken the opposition’s principal manifesto thematic areas in terms of attracting Foreign Direct Investment.
Beyond the rhetoric of economic growth, President Mnangagwa has set practical initiatives to express Zimbabwe’s commitment to inclusive investment capitalisation.
The Political Environment
There is no doubt that Zanu-PF suffered global demonisation and consequently leading to Zimbabwe’s isolation by the West and its key allies.
The land distribution programme was the prime source for Zimbabwe’s isolation; land redistribution also had a cross-cutting effect on the development of various sectors of industry. The growing economic crisis gave way for massive local and international villain posturing of Zimbabwe.
The NGO and the private media played a crucial role in deconstructing the legitimacy of Zanu-PF —as it is still the case now.
Contrary to this hostile state of affairs the current administration has emphasised the need for pluralism to be at the fore of the national discourse.
This has been seen in the way the current President has been preoccupied with encouraging an environment for free and fair elections.
There seems to be a discursive renewal in terms of encouraging citizens to embrace dissent in a way that neutralises the centrality of the war of liberation essentialism.
This approach offers an inclusive proposition to national belonging and as such, this might attract support for Zanu-PF.
Jonathan Moyo and the MIA factor.
The exiled former minister of higher and tertiary education, Prof Jonathan Moyo became one of the fiercest critics of the establishment after his purge from Zanu-PF.
During his first quarantine from Zanu-PF, Prof Moyo (2005) is on record for delegitimising Cde Mugabe — his then president and arguing that he was not supposed to be part of the 2008 election race:
“Perennial wisdom from divine revelation and human experience dictates that earthly things great or small, beautiful or ugly, good or bad, sad or happy, foolish or wise must finally come to an end.
It is from this sobering reality that the end of executive rule has finally come for Robert Mugabe who has had his better days after a quarter of a century in power.
“That Mugabe must now go is thus no longer a dismissible opposition slogan but a strategic necessity that desperately needs urgent legal and constitutional action by Mugabe himself well ahead of the presidential election scheduled for March 2008 in order to safeguard Zimbabwe’s national interest, security and sovereignty.”
Ten years down the line as Zimbabwe is preparing to enter into another election, Moyo is out of Zanu-PF — now vehemently fighting the current Government in the same manner he became an enemy of the state ahead of the 2008 election.
This time he is a leader of a cohort fired from Zanu-PF now tirelessly working under the New Patriotic Front (NPF) banner to rip to shreds their former political habitat.
However, whatever is happening now is not so new.
The trends are still the same. Symbols of resistance depicting the struggles within a struggle in Zanu-PF are featuring on the road to the 2018 elections.
The army which was once accused of stealing the 2008 vote is back. This time around, it is a symbol of the redemptive course to shaping Zimbabwe’s future and its legitimacy is derived from November 18. Therefore, while Moyo’s critic of Zanu-PF may not do any good to his expected outcome, there is no doubt that the army and its motif of preserving of the liberation legacy now characterises a redefinition of Zimbabwe’s political culture in a positive light. The army-civilian animosity will not be defining in terms of validating or discrediting the result of the 2018 election.
New faces to power
For the first time after close to 20 years of Zanu-PF and MDC’s democratic wrestling, this will be the first election without Robert Mugabe the founding leader of Zanu-PF and the departed founding leader of opposition, Morgan Tsvangirai. From both camps the patriarchs were replaced by circumstances. Definitely, President Mnangagwa the new President of the ruling and Chamisa the leader of the opposition and its alliance stakeholders are the new runners for Presidency respectively. Certainly the best candidate is going to win.
However, the two parties’ change of faces to power must also cascade to their lower structures. The two parties must be alive to the reality of generational renewal. If their respective campaigns are to be vibrant most of their constituencies need to have fresh candidates who will input fresh ideas to governance.
There must be a deliberate attempt towards shielding young candidates to run for some constituencies lest sound victory is lost to independent candidates — most of whom are fresh into the game and represent the new awaited youth inclusion in state-craft.
There is little logic in returning the same old faces to Parliament; moreover risking defeat that comes with shielding candidates who have nothing to show for their many donkey ages in Parliament and yet still want to be voted back into power.
This indicates that their interests to be in Parliament are purely selfish in as much as they may not have genuine patriotic convictions to serve the people of Zimbabwe.
After all, returning MPs who have served their respective parties for more than 10 years openly suggests that their constituencies of origin have not produced new leaders — of which that can never be the case. There is urgent need for intra-power sharing.
Therefore, one of the general requisite features of this forthcoming election must be an outright change of faces to power from council to parliamentary candidates.
This call for reform will do good to national development which can only become a reality if fresh minds with fresh ideas are part of the needed power distribution processes.
Online Reporter