Zimbabwe Information Center in North America
A project of the North American Coalition for a Free Zimbabwe (NACFREEZ)
By Stanford G. Mukasa
Letter from America
June 25, 2007
MDC
The chickens are coming home to roost for Mugabe
The precipitous collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar last week, coming hard on the heels of forecasts that real inflation in Zimbabwe will most likely reach 1.5 million percent this year, signals the beginning of the end of the Robert Mugabe regime. How that end will come is anybody’s guess. But one undisputable fact remains. It’s now downhill for Mugabe.
The Mugabe regime has met a force that it cannot control or manipulate militarily. Inflation has proved to be Mugabe’s Achilles’ heel. It may well be his downfall.
There is, therefore, some logic to the view that Mugabe is now being driven by economic factors to seek political accommodation with the opposition movement.
But Mugabe is like a trapped monkey clutching a fruit in a calabash. It cannot let go off the fruit and, in the process it remains trapped.
Mugabe is seeking a political solution that will favor him and his cronies. He is not willing to let go of his old ways of rigging elections, repressing and looting the country. His strategy is to get the opposition movement to accept his point of view.
Unfortunately for Mugabe, Zimbabweans now know only too well his tricks of the trade. The news that Mugabe’s cronies were meeting MDC representatives in South Africa had a lukewarm reception among many Zimbabweans.
Very few people have any faith that the talks will yield any meaningful results. There is, in fact, a feeling that if the opposition movement is not careful, it will be swallowed hook, line and sinker by the crafty Mugabe in the way ZAPU was in 1987.
What is the basis for this skepticism?
Mugabe is seeking to negotiate everything, including the inalienable rights of Zimbabweans to chose in free and fair elections who they want to rule them.
According to reports, the agreed items for discussion include: a new constitution, electoral laws, repressive legislation, mass media laws, and the political climate.
The problem with this agenda is that it is not preceded by, nor does it require, a tacit admission on the part of Mugabe that he is willing to make fundamental reforms. Mugabe does not see anything wrong with the way he has ruled the country.
Unlike Ian Smith who made a public declaration in 1976 that he was ready to accept majority rule based on one person one vote in Zimbabwe, Mugabe has made no public acceptance that he is willing to allow for free and fair elections as well as the atmosphere that guarantees the Zimbabweans their right to campaign freely and without intimidation or harassment.
Smith’s declaration in 1976 paved the way for talks focused on the modalities of achieving majority rule in Zimbabwe. The negotiations did not even touch on the question of one-person one-vote majority rule as a fundamental right. As a result, it was possible to agree on giving all Zimbabweans their vote on the basis of producing some form of identification.
It was also possible to bring in international observers and supervisors for the elections of 1980.
However, it is unlikely that Mugabe will agree to the format for elections similar to the one adopted in the 1980 elections.
What the opposition movement should have done is to pressure Mugabe to accept that Zimbabwe needs free and fair elections and that Zimbabweans, wherever they are, have a right to participate in the elections without fear of intimidation or harassment. These two conditions affirm the constitutional right of Zimbabweans to elect whoever they want to lead them. These conditions can never be subject to negotiation, as would appear to be the case in the agreed agenda between the MDC and ZANUPF.
As things stand now and when talks begin, a lot more time will be spent arguing on these fundamental rights. Mugabe will, of course, argue that Zimbabweans have always voted freely and fairly and that all Zimbabweans have been given an opportunity to cast their votes. By insisting on this Mugabe will obviously see nothing wrong with the present system, and, like a Yo Yo, the parties across the table will huff and puff and blow steam on what are essentially non negotiable fundamental rights.
Mugabe will also see the purpose of the talks as aimed at convincing the opposition movement to accept his position and, therefore, more actively campaign against what he perceives as sanctions imposed by the West. Mugabe will seek to have the talks as a spring board for a new campaign for economic aid from the West. He will hold the opposition leaders up like Muppets in order to deceive the world into thinking that the two parties have at last found accommodation and are working together.
For Mugabe, it does not matter whether the talks are successful or not. What matters to him is to mislead the world that he is talking with the opposition and therefore, according to his logic, he deserves economic aid.
The fact that a breakaway group has been given equal representation at the talks with the mainstream MDC, and the fact that other heavyweights in the opposition movement, like the NCA and WOZA, have been excluded from the talks speaks volumes of the strategy by Mugabe to isolate, divide and conquer the opposition forces. With the complicity of Thabo Mbeki, Mugabe has cherry picked who will represent the opposition movement in the talks.
For Thabo Mbeki, whose intense dislike for the leadership of the main MDC is very well known, his greatest ethos will be similar to the 1987 Unity Accord in which ZANUPF swallowed ZAPU. Mbeki is looking forward to a standing ovation from SADC that he managed to neutralize the opposition movement by allowing an agenda for talks that will marginally reform ZANU but will offer no real hope for the embattled Zimbabweans.
Given the circumstances, MDC must guard against any attempt to co-opt the MDC into Mugabe’s political strategies.
MDC must draw a line between what is negotiable and what is non negotiable.
The universal right of all Zimbabweans wherever they are to vote in the elections is a non negotiable right.
Another non negotiable element is the right of all Zimbabweans to participate, campaign and vote in any elections without being intimidated, harassed or assaulted.
What the talks should focus on are the logistics of how to bring about these universal rights for all Zimbabweans.
The MDC delegation must insist on a public declaration by all parties, including ZANUPF, on these fundamentals rights as a precondition for further negotiations.
If ZANUPF refuses to accept these preconditions there will be no basis for further talks, and MDC must be prepared to walk out of the talks and tell the world that ZANUPF is not prepared to accept basic and fundamental rights.
Both Mbeki and ZANUPF are under some pressure to reach an accommodation with the opposition movement. MDC must not be rushed into making premature concessions for the sake of satisfying Mugabe and Mbeki.
Mugabe and Mbeki are giving the impression that time is on their side. It is not. Mbeki is due to retire next year. Mugabe now stands at the edge of an economic precipice and any day now can fall on his own weight.
Zimbabweans have survived Mugabe for 27 years, and as the late Ndabaningi Sithole wrote in book “Obed Mutezo”, time is clearly on the side of the Zimbabweans.