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By Stanford G. Mukasa
Letter from America
March 3, 2008
Zimbabweans could benefit from Kenya’s experiences in elections
The recent developments in Kenya have attracted a great deal of interest among Zimbabweans and many countries around the world.
Zimbabweans must have learned with great envy the news that President Mwai Kibaki had reached an agreement for a government of national unity with the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) led by Railla Odinga.
Under a deal brokered by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, Kibaki will remain president, but a new position of a prime minister will be created with Odinga occupying it. Kibaki will become the head of state. Odinga will be the head of government.
But this deal came after riots which claimed 1,500 lives when opposition supporters took to the streets in protest against what they saw as stolen elections when Mwai was declared winner. The elections had all the indications of victory for Odinga. Yet, to everyone’s surprise, Odinga lost.
In many ways, Kenyan experience can be a model for Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe and Kenya do not have a common border. They do not even belong to the same geopolitical regions. Zimbabwe belongs to the southern African region. Kenya belongs to the east African region.
But the two countries share many comparable colonial and post colonial experiences, especially until about five years ago.
Historians and political analysts traditionally and routinely compare the situation in each country to explain and project developments in another country.
Until about five years ago Kenya was under the centralized and authoritarian control of, first Jomo Kenyatta, and then his successor, Daniel arap Moi, whose party, Kenya African National Union, ruled Kenya for over 40 years.
Today the once powerful KANU is a barely recognizable minority party which did not even figure prominently in last year’s controversial elections.
Zimbabwe, like Kenya until five years ago, has been ruled by Robert Mugabe and his ZANUPF for nearly 30 years now.
For many years the opposition movement in Kenya was too splintered to form a solid front against KANU. But five years ago they managed to put their house in order. They were also boosted by the defection of 14 MPs from the ruling KANU party. But no sooner had they gained political power than the coalition partners in government started their pastime of bashing each other.
IN last year’s elections the three major presidential candidates, Kibaki, Odinga, and Musyoka claimed a significant share of support from the Kenyan voters. None of them reflected the legacy of the iron- fisted rule of Moi or Kenyatta. What was at stake, therefore, was to ensure that whoever emerged victorious did so through a transparent process of voting and counting ballots.
Kenyans were well aware that they were the custodians of the process of electing their leader, and that during the elections government’s role was that of an umpire, making sure the electoral playing field was level.
The miscount of the votes, whether by design or by accident, triggered spontaneous reactions among the Kenyans.
It was no surprise that thousands of Kenyans took to the street in demonstrations that soon turned violent.
Today, most Kenyans will undoubtedly support the new accord for national unity. But they know it came at a heavy cost of human lives.
Zimbabwe is today probably where Kenya was five years ago.
The emergence of Simba Makoni as a direct challenge to Mugabe in the presidential election scheduled for March 29 is the first visible sign of an internal discord within ZANUPF. For years it has been rumored that the party was split into factions especially on the succession question.
So far there has not been a visible flood of disgruntled people leaving ZANUPF to join Makoni. However it is argued that Makoni has now provided an opportunity for dissenters within ZANUPF to vote for someone else other than Mugabe.
In the case of Kenya there was a significant number of MPs who openly and publicly defected from the ruling KANU to join the opposition. They had the courage of their conviction to declare in public that they no longer supported KANU.
In Zimbabwe the dissenters appear too scared to leave ZANU publicly. There are several reasons for this. One is they do not want to be victimized if Mugabe successfully rigs the elections and wins as before. They know Mugabe is ruthless and they could lose all their ill- gotten wealth and farms.
But in their Nicodemus state the dissenters within ZANUPF can still play a useful role in attempts to defeat Mugabe. Much as he may rant and rave, Mugabe is really scared of whom the dissenters are. He does not know who is behind him to support or stab him. Mugabe also does not know who in the rigging machinery that he has created will sabotage his plans to successfully steal the elections. Dissenters are also said to be in the military which is Mugabe’s last hope for survival.
Mugabe’s nightmare is that these dissenters know all his tricks in rigging and stealing elections. Mugabe is, therefore, not sure what the disgruntled elements in ZANUPF will do next to thwart his bid for re-election.
But who are these dissenters within ZANUPF and who are likely to cast their votes for Makoni?
For the most part, the top hierarchy of Makoni’s movement, including the dissenters, is people who benefitted from Mugabe’s patronage. They have businesses, farms and other ill-gotten resources. For this they are thankful to Mugabe. But Mugabe’s policies, especially his standoff with the West and international financial institutions has dealt a death blow to any economic development in the country.
Mugabe’s protégés, for this is what these dissenters are, are faced with the choice of eternally supporting the disastrous polices of an 84-year-old geriatric while, at the same time, experiencing an economic meltdown which is directly affecting their businesses. Zimbabwe’s economy has contracted by nearly 50 percent. Farms that were seized at the height of sheer madness now lie in a dilapidated state.
To be a Zimbabwean businessperson is like wearing an albatross around one’s neck. What business would flourish amidst grinding poverty that is so characteristic of Zimbabwe today?
Both business and Zimbabweans are caught in a vicious circle of poverty and a non performing economy. Businesses rely on a viable market of consumers with some purchasing power. Zimbabweans are poor and broke. Whatever money they earn is virtually useless - even with the spiraling cost of living. The more businesses increase their commodity prices, the more impoverished Zimbabweans become, a situation that is exacerbated by the government insatiable appetite for printing even more money without creating wealth.
Given a choice, most members of the business community and other élites would rather see Mugabe go and be replaced by Makoni. However they would not want to see ZANUPF disbanded or go the way of KANU in Kenya. They still need ZANUPF to protect them from retribution by the masses that, from their squalid conditions see everyday, the rich getting richer and flaunting their wealth in the top –of- line vehicles and modern houses. Zimbabwe reportedly has the highest per capita number of Mercedes Benz cars in the world! Yet the country has the world‘s highest inflation that is quickly approaching 200,000 percent. The next highest inflation in the world is less than 100 percent!
Dissenting ZANUPF elites are unlikely to vote for MDC because of its populist politics and grassroots support. They are afraid an MDC government will not protect their assets and resources which they looted from Zimbabweans. The elite community is likely to vote solidly for Makoni with whom they have an organic connection. In this case, Mugabe stands to suffer a massive hemorrhage of votes to Makoni. Makoni is also likely to pick some votes from Zimbabweans who have traditionally abstained from voting on the grounds that elections were predetermined through rigging. In the last senate election less than 20 percent of the Zimbabwean voters bothered to go to the polls.
But what about the masses? There is a great deal of euphoria among Zimbabweans about Makoni. He has gained admiration and respect for standing up at last to the bully, Mugabe. And he has done so alone. While other disgruntled elements in ZANUPF are still hiding in the party’s rotten woodwork Makoni is campaigning almost alone. Given the viciousness of the ZANUPF violent machinery and reputation for dealing with dissenters Makoni’s vulnerability and bravery has won him a great deal of admiration. Even the international community sees Makoni as the person to break the logjam that perpetuated a standoff between ZANUPF and MDC over the last seven years.
But, the dilemma for Makoni at this point is he represents ZANUPF even after he has repeatedly stated he is standing as an independent and the only bonding he is interested in is with the people of Zimbabwe.
Makoni has yet to tell Zimbabweans that ZANUPF, of which he was a member until a few weeks ago, has caused most of the misery and malaise in the country. He has yet to tell Zimbabweans that Mugabe is the source of all these problems.
Makoni needs to come clean and level with the people of Zimbabwe if he expects them to vote for him. So far he has not. Popular admiration for Makoni’s stand against Mugabe is one thing. Translating that admiration to votes for him is quite another thing.
It’s well and good to talk about bonding with the people of Zimbabwe. But Makoni, of all the intellectuals and academics, knows that there is no such thing as a Zimbabwean public. There are Zimbabwean publics. Zimbabweans do not live a monolithic existence. Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, once proposed that Africa should move away from a one- party state, past multipartyism, to what he called a no-party state. Nobody paid any attention to him. Not in Africa. And certainly not in Uganda.
Makoni’s proposal for a non- partisan bonding with people of Zimbabwe is a pie in the sky. Once they get back to earth from their attraction to his charisma Zimbabweans are likely to see Makoni as a representation of an attempt to reform ZANUPF, to put lipstick on the ZANUPF pig that has caused such mayhem in the country.
On March 29 Zimbabweans will be faced with three choices:
To accept ZANUPF as it is and vote for Mugabe
To accept a reformed ZANUPF and vote for Makoni
Or to remove ZANUPF from power and vote for Tsvangirai’s MDC
In the Kenyan experience voters opted to remove KANU from power and establish a new democratic order in the country. In the past five years Kenyans have benefitted from their decision to remove KANU from power. Kenyans have experienced an unprecedented freedom of the press, expression and democracy. So empowered did the Kenyans become in the last five years that when the presidential election results were announced from a flawed vote count they took to the street immediately.
For Zimbabwe March 29 may not be as important as March 30 or the day after the election results have been counted. The question Zimbabweans will have to ask themselves is: What will they do if as in the past, elections are again rigged and stolen and Mugabe is announced the winner? What steps are Zimbabweans taking to empower themselves to ensure that they control the electoral process right up to the outcome for the elections?
In today’s Letter from America Dr. Stan Mukasa revisits the Kenyan experience on whose basis he discusses possible options for Zimbabweans in the next elections. Full Story
