Rival Zanu PF factions capture presidency, state institutions

Source: Rival Zanu PF factions capture presidency, state institutions – DailyNews Live

Gift Phiri  28 August 2017

HARARE – A serving High Court judge gave me something interesting to think
about.

He claims Team Lacoste has captured State institutions – from the
judiciary, the military, the State media – and G40 has captured the
presidency.

The judge, who cannot be named for professional reasons, insists Team
Lacoste interests are significantly influencing State institutions’
decision-making processes.

On the other hand, G40, through First Lady Grace Mugabe – who has the
advantage of pillow talk with her husband President Robert Mugabe – has
taken control of the presidency in an attempt to direct political and
economic governance of the country.

As a result, there are two dominant factions engaged in mortal
competition.

Both Team Lacoste and G40 are attempting to reassert political monopoly
through State capture. But G40 faces a greater political risk given that
it relies on an incumbent who is increasingly frail and is in advanced
age.

This is happening at a time the State is facing deepening fiscal and
monetary constraints.

Attempts by Team Lacoste, reportedly headed by powerful Vice President
Emmerson Mnangagwa, to reform the economy and energise the re-engagement
process with international financial institutions and bilateral creditors,
has been stonewalled by the presidency, which is captured by the G40.

The re-engagement efforts are necessary to build the necessary confidence
required for underwriting Zimbabwe’s recovery.

Reform and re-engagement is championed by key Mnangagwa ally, Finance
minister Patrick Chinamasa. In fact, the economy is being run by Team
Lacoste, which has spearheaded an unimaginable agriculture turnaround
through Command Agriculture, and is frantically trying to make the case
that Zimbabwe was politically stable and open for investment.

And the presidency, under G40, is opposing the reform programme that Team
Lacoste is frantically trying to promote.

In September last year, Chinamasa got a slap down from Mugabe after
announcing a raft of measures to slash government spending.

The President’s Office issued a damning statement saying Cabinet had never
approved Chinamasa’s proposals, which included a suspension of civil
servants’ bonuses, wage cuts, job cuts, and a range of other austerity
measures.

Chinamasa’s austerity measures had also proposed imposing tax on civil
servants’ allowances, coupled with a promise to axe 25 000 government
workers, citing budgetary limitations.

In practice, Mugabe – under the influence of G40 – has been unenthusiastic
about the reform measures being proposed by Team Lacoste, and has allowed
sharp criticism to emerge from Zanu PF young turks, who are undermining
those seeking genuine re-engagement, and attempting to gain political
capital from opposing the broader reform agenda.

G40 leaders, pointedly Grace, are now calling for an extraordinary Zanu PF
congress to anoint a successor to Mugabe, which they would use to isolate
Mnangagwa further, even remove him from the vice presidency.

There is a politically-motivated conflict in government.

It is clear the G40 is hellbent on destroying Team Lacoste’s pillars of
support, seeking to consolidate control over the State media by deploying
Grace to publicly embarrass presidential spokesperson George Charamba to
accord G40 favourable coverage in State run-newspapers; attempts to remove
the top guns in the military, seen as pillars of support for Team Lacoste,
and the zero-sum game we witnessed last year over the appointment of the
new Chief Justice.

No doubt, Team Lacoste’s institutional capture is now deeply entrenched,
and that faction has powerful actors in all State institutions who have
the ability to create broad laws and institutions that protect their
advantages in the future and that allow for their continued enrichment and
power.

This apparent State capture by rival factions is not good for the country,
and explains why government speaks with a forked tongue on things like the
“Lima Strategy Document”, the government’s primary plan for clearing its
arrears, has policy flip-flops on the indigenisation policy, property
rights and compensation for land seizures.

All factions must back economic reform, and recognise that incremental
progress requires compromises, especially in a context of challenging
economic headwinds.