Robert Mugabe’s High Altitude Cliff

Public servants who were promised 13th cheque ‘bonuses’ by minister of finance Patrick Chinamasa in the 2014 national budget are agitated because the Government has reneged on its commitment save for the security sector. Teachers and civil servants who even failed to celebrate Christmas have threatened to down tools. However, because their unions are fractured along political lines, it has been laughably simple for the Government to ‘divide and rule’ these vocal unions. Industry and commercial workers still have a semblance of union organisation; however, January has more severe bad tidings for them. Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union analysts agree with economic projections by both Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries and Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce that the country’s productive capacity will remain suppressed at 35%. What this means is that unions have been decimated by retrenchments and most companies that shut down for the 2014 holiday season may not have re-opened this January. This is the very reason why the labour-based MDC – which itself is smarting from the effects of yet another 2014 split –seeks to redefine its mandate by threatening to send agitated activists into the streets. MDC ‘leaders’ Morgan Tsvangirayi, Welshman Ncube and Tendai Biti have all, in the past three weeks, threatened to take action if the Zimbabwe African Union Patriotic Front (ZANU.PF) Government of Robert Mugabe keeps ignoring the country’s dire economic circumstances. Tsvangirayi was scoffed at by both ZANU.PF and some elements of Zimbabwe’s civil society when he called for an all-stakeholder national consultative conference to address the worsening economy. Mugabe’s spiteful public media challenged Tsvangirayi’s political legitimacy and boasted only the Government economic blue print – ZimAsset –could reverse the country’s dwindling fortunes. Civil society leaders claimed that Tsvangirayi had ‘plagiariased’ their intentions since they had been first off the bloc in calling for such a ‘national convergence platform’. Biti – now secretary-general of the breakaway MDC Renewal Team – proposed an interim administration – the National Transitional Technical Council (NTTC). Nevertheless, Mugabe is hard on hearing, for more reasons than one. Every Christmas holiday, he takes his family to a ‘hideout’ in Hong Kong, only to ‘resurface’ in mid-January. This year both private media and the press have lambasted him for ‘gobbling’ millions of taxpayers’ hard-earned money at a time when 90% of employable adults are loafers. Intermittent rains flooded most parts of the country and left hundreds homeless as Mugabe’s children bragged on Face Book at an exclusive Chinese restaurant. His departure last December was at the tail end of an incessant purge by his wife Grace on beleaguered former vice-president Joice Mujuru who lost her post at the party’s annual congress. Almost twenty ministers and Members of Parliament – including longtime allies former Presidential Affairs Minister and secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa and spokesman Rugare Gumbo – were victims. Mugabe’s compliant public media has threatened to expose their Parliamentary seats to by-elections but they have punched back with possible litigation for flouted congressional constitutional provisions. Some argue that by replacing Mujuru with defence minister Emmerson Mnangagwa as vice-president, Mugabe has sealed the long-standing succession debate – at least for now. On his return from holiday, the 91-year-old dictator further fanned the lava of ire by insulting Mutasa, labeling him a ‘baying stray ass’ for publishing a scathing attack on his party. ZANU.PF’s politburo attempted to implement an expulsion process initiated by Mutasa’s political Manicaland provincial structure but came unstuck because not all members of the party’s supreme body concur. The ‘compromise’ was to set up a disciplinary committee that ironically includes bitter critic Grace Mugabe, chaired by grateful second vice president Phelekezela Mphoko with other party cronies like Patrick Chinamasa, Saviour Kasukuwere, Kembo Mohadi, and Pupurayi Togarepi. Analysts and Mutasa himself have condemned this as a ‘kangaroo court’ whose verdict will struggle to attract credibility. Mugabe therefore cannot claim to be a ‘comfortable’ man. Why not? There are two positions that Mugabe can sit and relax as the last part of his legacy unfolds – military support and continental politics. ZANU.PF politics has always been conflated with the military. Analysts argue that Grace Mugabe’s ‘cleansing purge’ divided the military. Joice’s late husband – General Solomon Mujuru – was a powerful and wealthy man who many called a playmaker in ZANU.PF. What this means is that those with high security ranks as of now – Constantine Chiwenga (army), Augustine Chihuri (police), Happyton Bonyongwe (intelligence) and Paradzai Zimondi (prisons) – may in one way or another owe their ‘legitimacy’ to the Mujuru legacy. Analysts will therefore argue that the Grace Mugabe purge may flounder on who to target as a Mujuru ally, although rogue professor and ZANU.PF apologist Jonathan Moyo gives a false impression that military has always paid its allegiance to Mugabe in the ZANU.PF political scheme of things. Continental politics have equally been generous to the ageing leader. Bearing in mind that only in August 2014, Mugabe assumed the Southern African Development Community (SADC) chairmanship, his critics – including this writer – have been ‘paralysed’ by the very thought of him being made chairman of African Union (AU), 30 January 2015. As if to add salt to our political wounds, Mugabe’s ally, Edgar Lungu of the Patriotic Front, prevailed as president of Zambia to replace acting president Guy Scott appointed to cover for the late nationalist Michael Sata. Progressive Zimbabweans have continued to berate Mugabe for ‘cutting a lonely figure’ in SADC’s peaceful democratic transition, considering that Zambia has had seven leaders since Kenneth Kaunda took over in 1964. Frederick Chiluba (1991), Levy Mwanawasa (2002), Rupiah Banda (2007), Michael Sata (2011), Guy Scott (2014) and now Edgar Lungu (2015) have been at the helm, whereas Mugabe has ‘refused to go’ for 35 years! As with ‘tradition’, Mugabe took to the air to present himself at Lungu’s presidential inauguration but was confronted by an angry group of “Mugabe must go!” protesters who hogged the limelight at Lusaka’s Radisson Blu Hotel. While Zimbabwean civil society groups are beside themselves that Zambians has once again taken up the struggle on our behalf, Mugabe’s compliant, public media lambasted the protesters as incorrigible nonentities from opposition candidate Hakainde Hichilema (United Party for National Development) seeking attention. As of now, Mugabe is the ‘new’ chairman of the AU. This writer has had extensive debates on Voice of America to the extent that such positions are largely ceremonial and have no bearing on local polity. Mugabe’s compliant public media continues to throw tantrums on how his appointment symbolises ‘credibility’, ‘legitimacy’ and ‘democratic credentials’. However, Mugabe is an unrepentant dictator whose electoral ‘victory’ in 2013 was a stage managed fluke oiled by a largely partisan electoral institution called Zimbabwe Election Commission. Opposition parties were refused access to national radio, national television and voters’ rolls. No one knows how many ballot papers were printed, how many voting stations were ‘stashed’ in ZANU.PF occupied commercial farms or how results were compiled. If AU is meant to solve Africa’s problems, Mugabe has neither the energy nor will to deal with Nigeria’s Boko Haram, Somalia’s Al Shabaab or Liberia’s Ebola crisis. Egypt and Libya are in flames while Morocco still refuses to be part of the AU. Millions of Africans are political and economic refugees – including three million Zimbabweans in South Africa who routinely get deadly xenophobic lashes from equally poor South Africans. The trajectory of democratisation that had started in Africa in the 2000s seems to have reversed, with most African elections now hardly free or fair. And so as Mugabe’s ambles towards his multi-million dollar 91st birthday celebration termed ‘21st February Movement’ by his lunatic supporters, Zimbabwe braces itself for another fake by-election. The firing of Mujuru and subsequent appointment of Mnangagwa as vice president constitutionally means their Parliamentary seats are now vacant. There are several complications in this occurrence. While Mnangagwa’s midlands seat is ‘safe’ in that his wife, Auxillia, prevailed in the party’s by election, Mujuru has asserted her popularity in her constituency despite being fired by Mugabe. Her ally, an entrepreneur named James Seremwe will contest the Mt Darwin constituency, if ever the election will be held. I say ‘ever’ because opposition party leader Morgan Tsvangirayi is questioning the constitutionality of by-elections in the absence of a ‘legitimate’ voters roll. Political, constitutional and opposition analysts argue that ZEC have a responsibility to not only organise elections, but also compile the voters roll. Commission chairperson and ZANU.PF sympathiser Justice Rita Makarau recently confessed at a Parliamentary committee hearing that her institution cannot be independent since it relies heavily on State funding – whenever there is. ZANU.PF stalwart and registrar of voters Tobaiwa Mudede ‘refuses’ to relinquish voter registration’ records, so opposition will definitely approach the courts to bar elections without genuine reform. It may be, after all, a long fall for Mugabe from the fallacious AU supremacy to the harsh realities of Zimbabwe and Africa’s crippling challenges.

Quick references 1. See: https://zimnowmedia.wordpress.com/ 2. See: www.sunrise2all.com/2015/01/28/d-day-for-didymus-mutasa 3. See: www.sunrise2all.com/2015/01/28/wary-mugabe-baulks-at-army-chiefs-purge/ 4. See: www.sunrise2all.com/2015/01/28/zim-must-learn-from-zambia/ 5. See: http://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2015/01/29/zanu-pf-fails-to-expel-mutasa 6. See: http://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2015/01/25/mugabe-we-don-t-want-you-in-zambia 7. See: http://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2015/01/27/mnangagwa-allies-lose-zanu-pf-poll

Rejoice Ngwenya is an independent Zimbabwean political writer and analyst. The opinions and views expressed in this article are the responsibility of the author. The Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung does not necessarily subscribe to the opinions and views.