Zimbabwe’s Reconfigured Political Economy: The New Site for Electoral Battlelines and Political Contestation

Zimbabwe’s Reconfigured Political Economy: The New Site for Electoral Battlelines and Political Contestation

Zimbabwe’s 2018 electoral battlelines will largely be based on Professor Raftopoulos’ (2014) reconfigured political economy. Whilst electoral manipulation has played a key role in maintaining the domination of ZANU PF in electoral politics, it will be foolhardy to ignore the processes of new class formation post-fast track land reform and how that is creating new social classes with their own set of electoral demands. In essence, beyond the elections rigging and unfairness narrative, there is a need to interrogate the socio-economic and political terrain since 2000 and interpret its meaning to the democratisation project. In as much as the fragmented opposition seems to be slowly morphing into a coalition while on the other hand the ruling elites are tearing each other apart as the contest for the future beyond the ‘dear leader’ takes firm hold, it may create false impressions of the imminent defeat of ZANU PF in the 2018 elections. These surface conflicts might hide from the analyst some very important realities about Zimbabwe’s electoral field and crucially a cursory look at these conflicts does not reveal the ‘structural forces’ that must be understood for those seeking a political practice different from the current authoritarian template. 

 

NERA Uniting the opposition: but is that enough?

Our interest in this article is to briefly try and expand, a debate that was ignited by Professor Brian Raftopoulos when he observed that Zimbabwe now has a ‘reconfigured political economy’ Or what Professor Ian Phimister and Dr Rory Pilossof have called the ‘fall of wage labor’ in Zimbabwe or ‘de-proletarianization’. The causes of this reconfiguration is related to broadly four processes: (i) the post-independent stagnation if not decadence of the liberation project under the former liberation movement; (ii) the de-industrialization of the 1990s which was triggered by the implementation of the Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP); (iii) the ‘jambanja political economy’ whose hallmark has been fast track land reform and a somewhat re-radicalisation of the ruling elite towards indigenisation and (iv) the political contestation which was marked by the rise of the ZCTU, NCA and eventually the MDC.

To begin with, the above has led to a perverse decimation of working class power especially because the formal employment sector has totally collapsed and the radical, very organized, institutionalised side of the working-class movement was eroded. In the 1990s as the ZCTU asserted more independence especially in the urban areas other social forces, students, churches, human rights NGOs and to some extent the women’s movement tended to coalesce around the class power of the MDC. This class power was often projected against the ruling elites and was critical of things like the rising cost of living, endemic corruption, collapse of social services, the authoritarian nature of the post-independent government. This political power expressed itself vigorously and slowly became an alternative political project in the form of the NCA and eventually the MDC – there was numerical advantage – boycotts, marches and labour led protests made the ruling elites retreat on key questions.

‘New’ Farmers and the Search for Stability: between the party-state and statues

The evidence of how chaotic the land reform was and the devastating effect it had on the economy is widely recorded - one just has to look at the hyperinflation; the mass exodus of Zimbabweans into the diaspora and the adoption of a ‘foreign currency’ and a surrogate currency. Underneath this surface is an emerging reality which cannot be ignored: amidst the corruption, the many farms owned by the elites, the collapse of state agricultural services like Agricultural Extension (AGRITEX) and Cold Storage Commission Service (CSC) there are thousands of new farmers that are slowly emerging – the tobacco farmers – Professor Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros, and Ian Scoones have made observations on this new emergent class. These new farmers don’t have tenure and their only source of protection is the party-state – the ruling elites are aware that if they were to issue title deeds, compensate white famers and let new farmers access credit lines and participate in a ‘land market’ they would have unleashed an accumulation project so vast and so extensive and they will lose control over it. 

 

A woman farmer at the Tobacco Auction Floors

In the meantime, they do every silly delay as possible: experiment with ‘bankable’ leases; try and use cattle to access finance and when this fails they resort to ‘command agriculture’ - the intention here is to keep these farmers directly under the control of the party-state. How far they will succeed in ‘annihilating’ the logic of accumulation in which the A1 farmer really wants to be a big player is another question, but they can only postpone the inevitable: unless Zimbabwe turns very socialist, like Cuba. However, it is worthy to note that Cuba has already signaled towards shifting its policies.  The logic of capital will eventually burst through and when it does it will upset the ruling class’ hold on the social structure, after that the deluge. Yet the political formations outside the state are not paying enough, if ever any attention to these ‘class formation dynamics’ and this is dangerous - how many farms, how many new farmers, how many tobacco farmers, how many benefited from command agriculture. So, the question is: if I were a ‘new’ farmer seated on my untitled land, getting command inputs or Presidential Input Support Scheme, whom or what will I vote for in the 2018 elections?

Makorokoza: Small Scale Mining and the Scourge of Declined Formal Mining

One characteristic of Zimbabwe’s contemporary political economy is the decline of corporations mining for gold and the increase of makorokoza or small scale miners and at present these small-scale miners have become central to gold production. At one point ZIMRA wanted to garnish the accounts of these miners and the RBZ quickly intervened arguing that they are not to be touched because they are a major source of export earnings from the gold. The fear was that taxing them will drive them into the black market and the state would drastically lose revenue.  The mines have been mothballed, Zimbabwe’s gold production declined and now its rising but the structure has changed as official statistics indicate that since 2015 artisanal miners have been contributing 40% of the gold output. Therefore, the party-state is very busy ingratiating themselves to this class which is roughly estimated to be around or above 400,000 across the country. The Environmental Management Agency (EMA) sees them as a ‘pollution risk’ – but there is also a colonial relic here – mining was associated with the ‘big corporates’ and foreign capital going back to the British South Africa Company (BSAC) time – meaning the formal state structures are biased towards the ZIMPLATS, RIO, IMPALA etc – not the villager scrounging for a few grams on the river bank and on the ‘claim’. 

Diamond panners in Marange.

Dr Mawowa has done a study of the economic and political power that these have gained – yet for those in the opposition the makorokoza is an aberration, a return to the ‘stone age’. They do not bother to look at the question: if I was a makorokoza, with a few claims, who would I vote for? Therefore, it is imperative for the opposition to engage the artisanal miners given the numerics of close to half a million adults.  

Cross Border Traders, Urban Vendors and Informality

As the formal economy collapsed many have sought refuge in cross-border trading activity – these have varied over the last decade but it is mostly female headed and consists of traders buying low in South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique and as far as Tanzania and selling high in Zimbabwe. The state has started attempting to penetrate these cross-border trader class by dangling incentives like the RBZ $15m incentive, showing a good reading and understanding of the new power blocs in the society. If we are to take the number of people engaged in crossborder traders, the numbers become very significant. These are the questions that those seeking political office need to engage with, coming up with viable tangible policy alternatives that seek to better the lives of these social groups. 

Cross-border traders offloading their merchandise.

In addition, the pervasiveness of this informality is nakedly and glaringly across all the country, whether it is in the urban areas or rural areas. There is petty-commodity trading ranging from foodstuffs, second hand clothing and shoes, household utensils or anything that is sellable. The rank marshals and touts also presents another sector of informality, where the state has had to make retreats in certain cases especially when they had national protests in 2016 against their deliberate targeting by the police. Instead, the police had to expand it collecting net by shifting towards general motoring public. All these cases point to the fact that in as much as the ruling ZANU PF has sought to capture these groups into its power domination matrix, it has not successfully done so because of the cat and mouse games that these subaltern social groups have with state agencies and officials. For an opposition or civil society official seeking social change, the question becomes addressing the concerns of these informality actors.

New Social Movements and the Forgotten (Slippery) Youth Bulge

In the thick of these social class is a very fluid structure: that of the urban youth who are sometimes touched and sometimes not touched by the ‘new social movements’. We argued before that these new social movements are using social media to create counter-cultural and potentially counter-authoritarian spaces but this must not blind one to the reality of the ‘ghetto youth’; with access to limited opportunities and restricted access to internet. These youths are often found at the ‘Dancehall shows’ which are filled with thousands.  The music that they belt out is full of social commentary that brings to the attention of the public the daily lived struggles for livelihoods in these poor communities. They sing complaining of the excesses of the municipal police and national police force, how the society has become corrupt, unemployment and the bleak future ahead. For Instance, Winky-D’s song Twenty-Five (25) brings attention to the challenges facing unemployed graduates and the hopelessness of life they are facing. It is not only in the ghetto youth out there who has to be paid attention to, but there are also the youth from the affluent suburbs and millennials in general. The traction of charismatic techno-savvy actors such as #ThisFlag points to how varied the voices yearning for social change have become. In our maiden Gravitas issue, we argued that terrain and actors are slowly shifting and needs to be understood well by proponents of social change. It is estimated that only 8% of registered youth voted in the 2013 elections and close to 2 million of eligible voters were not registered. At present, it is estimated that close to two thirds of the population is below 40 years, and going into the 2018 and 2023 elections, young people will be a key voting bloc. Therefore, an electoral strategy missing a message how to address the concerns of the variegated youth bulge, how to get them to register and interested in the vote will most likely prolong the journey in the wilderness.

Twists and Turns: the paradoxes, contradictions and beyond NERA

In this article, we have attempted to reveal the political ‘import’ of Professor Brian Raftopoulos’ ‘reconfigured political economy’ and we have pointed that contemporary and future electoral contestations, including civil society contentions, will be argued out and shaped by a vastly different social structure from that of the 1990s.  

An airtime vendor wooing customers on Groombridge road

An immediate criticism might be that these classes are very ‘dirty’ meaning they are not pure in the sense of being clearly demarcated yet that is the point here: social classes never appear pure and without being imbricated in other classes (i.e. the new farmer is still married to subsistence economy and at the same time is seeking escape) yet make no mistake about it they are becoming aware of their power and marrying it to the party-state so as to extract as much benefit as possible (doesn’t every class depend on the state though? In the noise and dances of this rubble of a collapsed economy are emerging new realities, away from the urban ensemble, and those with keen political eyes must pay heed. The NERA, the new social movement and the ‘modern’ sector has limited power and this reality must be borne – the ‘new farmer’ wants to participate in the established markets for goods; the tobacco farmer wants a functional credit system; the financiers want a functional ‘land market’; this is the reality, but the big question lies in how will those seeking for power in the 2018 elections provide solutions? The very laborious and often bloody political terrain that the ruling elites have fostered on the body polity makes it possible for those seeking change to become, deliberately or otherwise become bogged down in the fleeting ephemeral sound of slogans and self-righteousness and technicalities of the voting processes alone while ignoring or at least paying no attention to the ‘structure’ of Zimbabwe’s political economy. The consequence can be Moses’ disaster: of taking 40 years in the wilderness before reaching Canaan. How social classes form, the social and political processes attendant to that process; how social classes ‘disintegrate’ and reform themselves voluntarily or otherwise; how they accumulate and lose power; and how the state relates to them is of fundamental importance in any future electoral contest in Zimbabwe. 

One of NERA Chief Architects: Will they see beyond electoral fraud?

Elections are not only about the technicalities of the voting process, but also consist of the socio-economic and political forces that inform and condition voting behaviour patterns. Therefore, whilst NERA has managed to highlight the deficiencies of the electoral system, it is in no way a political and economic programme that may inform or condition the social groups identified in this article to go vote and let alone for the opposition. To the Makorokoza how they will be able to continue or expand their gold scrounging activities; the cross border traders, how they will be able to bring their merchandise with less hassle from ZIMRA; the Commuter omnibus operators, how they will be protected from the marauding police on the roads and the new farmers, how they will have access to inputs, markets and cash after selling produce will most likely give compelling reasons to the electorate on why it is necessary to register and vote for change. It is the political economy, stupid!

Notice from Editors.

Next Week’s Gravitas will seek to unpack, expand and deepen the debate on the reconfigured political economy and draw lessons or insights on what this may mean for the pro-democracy movement in the 2018 elections. Therefore, we call for opinion editorial pieces of between 1300-1500. Articles may focus on, but not limited to the following:

·         Social classes, power and elections

·         Political parties’ manifestos, ideologies and key national questions

·         Civil society, elections and social change

·         Gender contestations, women empowerment and elections

·         Commodification of elections and electoral accountability

Articles, subject to editing and reviewing, are to be emailed to the following addresses by 1300hrs, Thursday 27^th of April 2017: gravitas@ipazim.com.