Extended Electoral Contestations Debate

Gravitas Volume 1. Issue 8. Extended Electoral Contestations Debate 

This Battle is not Lost: Restating the Case for Democratic Change in the Age of Cynicism.

Tendai Biti*

Despondency and Derangement of the National Psyche?

Wananchi, as we enter the shadows of yet another election, it appears that the gods of dementia have unleashed their angels on the motherland intoxicating in the process the native, his goats, his pigs, his dogs, his cattle and his rats. Wananchi, that the gods of Derangement have taken over the national psyche, has been self-evident in the past seven days. Firstly, was the proclamation by the Spirit-In-Chief at the World Economic Forum (WEF) that the motherland is not a fragile state and that the Zimbabwean economy is the second most developed economy in Sub Sahara Africa only after South Africa. Now if we did not know this man well, we would have thought that he had discovered a new intoxicating variant of prepared Indian Hemp that was so potent that it required to be protected by a patent.

Fig 1.0 Mugabe: Zimbabwe is one Africa’s advanced economies ?

Wananchi, with 95% of the population unemployed, 75% living in extreme poverty, the motherland is a banana republic. A little tin-pot chocking in debt, with collapsed social services. Someone should wake the spirit from a slumber and remind same that while it was sleeping, Ethiopia, Kenya, Zambia, Angola, Mozambique, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Sudan, all have doubled up their GDP and long surpassed Zimbabwe. Speaking of sleeping, the suggestion by Presidential spokesperson Charamba that the spirit does not sleep but merely rests its eyes is an astonishing reinvention of spin. Proof beyond reasonable doubt that Lyssa the Greek god of madness was reigning supreme.

For us, our real beef is not with a President who after all is 94 years old but the genius of the WEF who hatched the idea of abusing this man and inviting him to expose himself and all of us in Durban. Wananchi, then there is a man named Toneth Tobaiwa Mudede who hails from the Central Kingdom of Zvimba. Despite the fact that he turned 60 some 20 years ago he continues to serve masquerading as the Registrar General of the country. He is in fact the Rigstrar-General of the country personally responsible for NIKUV and the NIKUVED 2013 election. This man has a tremendous capability to speak with another part of his anatomy which is not his mouth. This week he postulated that the concept of dual citizenship so proudly entrenched in Chapter 3 of our constitution and indeed one of its real bright spots was anathema that ZANUPF would move to repeal. This coming from a mere civil servant, even one that is 20 years past his retirement date is unacceptable and high level madness.

Gravitas: Gravitating Towards Devaluation of the Democratic Opposition?

Wananchi, this was the week that also saw the release of the Afro-Barometer report on Zimbabwe which proclaimed that the Spirit was the most popular and trusted leader in our country. The truth of the matter is that in all dominated and captured societies the Bandit-In-Chief masquerading as the head of state is always the most popular and most trusted citizen. The reason for this is of course fear. Fear is the unarticulated premise that holds a vice like grip on captured societies. However, unlike others we content that these academic surveys are valuable and a major source of material. Indeed, they are a constant reminder of the citizen’s structural weakness.

The challenge of the Wananchi is that at material moments it is anti-truth and anti-intellectual.Wananchi, the attack on the online intellectual newsletter, Gravitas must be understood in this context. The young intellectuals running Gravitas namely Tamuka Charles

Chirimambowa and Tinashe Lukas Chimedza must be commended for starting this project and seeking to implant intellectual discourse within the body politic. The three articles they published recently have raised controversy. These articles are titled:

1. Reflections on the National question: Land, Transformation and Progress.
2. Zimbabwe’s reconfiguration: The New Sites for Electoral Contestation
3. Mass discontent: The rise and decline of the MDC?

Wananchi, it is important for these articles to be read and for comrades in the struggle to celebrate the diversity of intellectual engagement. The common theme in the articles is regrettably a devaluation of the change project on 4 main premises which are:

1. Its failure right from the beginning of linking itself to organic social struggles beyond the neo liberal rights discourse

2. The fall of the working people or what Professor Raftopoulos calls the reconstructed social base

3. Under playing ZANU’s redistributive agenda and creation of a genuine social base

4. The opposition’s failure to reinvent itself, to adapt and its own divisions and splits

Wananchi, whilst there is evidently value and truth in the central theme of the papers it seems to us that a lop sized attempt to deal with the problems of the opposition unintentionally creates preposterous self-serving conclusions. The one self-evident conclusion is that in the short-term ZANU cannot be dislodged. That its control of the patronage economy and the new social base is absolute. That despite its fractures, the opposition even in a grand coalition can't dislodge the same. Such conclusions lead to the dominant discourse of the day, that a solution must be found in ZANU. That a post Mugabe candidate must be found who is first of all strong but with an acceptable veneer of reform capacity. Inevitably this self-serving proselytizing leads to destination Emmerson Mnangagwa, fondly, if not foolishly referred to as ED in the papers.

Another unintended and unarticulated premise is that the change project has expired. That it reached a peak in 2008 and therefore fizzled out naturally. To that extent, the change project is equated with the democratization agenda, the conclusion, Fukuyama-like in its aberrations is that “we have reached the end of history.” Democracy is dead in Zimbabwe. Long live democracy. With the death of democracy and the democratization agenda comes the new apostasy, that Zimbabwe needs stability over democracy. That achieving or maintaining stability leads on an incremental scale to democracy. This surely can only be described as startling heresy.

Stability: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothes.

Wananchi, but this heresy is not new. We saw this heresy in the era of constructive engagement led by President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher who postulated a soft line of engagement against the heinous apartheid regime in the early 80s. A line that chose stability over black majority rule.Wananchi, it is what led President Mbeki ironically to deny the change project’s outright victory in 2008 and led him to construct a creature that subordinated the people’s will to so called stability. But that short-term adventurism did not lead to democracy, rather it simply allowed exhausted nationalism to regroup and reinvent with the known result of an electoral grand theft in 2013. The new stability project which now finds new support from the coldest and strangest of places will be no exception. It will simply pave way for the reproduction of a further four decades of crude authoritarianism anchored by a mass murderer. Wananchi, it is simply ridiculous to see democracy as being exclusive to and destructive of stability. We would submit that democracy is the ultimate underwriter of stability. Not the other way round.

The Myths of the Developmental State

All those countries in pursuit of the Beijing model, being the somewhat lame thrust that a Developmental State led by a strong man can be fathomed, which is undemocratic but reproduces its self through delivery, are aware of their mortality. Speaking of strong man, it is argued that in the context of stability and underdevelopment, what Zimbabwe needs is this strong man who will purchase his legitimacy through performance. Performance legitimacy is an old slogan, in new bottles. Singapore and its Lee Kuan Yew are posited as exhibit A of this Developmental model. So too China under comrade Mao. Now we have Rwanda and the affable Kagame, add Meles Zenawi’s Ethiopia and Sisi’s Egypt and the picture is almost complete. Libya and its collapse appear to have spurred the new-found appetite of stability over democracy. But this, coming from some of those who bombed Libya must be rejected. Wananchi, what after all is the definition of a strongman? The man who assaults his wife on a daily basis is not a strong man.

A butcher who commits mass murder and genocide is not a strong man. A tribal war lord who sees ethnicity as a point of negotiation is no strong man. The balance sheet of liberal democracy on the African continent remains chequered but in reality, there is no sustainable alternative to democracy. Further any developmental model not rooted in democracy and transformation is ephemeral. In the context of Zimbabwe, it would be wrong and foolish to ignore the immutability of the democratization agenda. Yes, we have made mistakes but our mistakes must not blemish the purity of the change agenda. After all there is no manual for fighting dictators. You will not find in Waterstones, Amazon or Barnes and Noble, a “Dictatorship for Dummies” manual.To write off the democratic aspirations and capabilities of the present is simply ahistorical and intellectual laziness. It is timidity and appeasement. Wananchi we will not take refuge in such rank heresy.

Zimbabwe: A Weakened Party-State?

The Zimbabwean State is weak and vulnerable. It has never been as weak as it is, ever since 126 years ago when Mr Selous and his brigands in the Pioneer Column raised the Union Jack somewhere in Matopos. The unresolved succession issue inside it is the major source of vulnerability. In the past 37 years, it has reproduced itself through a powerful leader that has been more powerful than the state. But sadly, that light is dimming. The center cannot hold.

That State is in the throes of a crunching economic crisis. A structural recession that is for all intents and purposes is now a deepening recession. De-industrialisation, unemployment and poverty are the reflective of the disequilibrium. It is an economy that desperately needs structural reform but regrettably those who it controls see reform as an unacceptable back door entry point of regime change. To compound matters, those running the economy are clueless zombies who have spent the last four years indulging in fraud and voodoo economics.The country too has a bulging demography consisting of 65% of its population being under the age of 35.

Transition: The Elephant in the Room

With the bulk of those who have controlled it for the last four decades being in their mid-70s, it is a State in transition. That transition is ideological, demographic, technological and sociological. It is that transition that needs to be captured. Stupid!The analyses in the articles are electro -centric and therefore miss the broad picture of transition.The real challenge of all democrats is not in the event of 2018 but capture of the on-going transition. That is the point sadly being missed. That transition must be captured to ensure it is not derailed by shareholders of the status quo. It must be captured to buy the peace. It must be captured to create a soft landing for our country and in the process, deny the merchants of violence who want a civil war or a coup de tat in this lovely country we are privileged to call home.

Fig 2.0 Coalescing: Will the opposition confluence hold ?

In this debate, the opposition can never be written off. With great respect to Afro-Barometer there is no genuine Zimbabwean who can think that ZANU can win a free and fair election in this country. Never. But of course, they control the infrastructure of rigging. They survive through electoral authoritarianism. The Securocrats are the trump card. Party State conflation is however the foundation. Wananchi, to criticise the opposition without acknowledgement of the state of State capture by ZANU is being ZANU, an adjective of deception and mendacity.The efforts of the opposition in the context of the above are to find ways and means of decimating the infrastructure of electoral authoritarianism. If this is no longer possible within the time available to 2018 then the second option is to by-pass authoritarianism through the creation a formidable mass movement that will use the streets as the point of entry.

If not then the creation of an NTA remains the only viable alternative.

For some of us, perhaps the only way in the short term.

Zikomo. Zikomo.

Tendai Luckson Biti (Wanachi) is a top Lawyer and President of the PDP. He is also a former Minister of Finance and Parliamentarian.

A reconfigured state - recasting Mahmood Mamdani’s dual role of coercion and consent- a rejoinder to Tendai Biti’s Wanachi

Dr Toendepi Shonhe*

Existing Reality vs. Historical Permutations

The intervention by Tendai Biti and angry reactions by leaders and activists in the opposition movement revealed an unfortunate gap in knowledge about contemporary issues driving Zimbabwean politics and voting patterns. We are discussing the material question about – to borrow from historical materialism – ‘the existing reality’ and not historical permutations or our wish list of some Zimbabwe we may want or may have wanted. The risk is in the labelling and name calling, and this we always budget for. It will not break the camel’s back! To his credit Tendai Biti has sought to engage in a discourse rather than throwing stones in the direction of ideas. We are obliged to applaud and respond. Upfront, we have to warn that our effort must not be viewed with a binary polemic of Zanu PF/MDC divide. To do so, will be to miss the bigger point and arrest the debate. Those who accuse us of having crossed the line are better off coming to terms with the view that there is no line to cross in academia, we just venerate.

In this article, a rejoinder to Tendai Biti’s Wanachi – also published in this edition, I will trace the issues with a bit of detail to expose in more elucidated fashion, the issues I have highlighted in my previous articles and those of the editors of Gravitas – Tamuka Chirimambowa and Tinashe Chimedza have sought to illustrate. I will also take advantage of the MPOI/Afrobarometer survey results and infuse them in the article because they validate our analysis. The question of methodology that others have raised will not be raised here, suffice to say, there is no methodology without a weakness (be it positivist, post-positivist, constructivist and critical theory), a researcher has to mitigate. Even more, the survey results provoke the need for follow-up studies, a good thing for academia. So, I debate their meaning and not their validity. The article will benefit from Zimbabwe’s rich literature on political economy analysis by leading researchers before us. Because this is not a court of law, I will not argue on a point-to-point basis.

Coercion and Consent

First off, the basic argument in our analyses is that when it comes to power and transition, Mugabe has ruled by both coercion and consent. As such investigating, how the future might pan out, ignoring how consent may impact on political power dynamics will be catastrophic. Even though we have highlighted the question of ‘fear, poverty and patronage’ as party of the capture of variegated constituencies, Tendai Biti remains of the firm view that our analyses are both ‘an adjective of deception and mendacity’ that misses the bigger picture about a transition involving ‘ideological, demographic, technological and sociological’ shifts. As Mahmood Mamdani observed in 2009, writing in Concerned Africa scholars Bulletin no. 82, ‘There is no denying Mugabe’s authoritarianism, or his willingness to tolerate and even encourage the violent behaviour of his supporters. His policies have helped lay waste the country’s economy, though sanctions have played no small part, while his refusal to share power with the country’s growing opposition movement, much of it based in the trade unions, has led to a bitter impasse… For he has ruled not only by coercion but by consent, and his land reform measures, however harsh, have won him considerable popularity, not just in Zimbabwe but throughout southern Africa. In any case, the preoccupation with his character does little to illuminate the socio-historical issues involved’.

Terrence Ranger (same issue) was quick to agree that beyond being a crazed dictator, Robert Mugabe was promoting a programme and ideology popular with many in Africa and Zimbabwe itself, even though he warns that this is not the way to go about it.  The point to ponder about here is that Mugabe’s policies are projected as ‘mass justice’ and create a sense of championing for the poor, never mind what the reality might. There is obvious political opportunism but this backed by historical injustices that were not addressed in 1980, as land remained in the hands of a minority white who owned 39% of the land and controlled industry and commerce, had tentacles in the mining and tourism sectors. The social order remained skewed in favour of the minority white settlers. While this could have been handled peacefully, to invoke emotions, a haste and violent processed had to be the option. Yet, to a large extent, this went on to address substantive national grievances around land, a social and economic justice dent that the Lancaster House had postponed.

This is where we bring in the land question, which the liberation struggle promoted to the level of the national question. We argue that the opposition missed the opportunity to align itself with the masses because corporate interest had gained ground within their ranks, and a radical ‘false-start’ had dissipated. The national constitutional reform struggle swayed the opposition, as a response to a clause inserted in the 1999 draft constitution at the last minute on non-compensation led to white farmers shifting allegiance from ZANU PF to aiding the No Vote campaign with funding. Off course, the plot was to defend their interests and not advance democratisation. However, for now we reserve this debate for the future. This was a turning point for the MDC, as we knew it then. The point we make here is that the war veterans under the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) numbering up to 200,000 - led by Hunzvi and others had been at the fore-front of agitating for redistribution of land and many other associations had been formed to push for indigenisation and empowerment (Indigenous Business Development Centre -IBDC, AAG and IBWO) and the opposition would have gained in associating with this socio-economic justice agenda. Instead it was the ruling party which initially looked lethargic that came on the side of all these social movements.

Redistribution of Taxes or Profits?

This is where we challenge the definition of civic society. Because the ‘No’ Vote was premised on the notion of property rights, the discourse on liberties, democracy and freedoms came to dominate the civic society and opposition movement, whilst the socio-economic rights discourse became dissipated. Our point of departure here is that this, first the definition of democracy is narrowed as it excludes substantive democracy which speaks to issues of socio-economic justice, to the extent that redistributive policies are viewed as retrogressive. Neo-liberal approaches where taxation and social grants is viewed as the only tool of wealth redistribution is opted for. Yet redistribution targeted ownership of the means of production. Redistribution of the means of production stands way ahead of redistribution of profits through taxation, then social grants, because taxes are always a lower percentage of the total profits made. How a party with a social democratic leaning misses this glaring point is very worrying. This is where we raise issues around ideological bankruptcy. In part, it is the labour background that influenced the thinking in the party – regrettably, emphasis is on job creation and not ownership of the means of production.

Our second point is that the definition of civic society tended to exclude rural social movements, including ZNWVA and concentrated on those promoting human rights and democracy. This fell too well and advanced the white settler agenda regarding the land issue. Unfortunately for the MDC, it alienated the party from a strong mobilisation force which proceeded to work against it in subsequent elections. Many analysts get confused when we raise these issues. Raising issues around consent dynamics does not eliminate issues around the coercion. The point to be emphasised is that a combination of the two was a fatal blow to opposition politics, yet to date, the opposition has tended to rely on coercion for strategic planning, policy making and message development – jobs and not ownership! Again, in terms of policy and ideology, this creates a disjuncture where parties with social democratic leaning overemphasise the positions of capital- bereft of socio-economic justice.

Beyond the Mushrooming Peasant Narrative

The whole redistributive agenda is narrowly seen as coercion, corruption and incompetency, cronyism in the redistribution of land and capital flight – which led to ‘villagisation’ of the farm land or mushrooming of peasants (howa rwunomera pese pese). Many studies have since revealed that much more is happening on the land. There is an exaggeration of challenges on the land which is never compared to what is transpiring economy-wide. Studies by Prof Sam Moyo – may his soul rest in peace - and Prof Ian Scoones and their teams have revealed that much more progress is happening in the former white commercial land. Indeed, my own study has revealed a growing middle class on the back of own-financing. Contract farming and tobacco farming have brought about a completely new agrarian economy in the rural areas.

Fig 1.2 Sharing the Tobacco Millions:  New Faces and New Classes ?

There is a growing class of independent farmers who are not tied to any politics and have established a variety of pathways to economic and social upward mobility. Prof Ian Scoones also dealt with the five myths: as Mamdani recites; ‘that land reform has been a total failure; that its beneficiaries have been largely political cronies; that there is no new investment in the new settlements; that agriculture is in ruins; and that the rural economy has collapsed’. Indeed, these are myths which are unfortunately relied upon as facts by players in the opposition space for strategic planning.

A failure to understand and appreciate this fundamental reality and an over reliance on emotions, spiritual and prophetic advice results in many analysts and politicians disputing results from surveys by reputable organisation, much to their further demise. These players are stuck in 2000, yet 17 years down the line much has transpired across the economy. In as much as not all can be painted with the same brush for the ruling party, the opposition is not a complete failure. It has survived under one of the most brutal regimes ever known. That the people’s convention of 1999 was attended by 42 civic society organisation was a big plus. Yet not all still exist and most have been disenfranchised from the movement, a few remaining complain of the big brother attitude. The transfer of power at the University of Zimbabwe from the pro-democracy contingent to those linked to the revolutionary party can’t go unnoticed, because Zinasu has been a cog in the democracy movement. That today, it is the farmers running battles with the police at the auction floors is not conjectural.

Fig 3.0 Tobacco farmers running battles with the police

Yet the opposition movement cannot speak to the issues being raised by the farmers – because in their narrow view – the land reform was chaotic and the beneficiaries are Zanu PF! The civic society is totally disconnected to contemporary struggles by different social groups, as the agenda has been defined mainly by the well-wishers, perhaps also stuck on the democracy agenda, as narrowly defined.

Understanding the Data

When the surveys say, people trust Mugabe it may be because they don’t trust the opposition. Because the opposition is disconnected from their issues. It may also be because the GNU revealed tendencies in the opposition that voters had never imagined and now see not much difference between ruling and opposition parties. The voters are frustrated that the economy is moving in the wrong direction (31%) that employment is a problem (51%) yet 56 % still support President Mugabe. It must be noted that it is 79% of those with no formal education that support him, and 71% of those with primary school education, 52 percent of those with secondary education, compared to 37% of those with post-secondary school education.  Quite clearly, the Zimbabwean population carries more numbers in the first three categories than the later. The latter may agree on many issues, including academic discourses but they constitute a minority. The same group agree that a coalition is good but much less of the first three group do so. Again, this is an elite discourse, disconnected to the issues of the masses and only tied to electoral democracy and not livelihood issues. A real ‘Trump’ surprise may be in the voting patterns than in Tsvangirai’s refusal to accept electoral results.

Compare this with the indigenisation and empowerment agenda, the land reform program and command agriculture, command economy etc, you quickly come to a conclusion that no counter proposal is coming from the opposition by way of policy direction. It is well and good to characterise all these as partisan and therefore advancing cronyism and corruption, but many people, beyond the leadership in Zanu PF have benefitted, accounting for how some may vote in 2018.

The Post-Colony and Role of Academia

Moreover, this also illustrates the dis-connect between the ruling party and some social groupings. The reconfigured political economy is not necessarily a planned outcome out of Zanu PF ingenuity. Indeed, Franz Fanon posited long ago, in The Wretched of the Earth, as the case seems to stand today for Zimbabwe, that:The objective of nationalist parties as from a certain given period is, we have seen, strictly national. They mobilize the people with slogans of independence, and for the rest leave it to future events. When such parties are questioned on the eco­nomic programme of the state that they are clamouring for, or on the nature of the regime which they propose to install, they are incapable of replying, because, precisely, they are completely ignorant of the economy of their own country. This economy has always developed outside the limits of their knowledge. They have nothing more than an approximate, bookish acquaintance with the actual and potential resources of their country's soil and mineral deposits; and therefore, they can only speak of these resources on a general and abstract plane.

Yet this is now a reality with which we have to grapple with as we seek options for a NEW future. Because in our article we have not sought to provide solutions, Tendai Biti finds joy in borrowing from Fanon and labelling our effort, ‘intellectual laziness’. This is hardly the case. Academia is complementary. No single research or paper can close all the knowledge gaps. In part his frustration and indeed that of many others is that our writings are perceived as feeding into the Zanu PF agenda. What they would prefer is a situation where we dismiss evidence and propagate for the opposition movement’s cause, hardly the role of academia. Those in the employee of the opposition movement and indeed in the ruling party can ‘party’ with our findings and earn a living, not us.

Blame Not the Seer: The Roots of the Benevolent Dictator

Our conclusions that hope seems to be findings space from within Zanu PF succession politics is based on the prominence of the issue in today’s body politic and discourse and from the tendencies we observed from across a broad spectrum of stakeholders. We take cognizance of the fact that some from the mainstream MDC openly support a Mnangagwa presidency, some key figures from MDC Renewal retreated from the formation after failing to placket the project into the ED agenda. Indeed, admirers of ED cite the prospects of performance legitimacy. We can only add that sources of legitimacy are far wider than electoral legitimacy and the opposition need to acquaint itself with the different strands and conceptions. This space disallows this debate.

We also arrive at this conclusion after observing that many civic society organisations have now entered into some form or another of MOU with the government, choosing to be coopted rather critic from outside as defenders of the ‘have nots’ as must be the case. The position of the war veterans and securocrats is well known. In addition, even some of the prodemocracy intellectuals and actors have been whetted by and morphed around Karanga ethno-nationalism that has slowly found congruency in a Mnangagwa presidency. Indeed, they mimic in admiration and owe ‘Zvokwadi, chinhu chive vene vacho’ or some of have privately questioned that but they are also Karanga. The reminiscing and romanticisation of a Karanga strongman has not been our manufacture but an observation of the unravelling political phenomena within our polity. Our role has only been being observers, analysts and communicators of the existing realities. And that there are foreign missions openly pushing for strong hand politician fashionably called – a benevolence dictator – seeking for a strong economy and possibly poor human rights agenda positioning. Could these be some of the strangest places that Tendai Biti could be referring to? Whatever the case maybe, it is not out of our making, our role is to analyse and lay bare, including the obvious.

We posit, most importantly that the opposition need to realign its politics to speak to issues of the new social base, and that until this happens the prospects of defeating Zanu PF are between slim and lean. We also argue that, to the contrary Zanu PF has understood these changes and are speaking to some of the issues in resonance with the different groupings emerging under the reconfigured political economy. To the extent that the hope is now located in Zanu PF, regrettably; we argue that the democratization agenda, as it is narrowly defined by the opposition, has reached a cul de sac. To gain a new impetus, the opposition needs to broaden its definition to include substantive democracy.

When the Lizard Fell off the Iroko Tree.

To dismiss our analysis as ‘rank heresy’ on the basis that the economy is in recession is rather weak and bereft of intellectual input. It is only fallacious self-gratification, that does not take the prodemocracy movement to anywhere, at best it only leads to abyssal comfort zones of grand delusions. Suffice to say for now: When the Lizard fell of the Iroko tree; it looked up and in sang in praises, “This is how far I have jumped’.  The reality was that the lizard had indeed fallen off the tree and not jumped. The economy has been in recession and may continue to be so, but the majority of the voters are in the farms where they rely on auto-consumption from own production. The unemployed now find refuge in Zanu PF captured zones of autonomy – makorokoza, vendors, etc. We have stated this point sufficiently to drive this point home. That the demographic show that 65% of the population is young is not helpful because the Afrobarometer show that, of those between 18-35 years, 32%will vote for Zanu PF compared to 16% for MDC if an election was to be done tomorrow. Off course the margin increases with the ages. Those who want to find refuge in the 78% fear factor must be warned of the possibility of the same respondent taking that fear into the ballot box, given the well-known role of the traditional leadership.

In spite of the critique, it does appear to us that we are in agreement with Tendai Biti that Zanu PF controls ‘the infrastructure of rigging. They survive through electoral authoritarianism. The Securocrats are the trump card. Party State conflation is however the foundation’. We suspect he raises the broader argument of the transition as acknowledgement that 2018 may be a foregone conclusion. Nonetheless, it is difficult to comprehend how our analyses can escape being electro-centric given that our central theme, prospects for 2018 which demands that we engage with the issue, directly.

In conclusion, we differ vehemently and forcefully with the view or perception peddled, that the debilitating economic crisis may lead automatically to increased sympathy for the opposition. That has not happened. Simple. In the long term, the emergence of the variegated classes has come along with new ways of survival some independent some tied to Zanu PF’s infrastructures of patronage and fear, decimating the opposition base and taking advantage of the poverty created by the collapsing economy. Thinking beyond this will be useful in terms of scenarios into the future especially for the pro-democracy movement.

Toendepi Shonhe holds a PhD in development studies from the University of KwaZulu Natal and a master in management in public policy from Wits University. He is involved in policy, land and agrarian change research. He writes in his personal capacity. Views can be directed to tonde.shone2@gmail.com

Lest We Forget: Fast Track ‘Fast-Tracked’ the Authoritarian Restructuring of the Zimbabwean State with a Bearing on Ugly Elections Today

Dr Philani Zamchiya*

The Herald’s Infantile Opportunism.

In the past week, Dr Toendepi Shonhe has rigorously constructed and forcefully articulated his argument on land, elections and opposition politics in Zimbabwe. The evidently malicious state owned ‘Herald’ seeking to demonise and isolate him from his friends awarded him star of the week. I am sad that some people have labelled him ZANU PF. He is not ZANU PF. This is a result of the polarization of our society, dearth of tolerance and intellectual debate. In some instances, when we lack content to respond it is easier to say s/he is now ZANU PF.

The Party-State and DNA of Violence.

My submission is that Fast Track Land Reform heralded a new era where one cannot just acknowledge, mention in passing or downplay partisan and coercive politics in intellectual analysis and let alone the bearing on contemporary national questions and opposition electoral politics. During Fast Track, the state’s authority became ‘grounded in political loyalty and patronage, not expert knowledge and bureaucracy, a transformation that set in train a series of struggles that deeply [morphed] the state’ (Alexander 2006:187). Within this shift, patronage took centre stage (Zamchiya 2012), signified by coercion (Sachikonye 2011) and justified by ideology (Tendi 2010). Formal state institutions were disrupted and were in most cases superseded by ad-hoc arrangements as the bureaucratic approach of early independence was set aside for a partisan and authoritarian mode of domination that plays out in political mobilization, governance and electoral politics today! We cannot underestimate that ‘nationalism was recast in violent and intolerant mode as the foundation of the Third Chimurenga’ (Alexander 2006:194) with a debilitating effect on opposition.

Fig 3.0 War Veterans: Shifting between Collaboration &Cooptation

The violence that characterized Fast Track was mainly state sponsored and institutionalized (see Alexander and McGregor 2001, Marongwe 2008, Raftopolous 2003, Sachikonye 2003). As Sachikonye (2011:33) argues, ‘it [violence] was used to seize land from 4, 500 white farmers…and to destroy the political base of MDC amongst farm workers whose households had a population of about two million’ and instill fear. For example, a farm worker survey by the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) found that one in ten of the 167 respondents reported ‘at least one murder amongst fellow farm workers’ and 38% of respondents reported that ‘children on the farms were forced to watch public beatings or torture’, 54% had received death threats and 65% experienced torture. David Stevens was shot dead on his farm in Macheke and Martin Olds was also shot dead in Nyamandhlovu area (ZNGO Human Rights Forum 2010:10). By June 2000, more than 30 opposition supporters were killed by state security agents, war veterans, youth militias and ZANU PF supporters (Sachikonye 2003: 31). This fear is still harvested by the ruling elite.

Coercion Embedded in Patriotic Propaganda

In order to legitimise and seek to intellectualize the use of violence against political opponents and for material benefit ZANU PF articulated a calculated ‘nationalist’ ideology. The land invasions were built on the symbolic appeal to war and metaphor of war. To ZANU PF, it became the third phase of the war of liberation, the Third Chimurenga, but this time the enemy was presented as colonialism’s economic injustice as represented in the dual agrarian structure which ZANU PF had maintained and even defended for two decades. The state used ideology to cast Fast Track as anti-colonial and anti-imperial. In particular, ZANU PF articulated an exclusive, adversarial and racial nationalism to justify material accumulation and acts of state violence during Fast Track land reform.

The state’s ideology of exclusive nationalism created outsiders and insiders which haunts society today. The former were usually opponents of the government programme and were denigrated as sell-outs, traitors and stooges of western imperialism and neo-colonialism (Tendi 2010). As Hammar et al. (2003:11-12) write, ‘such traitors are being systematically denied the right to citizenship, freedom of expression, protection under the law, access to land, or even in some cases access to food’ in ways that still play out in ugly elections today.

Securocrats and Land: From Co-option to Collaboration

Fast Track land reform did not only engineer violence and patronage but perfected ZANU PF’s construction of a party-state and the reconfiguration of formal state institutions in ways that perpetuated disorder. To subvert formal state institutions, ZANU PF co-opted traditional leaders, war veterans and later youth militias in their ideological, patronage and violent mobilisation campaign for political hegemony. Sadomba (2011:194) reveals that President Mugabe invited Chenjerai Hunzvi, then chairman of ZNLWVA, to a central committee meeting on 18 February 2000 and asked him to lead the ZANU PF election campaign and offered him a special position in the central committee of ZANU PF. President Mugabe encouraged the war veterans to collaborate with state security institutions to suppress the MDC. This culture still undemocratically affects the opposition.

The ZANU PF national leadership even co-opted the security forces so that they could play a coercive role and support the auxiliary forces (war veterans and youth militias) in the mobilization and consolidation of the party-state, either behind the scenes or overtly. Paradzai Zimondi, the head of the Zimbabwe Prisons was clear that, ‘If the opposition wins the election, I will be the first one to resign from my job and go back to defend my piece of land. I will not let it go…I am giving you an order to vote for the President [Mugabe]’. The Army Chief of Staff Major General Martin Chedondo summed up this symbiotic relationship, ‘we have signed and agreed to fight and protect the ruling party’s principles of defending the revolution. If you have other thoughts, then you should remove that uniform’. As Hammar (2003:31) writes, there was ‘politicisation and co-optation of the army, police and intelligence agencies …for partisan ends’. Alongside the co-option of war veterans the co-option of traditional authorities intensified during Fast Track as ZANU PF perfected its strategy of closing off the rural areas to opposition supporters. The ruling party restored the powers of traditional authorities in order to regain control in the rural areas.

From an intellectual defense, such co-option of war veterans and traditional leaders would in ZANU PF’s imagination lend ‘legitimacy to the government’s on-going anti-colonial rhetoric’ and ‘appeal to a rural constituency’ (Fontein 2006:238) as ‘part of a continuing struggle of liberation against the forces of imperialism’ (McGregor 2002:10) ‘at a time of political discontent’ (Chaumba et al. 2003:599). Yet behind the big ideological rhetoric and mean intellectual linings was a very specific authoritarian project that morphed state institutions and led to the consolidation of party-state with a huge bearing on today’s politics, elections and national questions! Full stop.

*Dr Philani Zamchiya is an independent researcher and earned his doctorate in International Development from Oxford University