Iden Wetherell Crossfire
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has crafted a predictable excuse for his party’s dismal performance in last month’s parliamentary poll. Zanu-PF was up against the forces of British and Ameri-can imperialism, he told his followers, and in the circumstances did pretty well. “The totality of the weaponry of the British, newspapers and television systems, all of them were mobilised in one giant effort to fight this election,” he said, describing the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as agents of London and Washington. Zanu-PF won 62 seats against the MDC’s 57 in the June 24/25 poll. It had previously held all but three of the 120 elected seats. The opposition won a majority of the total votes cast despite failing to secure a majority of seats. Most Zimbabweans have no access to foreign newspapers or television stations. What they see is a heavily massaged news output that portrays Mugabe as a visionary leader fulfilling a historic mission to empower his people. Any challenge to his demagoguery is characterised as reactionary resistance by vested – read white – interests.
The president’s explanation for his party’s poor showing was immediately retailed by the government’s chief spin doctor, Professor Jonathan Moyo. “Did powerful international interests connive with the world media, donor community, NGOs, churches and former Rhodesians to manipulate and subvert the will of the people?” he asked before providing the answer. “Powerful racial and economic interests tried but failed to change the government of Zimbabwe through legislative elections under deceptive pretexts of democracy and human rights.” This is the explanation Mugabe and his minions are hawking to a country that unequivocally repudiated Zanu-PF’s claim to be the nation’s torch-bearer. Despite regulation of the media, suppression of opposition voices, brutal coercion of farmworkers and villagers, and abuse of public resources by Zanu-PF, it suffered the biggest electoral setback of any ruling party in the region since the 1994 fall of Hastings Banda’s dictatorship in Malawi. While the significance of this outcome may be lost on the myopic rulers in Harare, it should not be lost on the region where governments rushed to support Mugabe’s predatory election campaign. In the name of nationalist solidarity South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland and Zambia turned a blind eye to the killings and abductions, swallowing Mugabe’s spurious claim to be engaged in a mission to right past wrongs. The fact that his government had quietly buried a donors’ agreement to resettle thousands of landless people because it proved politically inconvenient was overlooked. So was the lawlessness that enabled Zanu-PF supporters to kill and loot at will while the police looked on. At least 32 people died and thousands were displaced.
Nobody could teach Mugabe about the rule of law, Namibia’s President Sam Nujoma lectured journalists after the Victoria Falls summit in April. Incredibly, despite the outcome showing that Zimbabweans had unambiguously rejected the rhetoric of a delinquent nationalism, the same leaders lined up to congratulate Mugabe on his “victory”. Namibia’s ruling Swapo said the election result had sent a “strong signal to all Western countries that Africans will not sell their birthright”. It referred to Western “stooges” and said the former colonial powers had “unashamedly offended the concept of race solidarity” in their pronouncements on land.
Tanzania’s President Benjamin Mkapa echoed this theme when he said Mugabe’s retention of power “has helped to shore up the pride and dignity of not only Zimbabweans but also of those Africans with a sense of history and vision for continued independent nationhood”. The African National Congress, although more restrained in its rhetoric, showed every sign of relief that Zanu-PF had managed to cling on. In earlier talks between the two parties, ANC Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe bought the argument that political killings had been exaggerated and that the struggle in Zimbabwe centred on land rather than Mugabe’s record of misrule. The view that Mugabe, not the majority of Zimbabweans, was the authentic voice of African aspirations poses an obvious problem. Firstly it represents a refusal to recognise democratic outcomes. Despite the fact that Zanu-PF has a majority of five, the country has undergone a revolution. The pretensions of rulers wedded to the mantras of an earlier era – including exploitation of race and land issues – have been decisively spurned by an electorate desperately seeking to improve their lives through economic growth and jobs. Four white MPs were elected with huge majorities by black voters. Thousands of farm workers evidently preferred their employers to those claiming to be their liberators. Mugabe’s message of racial division and foreign conspiracy manifestly failed to travel among a people his party has systematically impoverished. There is a clear lesson here for regimes trading on their nationalist credentials. A new nationalism has emerged over the past 10 years. It values democracy and good governance. It regards the rule of law not as a bourgeois indulgence but as a cornerstone for growth. And it insists that political parties perform; that they provide opportunities through effective economic management. Stale rhetoric, including appeals for revolutionary solidarity against imagined foes, no longer does the trick. Judging by their response to Zimbabwe’s election, it seems as if the region’s rulers are rigidly determined to ignore that lesson. Iden Wetherell is deputy editor of the Zimbabwe Independent