Iden Wetherell President Robert Mugabe can be forgiven for feeling rather besieged this week. He is on the receiving end of importunate members of Parliament reminding him of their sterling work on the electoral front and promises made of preferment. He is deeply hurt by the lyrics of songs belted out by opposition supporters at the opening of Parliament last week and he has reportedly been obliged to accept arrangements for his retirement in 2002. While the Cabinet has been announced, jobs in the lower echelons of the government remain hotly contested with a host of MPs claiming they were promised junior ministerial posts by Vice-President Simon Muzenda and other bigwigs. Despite the passage of a month since the general election the announcement of the new government has been plagued by jockeying and confusion. A number of hopefuls from the Young Turk wing of the ruling Zanu-PF have seen their well- advertised ambitions dashed – at least for now.
While unable to tame his own party, Mugabe has been reading the riot act to the opposition, who he accused of “lawlessness”.
“People are not allowed to scold and attack their
parents,” he told a meeting of his supporters last weekend. “We are the government. We have the
institutions of law and order.” He was referring to Movement for Demo- cratic
Change (MDC) youths who broke into a song questioning the parentage of his children during
the playing of the national anthem at the opening
of Parliament last week. As he arrived in the former British governor’s
vintage Rolls, accompanied by a full panoply of mounted policemen, he was greeted by a sea of
waving hands – the MDC’s chinja (change) sign – and derogatory songs which the lengthy anthem did little to suppress. Adding to the cacophony were rival songs of greeting from Zanu-PF Women’s League supporters
and war veterans brandishing clubs. There were
occasional skirmishes between the two groups as police officers used loudhailers to plead with the youths to respect the office of the president.
Mugabe’s sombre countenance concealed an inner
rage that only later found expression in threats
to deal with his youthful detractors. He is now staying away from football matches on what his advisers call “security grounds” – in
fact, to spare him similar outbursts from the
populace. Harare and Bulawayo have become enemy
territory for Zimbabwe’s beleaguered 76- year-old
ruler.
The government’s news agency Ziana reported last
weekend that a group of “kingmakers” had secured
the right to select Mugabe’s successor when his
term ends in 2002. They were, however, divided
between old-guard stalwart Emmerson Mnangagwa and the rehabilitated Simba Makoni. Mnangagwa has been brought back from electoral
oblivion by Zanu-PF to take up the parliamentary
speaker’s post while Makoni, who offended Mugabe
when as head of Zimpapers he tried to modernise
the state-owned press, is touted as the nation’s
saviour at the Ministry of Finance. Another contender for the top job, Ziana said,
could be Zanu-PF national chair and new Minister
of Home Affairs John Nkomo. On Monday the president’s office intervened to
have the Ziana report deleted from its records.
Despite being carried in newspapers around the
world there is now no record of it having existed.
Mugabe’s precarious position has moved the succession issue up the political agenda once
more. The much-heralded “new-look” Cabinet is seen as a clue to what the future may hold. But while
much hangs on “technocrats” like Makoni and new
Minister of Trade and Industry Nkosana Moyo, a respected banker, their scope for manoeuvre is
limited. The Cabinet is accountable to the dinosaurs in Zanu-PF’s politburo, not Parliament.
Furthermore, nearly half the Cabinet members have come in through the back door of Mugabe’s patronage. They were either defeated in the election, chose not to stand or have been plucked
from the private sector. In other words, they are without a power base of their own. The litmus test of the new team will be Mugabe’s
determination to impose price controls which
economists see as pointless given the government’s
role in fuelling inflation. The continued presence
of 9 000 Zimbabwean troops in the Congo and a
fixed exchange rate should also test the “new
thinking” Mugabe alluded to when announcing the
Cabinet two weeks ago. He hasn’t disclosed what exactly that new thinking may be. There certainly hasn’t been any evidence of it yet as army patrols continue to bludgeon township residents and war veterans attack farm workers for having supported the MDC. Farmers in a number of areas closed down operations this week while some sectors of commerce followed suit to protest against the ongoing violence.