After exhausting the land reform programme theme as a vote-catching gimmick, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has embarked on an anti-corruption crackdown as yet another ploy ahead of next year’s parliamentary election.
Mugabe himself took the initiative to situate the anti-corruption campaign at the vortex of national discourse and effectively made it the centrepiece of his election drive.
He recently announced that the general election would be held next March. Mugabe said he would retire in five years but would remain in politics.
Zanu-PF officials such as Chinhoyi MP Phillip Chiyangwa and party central committee member James Makamba and a number of businessmen have been netted in the current crackdown on corruption.
New Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, who is battling to re-organise the country’s chaotic financial system and put the economy on a path to recovery, is brandished by government as the messianic corruption-buster.
Mugabe’s government is already showcasing Gono’s moves as evidence of reform and national rehabilitation.
Zanu-PF is desperately trying to whitewash its appalling political and economic record and repackage itself as a party. Anachronistic tendencies and hysterical anti-Western sabre-rattling are being toned down, despite intermittent vitriolic outbursts motivated by international pressure and political grandstanding.
The language of reform has not only been embraced by Gono, currently meeting Western donors to market his economic reconstruction measures, but also by government hardliners.
This week government spokesperson and Information Minister Jonathan Moyo said Zimbabwe will repay its long-standing debts to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to avoid losing its membership.
Moyo said the move was designed to “increase our credit rating”. The IMF last year threatened to expel Harare for failing to service its debts.
Although Mugabe is decidedly anti-IMF, he realises the country has no choice but to deal with the Bretton Woods institutions. Last week he said it was better to deal with the World Bank.
His “look East” policy has clearly failed as countries such as Japan and China have increasingly moved towards the West.
This failure by Mugabe to adapt to global realities has been at the centre of his policy contradictions since independence from Britain in 1980.
When he came to power he tried, to no avail, to reshape Zimbabwe’s politics along socialist lines by aligning himself with the Soviet bloc and Stalinist states like North Korea, while the economy was assertively capitalist and linked to Western economic systems.
The result was a damaging clash between his political vision and economic reality. Mugabe’s economic technocrats and advisers would come up with market-oriented policies, only for him to dump them at funerals and rallies on the wave
of his customary populist rhetoric.
A political cost-benefit analysis of Mugabe’s current election strategy shows that there is more for him to lose than to gain. The strategy, although currently making a positive impact, could, in the long-run, yield negative returns unless properly managed, especially insofar as its impact on Mugabe’s succession battle is concerned.
The succession struggle has been raging for some time now but no clear and indisputable heir apparent has managed to emerge although Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa has often been touted as the anointed successor.
However, Mnangagwa now seems to be damaged goods after reports that he was under investigation for corruption involving precious minerals at the Democratic Republic of Congo.
This has left his rivals rubbing their hands with glee and poised to capitalise on this chink in his armour. Mnangagwa’s rivals are seen as Special Affairs Minister John Nkomo and Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi. Former finance minister Simba Makoni has also been mentioned.
The ongoing graft-related arrests and investigations have fuelled Zanu-PF infighting and spawned a dog-eat-dog political combat.
Personal and political scores appear set to be settled through the campaign.
However, Mugabe has always been a volatile demagogue and sometimes unpredictable, in particular in his penchant for doing the unthinkable.
Zanu-PF insiders are beginning to suspect that he could be trying to manoeuvre Gono through the backdoor as a possible successor. Gono, using delegated power, is now powerful and, some say, ambitious.
Top Zanu-PF officials who have tried to threaten him to avoid investigation have hit a brick wall and been forced to retreat.
Although Gono is an upstart in the Zanu-PF scheme of things, fears abound in the ruling party that he is being packaged by Zanu-PF royalty as Mugabe’s successor.
Dumisani Muleya is the chief reporter of the Zimbabwe Independent