Just fifteen years ago, FW De Klerk altered the South African paradigm when he unbanned the African National Congress and released Nelson Mandela. In the years that followed, many other paradigms were shifted and other forms of statesmanship displayed as a transition was successfully negotiated.
Two weeks ago, the Zimbabwean election date was announced by Robert Mugabe’s government. Can we expect statesmanship? It is not a safe bet and this raises a host of questions about the role outside governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental agencies in attempting to assist the democratic process in Zimbabwe.
What is the role of external mediation in this environment, or does this amount to window-dressing without absence of the sort of political culture and fundamental, deep-seated compromise that made the South African transition possible? Or is Pretoria attempting, perhaps unwittingly at times, to export its own transition model to non-receptive situations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Burundi and other hotspots in Africa, including Zimbabwe, and should it change its tack?
The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has formally decided to participate in the election, but it runs considerable risks. Yet the MDC is damned if it does participate, and damned if it doesn’t. It runs the risk of losing legitimacy if its refuses to take part, yet, also risks granting Zanu-PF the legitimacy it craves if it does.
During the last Zimbabwean presidential election, three years ago, it was clear to many observers that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) election norms were flouted, this in spite of the fact that some of the electoral observer missions closed ranks around Zimbabwe’s leadership and ruling party.
But since that time, things have changed, inside Zimbabwe, the region and internationally.
Inside Zimbabwe, the economy and the political environment has — if you are not a member of the Zanu-PF elite — gone from bad to worse. With an economy in steep decline, want and hunger now visible and growing rates of Aids infection, it is not as easy now, as it was even then, to decree that governance is well in Zimbabwe.
And the regional environment has changed with elections in South Africa, Botswana, Malawi and Mozambique during the past two years all going relatively smoothly.
Despite the lack of protest about the obvious faultlines in the Mozambican elections, the international mood on rigged elections has changed. Events in Ukraine show that not only domestic populations, but also many sectors of the international community, are no longer prepared to turn the other cheek when it comes to blatant usurping of the electoral process.
Yet the expulsion of the Congress of South African Trade Unions’s recent mission to meet with its Zimbabwean counterpart does not bode well for the chances of a free poll. Given that the opposition has little choice but to participate, can anything be done at this late stage to ensure that the elections are not a sham? Since they are now going ahead, the “democratic space” can be enlarged and the elections made freer and fairer by a range of measures, including the presence of monitors ensuring freedom of association, expression and movement, and allowing local and international NGOs to go about their business.
To get there, Pretoria and other SADC governments might soon have to exercise some leverage. A first step towards achieving this would be for SADC governments to say clearly that they will not tolerate a gerrymandered election, and that what has been going on in Zimbabwe is wrong. It is now clear that Mugabe has ignored all of the SADC protocols for free and fair elections, which he signed up to in August last year.
Greg Mills is the national director of the South African Institute of International Affairs