The African National Congress is presenting a unified front on the March 31 elections in Zimbabwe, but behind the scenes there is increasing debate in the ruling party about how to deal with the political and economic crisis north of the Limpopo.
Controversy has intensified in South Africa and Zimbabwe since Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana, who heads the government’s observer mission, reportedly told Zimbabwean state radio and television on Monday that all was in place for a free and fair election.
President Thabo Mbeki and Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma have made similar remarks in recent weeks.
But many in the ANC are increasingly uncomfortable with the approach of the government and the party. They include members of the South African Communist Party — a robust critic of President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF in recent months — and others with no specific association with the left of the tripartite alliance.
“We are a bit dismayed by the statements of some of those representing South Africa, particularly the minister of labour. It seems to be an exceptionally partisan and ill-informed statement, and we hope the South African government will speak to him about it,” said SACP deputy secretary general Jeremy Cronin, a member of the ANC’s national executive committee.
“We believe it’s extremely unlikely that there can be any effective compliance with SADC [Southern African Development Community] protocols in this election.
“The South African and SADC observer missions need to state very accurately what happens so that we don’t undermine the protocols. That there will be non-compliance is obvious. That should be noted, not simply to say whether the election is free and fair, but to say what should be done afterwards.”
The government and the ANC’s approach, two senior ANC officials told the Mail & Guardian, is premised on the belief that Zanu-PF will win the election, that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change is too unstable and inexperienced to lead Zimbabwe’s reconstruction and that new leaders in Zanu-PF must be identified and supported.
“Even if Zimbabwe complied fully with all the SADC guidelines, Zanu-PF would win — not by such a big margin, but they would win,” said one MP who was party to foreign policy discussions.
“In a sense the hope has been that Zanu-PF would get 66%, so that in constitutional reform you have to deal with one party and push one party in the right direction,” another official said.
However, party insiders say there is deepening concern over the failure of attempts to drive change.
“There is consensus that Zanu-PF has gone seriously wrong — no one denies that. The real debate in the ANC is where the change will come from. Some feel that still, somewhere in Zanu, there is the capacity to stabilise and turn around Zimbabwe — perhaps by tapping recently marginalised figures like Emmerson Mnangagwa.”
Mnangagwa, the Speaker of Parliament and Mugabe’s former close ally, is out of favour because he is seen as a rival for party leadership. As head of state security in the 1980s he presided over the massacre of at least 20 000 people in Matabeleland — the heartland of opposition to Mugabe — by the notorious 5th Brigade.
South African intelligence agents in Zimbabwe, it is suggested, aimed to identify alternative centres of power in Zanu-PF.
But the repeated failure of efforts to nudge Zimbabwe toward negotiated transition has created deep scepticism about this strategy in some quarters.
“[The SACP] reading is that the government is trying to lock the major stakeholders in Zimbabwe into a transitional process involving negotiations, legislative reform and transition ultimately to a freer election. That has been scuppered by Zanu-PF and its insistence on the March 31 date,” said Cronin.
One veteran ANC back-bencher said he felt the same way about government policy on Zimbabwe as about being forced to vote for legislation legalising abortion. “The president says unconscionable things about Zimbabwe and we can’t say anything about it,” he said.
“Certainly there’s no solution that doesn’t involve Zanu-PF cadres,” argues another MP, “but I’d have serious doubts about the capacity of the leadership to address anything other than their own short-term interests. The real energy has to come from outside the party.
“They need not another flawed election, but a transition to democracy.”
Government spokesperson Joel Netshitenze said after Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting that no one should prejudge whether the election will be free and fair.
Netshitenze said the South African government delegation would try to intervene where “concrete instances” of concern arose.