President Robert Mugabe’s refusal to sign into law the controversial NGO Bill and his pledge to compensate farmers for assets and improvements to seized land are the result of international pressure, say observers. They add that he is pandering to his rural constituency, whose votes handed Zanu-PF a two-thirds majority in the March 31 parliamentary elections.
During his election sortie into rural areas, chiefs and headmen frequently complained to the 81-year-old leader that NGOs had “deserted” them and that hunger was stalking the hinterland.
Mugabe himself, albeit belatedly in the election campaign, acknowledged that his country was experiencing food shortages. Several foreign relief agencies operating in the country scaled back operations or withdrew completely, depriving particularly rural people of humanitarian aid because of the contentious NGO Bill.
The Bill sought to regulate NGOs which the state accused of meddling in politics and, in its current form, bars groups from receiving foreign funding for governance programmes.
The Standard newspaper in Zimbabwe reports that Mugabe has refused to sign the NGO Bill because it is “too obnoxious” and has referred it back for further consultation.
Labour Minister Paul Mangwana and Zanu-PF publicity chief Nathan Shamuyarira have reportedly been given the task of engaging civic bodies on the Bill — a move it is hoped will pave the way for NGOs to resume humanitarian work.
“Our nation has once again successfully mobilised the ballot box to repulse imperialism and safeguard the gains of our hard-won struggle. And as always, our rural voters were the vanguard in the sweet defence of our sovereignty,” Mugabe told his Zanu-PF central committee last Sunday. “The rural communities remain the most consistent, reliable and decisive pillar of support for the party.
“Today we salute them for a battle well fought.”
Mugabe’s glowing tribute to his rural supporters solicited a stinging rebuttal from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). “He should be ashamed of himself, he is a president of rural poverty,” responded MDC spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi. “Zanu-PF has used poverty as an instrument of coercion.”
World Food Programme officials in Zimbabwe have repeatedly stated that hunger and poverty have been compounded by the land reforms that economists have described as “hurried and haphazard”.
Now the government has indicated, through former lands minister John Nkomo, who was this week appointed Speaker of Parliament, that it intends compensating about 822 white farmers for assets and improvements made to farms, but not for the land itself. A figure of £12-million (about R139-million) has reportedly been allocated for this purpose.
Government evaluators have been appointed to determine the value of the improvements.
Economist Eric Bloch told the Mail & Guardian: “We don’t know whether the compensation is based on value when the farms were taken, or value that includes interest to date. Would there be inflation adjusted figures for crops that were on the ground, immovable property destroyed during the course of the invasions and farm implements that disappeared without trace?”
The bone of contention is how government evaluators arrived at their compensation figures.
Under the 1990 Land Acquisition Act, farmers can lodge formal complaints with the administrative courts.
Meanwhile, former Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa, who lost his Kwekwe constituency to the MDC, was thrown a lifeline when he landed one of the 30 parliamentary seats the Zimbabwean president is entitled to fill. Mnangagwa, regarded as Mugabe’s preferred choice as successor, fell out of favour with the Zanu-PF old guard, who backed Joyce Mujuru as vice-president.
Six Zanu-PF provincial chairpersons were suspended for attending a meeting at Tsholotsho to aid Mnangagwa’s bid for the post.
When the former speaker of Parliament, affectionately known as “Ngwena” (crocodile), took his oath, the MDC shouted: “You are our vice-president, Ngwena, you got six chairpersons out of 10. You were cheated and I feel sorry for you.”
When Mujuru stepped up to take her oath, the raucous opposition chided: “You cheated mama, give it back to Mnangagwa.”
Former information minister Jonathan Moyo, who won the Tsholotsho constituency as an independent, sparked a chorus of “Tsholotsho, Tsholotsho, Tsholotsho” chants at the swearing-in ceremony. He was allowed to take up a prominent place on the opposition benches.
Then the opposition taunted Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Agriculture Minister Joseph Made — Moyo’s erstwhile allies in the Mnangagwa camp: “Do us a favour, come and greet your friend Jonathan here among us.”