Since the fateful events of March 11 to 13 and the enormous amount of media attention that surrounded them, I have read numerous reports about the brutality of the state’s response to a peaceful public gathering. Yet the one that has remained fixed in my mind is an SMS I received from MDC secretary general Tendai Biti the day after his release.
It read: “The assault was so surreal that, even at this stage, I haven’t yet come to terms with it. In the particular case of Morgan Tsvangirai, Grace Kwinjeh and Lovemore Madhuku, the intention was to kill. In my case, they hit me so much and only stopped at the insistence of other onlooking policemen. Two amazing things. None of us cried during the murder attempts. Secondly, we were so helpless against the brutality that no one could defend the other. Our spirits are not broken. I know we will be back on the streets again. Maybe this time they will finish the unfinished business. Who cares?”
The answer to Biti’s question is that there has been widespread condemnation of Mugabe’s barbaric treatment of Zimbabwe’s opposition members. It is almost as if the hubris and latest example of the Mugabe regime’s “degrees in violence” has provided the impetus that a frustrated African and Western diplomatic community was looking for to push the Zimbabwe question beyond the politics of a continuing stalemate.
The result has been a convergence of forces at national, regional and international levels to push for a new political dispensation in Zimbabwe within the context that has been referred to as a “tipping point” in the country’s history.
Beyond the understandable longing for change in the country, it is clear there is a complex balance of forces in the country that is more likely to lead to a very messy and difficult “transition” beyond the current crisis. While there has been the beginning of a renewal of opposition morale and a distinctive message about the need for greater unity, there is much left to be done to remove the repressive Mugabe regime. There is certainly more discord now within the ruling party than there has been throughout the post-colonial period, focused on the stubborn but politically decaying figure of Robert Mugabe.
Predictably with autocratic figures such as Mugabe, once their ruling parties are confronted with a growing array of opposition and resistance, the same party structures that acquiesced in the centralisation of leadership powers begin to rebel against such monopolisation of power when it threatens the broader architecture of the political party. We have seen the process in countries such as Kenya and Malawi in Africa and Bulgaria and Romania, among others, in Eastern Europe.
It was always a mistake to regard a party such as Zanu-PF, with such a history of fractiousness and violent internal conflicts, as a monolithic structure. Mugabe only took the reins of power in Zanu-PF in the late Seventies, through a close relationship with the military, which has remained his closest ally.
He spent the first decade of independence consolidating his power in the state and ruling party, but at the expense of developing any democratic framework in either. He dealt firmly with any opposition within his own party, despite the lack of alternatives to him in the ruling party. Edgar Tekere’s recent biography reveals as much about the poverty of alternatives to Mugabe in Zanu-PF, not least of which is Tekere himself, as about the machinations of Mugabe.
Mugabe is now confronted by internal factions that also have a base within the army and security organs, but which lack a credible national political presence in the country. It is probably this possibility of conflict within the military, and the security threat it poses, that is of most concern to the region and in particular to South Africa.
Notwithstanding the existence of these factions in his party, Mugabe recently contrived with his allies in Zanu-PF to extract, from the party’s central committee, the nomination to stand for the presidency again in 2008. This move indicates Mugabe’s sense that, at present, he alone can both guide his party and oversee his eventual stepping down from power.
Moreover, Mugabe is attempting to re-energise the war veterans who formed the cutting edge of his post-2000 campaign of state violence and authoritarian reconfiguration of the state. As one-time war veteran leader Joseph Chinotimba warned fellow veterans: “Comrades, if the president goes next year, most of us will be hanged. If he goes, we will go down with him. We have to campaign for him.” While such fears are probably an exaggeration, given the balance of power that is likely to characterise a political transition in the current context, they are indicative of the kind of zero-sum politics that Mugabe has made his own.
Yet Mugabe now faces a much broader array of challenges in his attempt to prolong his stay. Aside from opponents within his party, Mugabe must now contend with the emerging consensus between Africa and the West about his future. Over the last two weeks, both the African Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have become more concentrated on developing a post-Mugabe dispensation, although it needs to be added that the sensitivities around being “told what to do about Zimbabwe” by the West remain.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the South African government is feeling more confident about developing a more effective consensus over its policy of “quiet diplomacy” in the light of Mugabe’s greater vulnerability and the growing rift in his power base.
Additionally, Mugabe’s capacity to deploy the anti-imperialist trope that has so effectively helped to build his image in Africa, as someone prepared to challenge the West, has been dealt a heavy blow by the latest example of how such an extroverted ideological battle cry translates into the politics of repression at a domestic level.
In such circumstances, the concerned voices in the region, in particular the hushed tones of discontent in the South African government, feel more emboldened about urging new initiatives on the Zimbabwe question without finding themselves so easily snagged in the ideological traps of the “great liberator”. In a broader sense, the most recent widespread civic criticisms of the Mugabe regime, in Africa and at global level, have also eroded the popular pretensions of the Zimbabwean leader.
In the national context, the opposition forces continue to face major challenges, despite the strong moral standing they now hold. Subjected to severe state harassment, violence and infiltration since the late Nineties, the capacity of the political and civic opposition has been seriously affected. Although there have been very encouraging indications of a movement towards more unified actions and coordination, and a resurgence in the sense of hope for the possibility of change, much remains to be done to strengthen the capacity of opposition structures and to deal with the legacy of the split in the MDC.
Nevertheless, while domestic opposition forces are currently vulnerable, they remain a key element in any calculation to move towards a new political process. Moreover, they are likely to benefit from any opening of political and media spaces in the country, in the event that a transitional process begins. For, in such an expanded political space, what remains of Zanu-PF’s legitimacy is likely to be sorely tested.
In the light of these processes, the current situation in Zimbabwe should be approached with extreme caution and with a guarded sense of possibility. The decision by SADC at the end of March to appoint President Thabo Mbeki as a mediator in Zimbabwe is an important step forward in finding a way through the crisis.
Despite the public statements of solidarity with Mugabe that emerged out of the extraordinary SADC summit in Tanzania, it is clear that Mugabe was left in little doubt that his fellow leaders in the region now see him as a liability. This position has emerged because of a combination of factors, namely the increasingly unquestionable brutality of the Mugabe regime and the growing pressure from the West. Mbeki now has a chance to use the full weight of SADC to place pressure on Mugabe to engage in dialogue with his opponents.
The South African president’s central priority will be to ensure that the Mugabe regime provides the conditions for a free and fair election in 2008, the result of which will find general acceptability. This will be an enormous task given the criminal nature of the Mugabe state and the damage that has been done to the political culture in Zimbabwe.
Additionally, the time frame for Mbeki’s mission is short, especially given the broad demand by both formations of the MDC and the civics that constitutional reform should precede elections. However, this need not be an impediment to Mbeki, given the groundwork that has already been done on proposals for constitutional reform in the country since 2000.
The SADC initiative provides the best opportunity in the current context to stop from descending into a deepening crisis. With the combined momentum of national, regional and international pressure for change, the reactionary and thuggish structures that constitute the Mugabe regime should not be allowed to halt progress towards a political settlement in the country.
The result of such a settlement is likely to be an untidy compromise with the forces of the ruling party but, provided that most of the conditions are met for a free and fair election in 2008, or an alternative agreed-upon date, this will provide the space to fight for the more substantive changes that are needed to reconstruct the framework of the country’s politics.
Brian Raftopoulos is the head of the Transitional Justice in Africa programme at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation