Even amid Zimbabwe’s increasing instability, life in suburban Harare has remained more or less predictable.
Which is why Sunday morning shoppers at a suburban shopping mall, popular with young professionals and the well-heeled, stood stunned as they watched the store manager of a branch of one of the country’s largest retail chains being dragged out of his store by the back of his collar, pinned to the tarmac, whipped and finally thrown into the back of a truck by police.
Minutes later hoards of bargain hunters descended on the store, scooping up goods at reduced government-imposed prices, as a unit of what has come to be known as ”the inflation police” kept an eye on the unfolding stampede.
Days earlier, President Robert Mugabe had threatened the seizure of businesses he said were sabotaging his government, warning them to be ready for a ”rough game”.
”Let everybody who is in business take note. This is now going to be a rough game. We own the resources. We are the owners of this economy. We will seize those companies, we will nationalise them. We will no longer stand for their dirty tricks.”
Many were initially inclined to interpret Mugabe’s comments as a continuation of his trademark fiery rhetoric. But by Wednesday this week, a police spokesperson said more than 200 business people had been arrested since the imposition last week of a directive from Mugabe’s government that supermarkets slash by half the prices of all basic commodities.
Supermarkets reacted immediately to the order by removing basic goods from the shelves. But now they have to contend with the ”price monitors”, an aggressive, mob-like mix of police and Zanu-PF militia deployed to supermarkets, warehouses and even the homes of industrialists to force them to sell all their goods at half price.
Until now, the victims of state-sponsored violence have usually been the poor. So when wealthy supermarket owners faced direct threats against their security, their meek resistance was easily broken.
At OK supermarkets, the country’s largest supermarket chain, executives said a computer program updated prices at midnight, using the latest cost of new inventory arriving from suppliers. This meant every store manager’s first chore, before opening every morning, was to replace the previous day’s price tags with new ones showing higher prices.
But this week, under the scrutiny of government officials, store workers went about putting up new price tags showing lowered prices, an unheard of task in a country where prices are known to double in a day.
This new direction in Zimbabwe’s struggling economy is accompanied by an aggressive state media campaign to portray business as the driver of the country’s world record inflation, an attempt to deflect all blame from Mugabe’s administration.
Critics speculate that Mugabe could be acting with an eye on next year’s election. Although his party is expected to win, he is desperate to gain the vote of the urban poor, from which the opposition draws much of its support.
Mugabe is keen, say critics, to show that he remains in control of the inflation-ravaged economy. A further sign that his government is angling towards an all-out command of the economy came last week with the publication of a Bill it says is meant to increase local ownership of the economy.
”I suppose the logic behind this thinking is that because, in 2000, the land invasions won them an election, company seizures could do the same in 2008,” says Tony Hawkins, a business professor at the University of Zimbabwe.
The most bizarre result of the price cuts has been swarms of shoppers stocking up on anything they can find on shop shelves, even items that have not really been marked down. Because stores have stopped buying new supplies, the next stop for the inflation police has been the suppliers, who are now being accused of withholding products from retailers.
On Tuesday, police raided Irvines Chickens, the country’s main supplier of poultry products, roughed up staff and demanded that the company sell whatever stocks it had left.
But attacking suppliers could be politically tricky and backfire, as it will mean attacking senior Zanu-PF officials, many of whom own large estates and industries. A Zanu-PF senator has already been detained briefly over the price war, while a Chinese company with reported links to the ruling party has admitted to hoarding basic goods.