With Zimbabwe’s power-sharing deal unravelling over a battle for key Cabinet posts and the refusal of Western powers to recognise it, the fall of Thabo Mbeki was the last thing the country needed.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and Zanu-PF have refused to comment officially on Mbeki’s resignation, saying it is an internal South African matter.
Within the parties, though, there is intense debate over whether Mbeki’s loss of influence, or a new South African government under Kgalema Motlanthe packed with ANC president Jacob Zuma’s allies, will reshape the process.
The Southern African Development Community wants Mbeki to stay on as mediator, but will seek direction from the South African government, SADC executive secretary Tomaz Salomão told the Mail & Guardian.
Even if he is retained, Mbeki’s clout will be substantially weaker. But an African diplomat in Harare said there is no obvious alternative candidate in the region “with the kind of stature needed to engage [Robert] Mugabe”.
“Mbeki has the institutional memory and the clout to move this forward,” the diplomat said.
The MDC strongly opposed Mbeki’s approach to Zimbabwe, at one time writing to the SADC to ask the organisation to replace him. Senior advisers of MDC leader and prime minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai even sought to have him drag out the process until Mbeki’s term ended.
The MDC was encouraged by a “parallel mediation” plan proposed by the ANC after the June run-off and by Zuma’s public remarks that Mugabe was “riding roughshod over the hard-won democratic rights of the people”.
However, Zanu-PF insiders say they are “quietly confident” there will be no sharp deviation from Mbeki’s approach, even if he is replaced.
Despite their similar struggle histories, the ANC and Zanu-PF are not historic allies, but Mbeki managed to bridge the divide. Realising it risked losing influence over ZanuPF after Mbeki’s departure, the new ANC leadership went about forging ties of its own with the Zimbabwean party while Mbeki continued mediating.
In July Motlanthe and ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe visited Zimbabwe, beginning a series of meetings with Zanu-PF that led to the formation of a joint committee “to maintain constant contact”, comprising senior officials of both parties and co-chaired by Mantashe and Zanu-PF secretary Didymus Mutasa.
Zanu-PF officials familiar with subsequent discussions in this committee are convinced there will be no real shift from Mbeki’s “quiet diplomacy” despite the ANC’s public criticism of the Mugabe regime.
During last year’s row over Mugabe’s attendance at the European Union-Africa summit, Motlanthe wrote that the United Kingdom’s refusal to fund Zimbabwe’s land reforms stood “at the heart of what has happened in Zimbabwe”, backing a central theme in Mugabe’s anti-imperialist rhetoric.
Motlanthe also supported the Mbeki approach, saying the ANC would not engage in “fruitless and self-serving rhetoric as many others have done”.
But a Tsvangirai foreign policy adviser said on Wednesday he believed the violent run-off campaign and the internal dynamics of the ANC had made a difference. The MDC expected “a firmer hand post-Mbeki”.
Some believe the new South African executive will not allow Mbeki to stay in the spotlight and may want to use Zimbabwe to boost its own foreign policy standing.
The deal is in desperate need of a fresh push as the euphoria of the signing gives way to new tensions and fears.
Tsvangirai and Mugabe have disagreed over the allocation of key ministries and both are under increasing pressure from powerful backers opposed to any accommodation.
Mugabe has called the agreement a “humiliation” and asked his central committee to “make the deal work”. Seeking to pacify his lieutenants, he said Zanu-PF remains in the “driving seat”. But his allies believe this will be confirmed only if Zanu-PF retains control of key ministries.
Zanu-PF fears the MDC wants justice and home affairs — the ministries that control the police — to drive a “retributive agenda”.
And while the agreement hands Tsvangirai the tough task of lifting Zimbabwe out of economic crisis, Mugabe still wants to retain control of ministries in the economic cluster, including finance.
“They want everything, all the key ministries,” Tsvangirai said.
Mugabe also agreed to share the posts of provincial governors, but MDC general secretary Tendai Biti said Zanu-PF now wants to keep all 10 seats. Governors form a key voting block in the Senate, and Mugabe is reluctant to relinquish them, given the MDC’s control of the lower house.
Tsvangirai is anxious to get down to addressing the economic crisis. This week he began countrywide tours to assess the extent of the food crisis, angering Zanu-PF radicals.
Patrick Chinamasa, ZanuPF’s lead negotiator, said talks on the allocation of ministries would resume only on Sunday, when Mugabe is expected to return from the United Nations general assembly. But Tsvangirai says the new government needs to start work urgently.
A new report published by the UN Development Programme, Comprehensive Economic Recovery in Zimbabwe, reveals the gravity of the task ahead.
It says it will take an unlikely 12 straight years of 5% annual growth to return Zimbabwe to its peak per capita income levels.
Tsvangirai is under pressure, with his Western allies refusing to recognise the deal and commit economic aid. United States ambassador James McGee, a strong Tsvangirai supporter, said “not a penny” would be given to Zimbabwe.
There is also despondency at the realisation that it may take months to drive the constitutional amendments needed to enforce the deal through Parliament.
No end to violence
Violence against opposition activists continues to ravage Zimbabwe and a new wave of farm invasions has been reported — despite last week’s power-sharing agreement.
Invasions have been reported in Mashonaland East, a Zanu-PF stronghold, and across the sugar belt in the south-east, which the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won in the March elections.
The government denies giving out new letters authorising the land seizures. Didymus Mutasa, the security minister in charge of land reform, has said his office halted new allocations last year.
But, with the power-sharing agreement seeking an audit of all resettled land, hundreds of top Zanu-PF officials who have creamed off the best farms have become nervous and are accused of leading a spike in farm violence.
Farms are being stripped of infrastructure and crops and livestock have been seized.
Last week a senior police officer arrived at a sugar estate east of the country, harvested the cane and sold it to a local sugar milling company, according to a report made to the Justice for Agriculture pressure group.
The invasions are likely to delay any attempts to revive agriculture, a task Thabo Mbeki last week said should be a priority of Zimbabwe’s new unity government.
A report published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) last week said land seizures had left more than a million destitute.
“In the aftermath of the land invasions, more than 200 000 farm workers and their families — an estimated 1-million people – lost their livelihoods and homes, as well as access to farm schools and other social amenities,” the UNDP said in its report Comprehensive Economic Recovery in Zimbabwe.
The MDC is also reporting new political attacks. In Mbare, a poor township in Harare, 61 people were allegedly assaulted at a police station where they had sought shelter after being evicted from their homes by Zanu-PF militiamen. Celebrating the agreement got 25 people arrested in rural Buhera.
Zanu-PF’s Patrick Chinamasa denied the violence, claiming the MDC was attacking Zanu-PF supporters to sink the agreement.