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Zimbabwe:
A regional solution?
International
Crisis Group
Africa Report No.132
September 18, 2007
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5083&l=1
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Executive
Summary
Six months before scheduled
elections, Zimbabwe is closer than ever to complete collapse. Inflation
is between 7,600 per cent (government figures) and 13,000 per cent
(independent estimates). Four out of five of the country's
twelve million people live below the poverty line and a quarter
have fled, mainly to neighbouring countries. A military-led campaign
to slash prices has produced acute food and fuel shortages, and
conducting any business is becoming almost impossible. An initiative
launched by the regional intergovernmental organisation, the Southern
Africa Development Community (SADC), to facilitate a negotiated
political solution offers the only realistic chance to escape a
crisis that increasingly threatens to destabilise the region. But
SADC must resolve internal differences about how hard to press into
retirement Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's 83-year-old president
and liberation hero, and the wider international community needs
to give it full support.
Following a government
crackdown on the opposition in early March 2007, SADC mandated South
Africa's President Thabo Mbeki to mediate between the ruling
Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), with the objectives of securing
agreement on constitutional reform ahead of March 2008 elections
and ending the economic crisis. The SADC initiative is fragile but
South Africa and the other regional countries are the only external
actors with a chance to make a difference. Western sanctions -
mainly targeting just over 200 members of the leadership with travel
bans and asset freezes - have proven largely symbolic, and
general condemnations from the UK and U.S. if anything counterproductive
because they help Mugabe claim he is the victim of neo-colonial
ambitions.
The regime needs external
financial support to maintain its patronage networks and shore up
the economy before risking elections (or before desperate people
riot), and its request for a rescue package gives the regional initiative
crucial leverage if SADC is willing to use it. Nevertheless, the
challenges are daunting. Mugabe outmanoeuvred rivals in March 2007
to gain the ZANU-PF nomination for a new term. The party seeks to
bypass Mbeki's mediation by advancing a unilateral constitutional
amendment that would tighten its hold on power by rigging the electoral
process and ensuring it can name an eventual successor to Mugabe
without a new popular vote. The MDC is bitterly divided and appears
unable to mobilise effective opposition.
South Africa and the
SADC mistrust the MDC, especially its larger faction led by Morgan
Tsvangirai, and would like to see a government of national unity
emerge led by a reformed ZANU-PF. Some SADC leaders remain Mugabe
supporters, and there is a risk the organisation will accept cosmetic
changes that further entrench the status quo. The ultimate objective
of the reform process, however, is not regime change as such but
to guarantee that all adult citizens can freely and fairly choose
their rulers and that an electorally legitimated government can
reengage with donors to turn the economy around. There is little
likelihood that the opposition - so long as it remains badly
fractured - can win an election in 2008, so the political
risks the ruling party and SADC members who distrust the opposition
are being asked to take are relatively limited.
It is critical that all
international actors close ranks behind the Mbeki mediation. SADC
should use its leverage and extend the desperately needed aid package
and ask the West to lift its sanctions - such as they are
- only in exchange for full ZANU-PF cooperation with the mediation
process and implementation of reforms that will allow free and fair
elections as early as possible in 2008. If such cooperation is not
forthcoming, Mbeki should candidly and promptly acknowledge failure,
and SADC should refuse to endorse any election not a product of
the mediation and be prepared to isolate Mugabe and his regime.
The regional body should
also enlist a panel of retired African presidents to help Mbeki
prevail on Mugabe to accept and implement reforms and most critically
convince him to retire in 2008. The wider international community
should make detailed preparations to contribute to Zimbabwe's
recovery if the mediation succeeds but also be ready to apply tougher
sanctions if it collapses.
Recommendations
To South
Africa and Other SADC Member States:
1. Pursue mediation to
obtain ZANU-PF and MDC agreement on constitutional revisions and
related legislative and regulatory measures that permit free and
fair elections in 2008 consistent with the August 2004 SADC principles
and guidelines, including:
(a) repeal
of the Public
Order and Security Act (POSA), the Access
to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and other
repressive legislation such as the Private
Voluntary Organisations Act (PVO), so as to create a level playing
field for all parties;
(b) an independent Electoral
Commission and a new electoral law that provides in particular for:
i. return to the 2000
constituency boundaries for parliamentary elections, with repeal
of subsequent gerrymandering and rejection of ZANU-PF's proposal
to create an additional 90 seats;
ii. merger into one
body, with clear responsibilities, of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission,
the Election Supervisory Commission, the registrar-general's
office and the Electoral Delimitation Commission;
iii. inter-party consultations
and clear procedures for consensual appointment of electoral commission
members with secure tenure as well as civilian returns and polling
officers; repeal of Electoral Commission Act provisions for secondment
of military, police and prisons service personnel for election tasks;
and
iv. extensive voter
education;
(c) review of the voters
roll by the new independent Electoral Commission, to include removal
of ghost voters and enfranchisement of citizens in the diaspora;
(d) independent adjudication
of electoral disputes by judges who are vetted in advance by an
agreed procedure and have secure tenure; and
(e) unrestricted access
to the media for all political players during the election period.
2. Inform President Mugabe,
the ZANU-PF delegation at the mediated talks and the Joint Operational
Command (JOC) that unless constitutional and related legal reforms
as listed above are adopted and implemented, SADC will at the very
least not endorse the elections as free and fair and will refuse
to extend economic assistance.
3. Establish a team of
retired African heads of state and senior military officers to discuss
with the ZANU-PF leadership and President Mugabe the terms and conditions
for his retirement in 2008 and the guarantees necessary for him
and the military establishment to accept democratic institutional
reforms.
4. Extend economic assistance
to Zimbabwe and call for the lifting of targeted Western sanctions
on establishment figures only if ZANU-PF and President Mugabe cooperate
fully with the mediation process and implement the agreed reforms
so as to allow free and fair elections in 2008.
5. Facilitate agreement
by the parties to postpone the March 2008 elections to a date later
in the year if necessary to put in place and implement the constitutional
reforms and other changes required to ensure a free and fair process.
To President
Mugabe, the Government of Zimbabwe and ZANU-PF:
6. Declare officially
the end of the "Third Chimurenga" (struggle period)
and dissolve the JOC.
7. Engage without reservation
in the South African-led SADC initiative and support the above reforms
in order to provide Zimbabweans with free and fair elections in
2008 and to end the political and economic crisis.
To the MDC Factions Led
by Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara:
8. Maintain a united
front in the South African-led talks, form a coalition for the 2008
elections, agree on a mechanism to choose common presidential and
parliamentary candidates and rebuild consensus with civil society
organisations on a joint strategy to promote democratic change.
To the U.S.,
the European Union (EU), EU Member States and the Wider International
Community:
9. Support the SADC initiative
by publicly clarifying commitments to assist Zimbabwe's economic
recovery once democratic reforms are implemented and a democratically-elected
government is in place and by refraining from statements undermining
that initiative.
10. Consider taking the
following steps in the event that the SADC initiative fails:
(a) expand existing
limited sanctions from measures targeted solely at senior members
of Zimbabwe's government, ruling party and supporting business
establishment to bars on their own nationals and national banking
and commercial establishments' engaging in specified business
and financial activities beneficial to the regime;
(b) refer Zimbabwe for
discussion at the United Nations Security Council as a first step
towards finding a UN-backed solution to the crisis;
(c) insist on renegotiating
procedures that require all humanitarian aid monies to be exchanged
at the Zimbabwe Reserve Bank for local currency at wholly unrealistic
rates that allow the regime to siphon off large profits for its
own ends;
(d) if the government
is unwilling to renegotiate, explore the readiness of national and
international humanitarian organisations operating in the country
to cooperate in acquiring humanitarian funding directly without
complying with the exploitive Zimbabwe foreign exchange law; and
(e) if this proves impractical,
consider reducing humanitarian aid programs by the percentage which
is expropriated by the regime through its manipulation of the difference
between the official exchange rate and the free market rate.
To the Commonwealth
Secretariat:
11. Establish a working
committee or an eminent persons group, with predominant African
membership (from both SADC and non-SADC countries) and including
former senior officials and technical experts, to explore land reform
options that are acceptable to key stakeholders and would allow
donors to reengage on the issue.
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