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Hot seat: Analyst Tony Reeler on 'what will resolve the Zim crisis'
Violet Gonda, SW Radio Africa
June 18, 2010

http://www.swradioafrica.com/pages/hotseat230610.htm

Reeler is the Director of the Research and Advocacy Unit. His organisation recently released the report: 'What are the options for Zimbabwe? Dealing with the obvious!' Robert Mugabe says elections will be held next year with or without a new constitution and his counterpart in the coalition, Morgan Tsvangirai, agrees the way forward is for an election next year. But what needs to be addressed before it's possible to hold a truly free and fair election in Zimbabwe ? Does stability bring good elections or good elections bring stability?

Violet Gonda: My guest on the Hot Seat programme is Tony Reeler, the director of the Research and Advocacy Unit with his analysis on the unfolding events in Zimbabwe. Tony, let's start with getting your thoughts on the situation in Zimbabwe. What is your reading of the political situation right now?

Tony Reeler: Violet as you may know RAU recently put out a report entitled "What are the options" and we put that out very much in response to the situation as it was at the time and the report came out about a month ago and I think we would argue that the situation has not changed in any material detail, so the arguments we were making in that brief report still stand. If you remember that report, we analysed the situation from the March 2008 election to the current time and essentially what we were arguing was that there was an opportunity in March 2008 for the crisis to be resolved if SADC had acted in a completely different way. They didn't, the June election emerged and as a consequence of that we ended up with the Global Political Agreement and since that time, what we see is a very polarised, stuck process of an inclusive government that doesn't really operate like an inclusive government, it operates like two governments largely struggling with each other and despite some small changes if you want, in the humanitarian and economic situation, the major political issues are not being resolved. It's an inclusive government in name but it certainly doesn't behave like an inclusive government in behaviour, you know they contradict each other, they countermand each other, they don't implement the Agreement in full.

So our view was that Zimbabwe was in a political crisis in March 2008 and remains in a political crisis in June 2010. And the question we were trying to address was, what will resolve the crisis? And there are many different views currently at the moment about how this crisis is going to be resolved. The dominant view is it will be resolved by mediation or it will be resolved by the parties coming together and finally agreeing on what the final implementation of the Agreement will be. But our view was, that whatever happens, the final resolution of the crisis will involve an election and so our view was, let's start looking at the quality of the election because it is the case that all elections since 2000 have been highly disputed affairs and rejected in the main by most of the international community. That's what we were arguing in brief.

Gonda: We will come to the issue of the elections, but I want to go back to the issue of the stalemate. In your view, why do you think the partners in this GNU, in this inclusive government, are failing to resolve their differences? Why can they not get agreement between them?

Reeler: Well you've got to start off with the understanding that of the two main parties, they are ideologically different if you want and certainly are competitors. They're not coming together out of mutual desire to work together. They're coming together because the situation demands a forced marriage. So in this sense, the Global Political Agreement which is argued to be a solution is really only a starting point for bringing two largely hostile parties together to work out a future. It's not a solution in itself, it's a mechanism for a solution and what is working out in this process are the differences between the two parties that existed before the Global Political Agreement was signed and it represents the difficulty of two parties who have been contesting for political power and control of the State since 2000, since before 2000. So this is a marriage of inconvenience you might even put it, it's not the choice of either of these two parties to be in this relationship together and therefore one must expect an enormous amount of friction and difficulty and suspicion between the two parties.

Gonda: As you said the talks are endless but what do you think is the strategy of the different parties in this unity government?

Reeler: I think both parties are clearly committed to not being the person to break the Agreement for a start. I think that would put them in bad odour with SADC because SADC is the key player in this, they brokered this Agreement and they're supposed to watch it be implemented and act as guarantors. So neither party wishes to break it. Both parties are still in a sense contesting for a balance of power within it, you know, all this argument about who can have which ministry and who can have which governorship and the issues about the Reserve Bank and the Attorney General. That is the central problem with this marriage of inconvenience.

Gonda: And you keep saying both parties but of course there are three parties in this inclusive government. What do you think is the strategy of the Mutambara led MDC?

Reeler: Well I think if you've been looking at opinion polls. We put one out recently on the views of women and Freedom House did one and then MPOI did one earlier or last year and it's quite clear that this is a very, very, very minority party. The MDC-M grouping is there by courtesy of the Global Political Agreement but clearly in our view and I think in most people's view, command no real popular support. So I think their major role is obfuscation. They represent a third opinion and sometimes the third opinion is pretty strange but they're not in a sense, in our view, added value for this inclusive government because the issue is clearly a contest between the MDC-T and ZANU PF and I think their major role is confusing matters.

Gonda: But what about statements we've heard from some of the members of this party, especially from Professor Arthur Mutambara who maintains that his party holds the balance of power in this inclusive government and in a way has become the go-between in terms of bringing the two main parties together?

Reeler: Well he's right. He holds the balance of power but he holds the balance of power because of an elite pact not because that's how the voters behaved. If we looked at how his party performed in the polls in 2008 it was pretty appallingly poor so he is a very much minority party so it's a bit fatuous really to argue that he holds the balance of power. The balance of power is held by people who have popular support and can call on real constituencies; he's there because of an elite pact and because the way the Agreement has been configured and the way things stand is that he's given a right of veto at a very elite level. We don't think he represents populist opinion at all and certainly in the opinion poll that RAU did recently with women, I think two women in over two thousand people interviewed thought he had any power in the inclusive government at all. So he's there by grace and favour of the Agreement but not by any other ground.

Gonda: I understand that most of the women in the survey also said they would not vote for ZANU PF?

Reeler: Well I think there's a continuous trend and it's always a difficult thing to look at potential voting from opinion surveys. The recent British election will tell you that but consistently over three opinion surveys, you have MDC Tsvangirai hovering at around something like 50%, ZANU PF somewhere between nine and 12% but you have 27% of the people unwilling to state their political party preference and you have to decide which way are those folk going. Are they going in favour of ZANU PF, are they going in favour of MDC-T, are they all closet MDC-M supporters? But I think the general trend is and that's borne out by the March election and continued is that ZANU PF increasingly has, or has decreasingly popular support in the country and that is of course a material issue for any future election.

Gonda: And what are the main concerns of the people on the ground, especially the people that participated in the survey?

Reeler: Well we asked them a very interesting question. We asked them what is the way forward? And we gave them a choice of, what are the three most important things for you to solve the problems with Zimbabwe? And that came back in rank order, three things. They said Number One; an end to violence, Number Two; free and fair elections and Number Three; democracy and those are very important things coming from ordinary citizens because that's what has continuously emerged from the Afro-barometer surveys over the last five or six years - is they show that Zimbabweans have a very acute understanding of what democracy is, its manifestations and that they also have a very acute understanding that they don't have a democracy.

So what you can see is Zimbabweans want a solution, they want a solution in a particular way, they want elections that are non-violent that restore democracy essentially. I think they also said there has been some improvement due to the inclusive government and the Global Political Agreement and they saw some improvements in health and a few improvements in education but they also saw many areas in which there was no improvement whatsoever. What we are hearing from discussions within communities are people who are deeply concerned about whether this Global Political Agreement and the inclusive government is working and people who are very concerned that there is a resolution to this crisis. And I think what people are saying is they understand quite clearly that the solution to a political crisis will be an election. That's the Zimbabwean perspective. In other countries what used to happen was that you used to have military coups or rebellions as we've had to do to get rid of white colonial power here but Zimbabweans are saying they put their faith in an electoral process. That's what they hope will resolve the crisis and clearly what that means is, is that people's votes translate into the reality they expect and the majority of people, when they vote, expect a particular outcome, that they will in fact elect the party of their choice.

Gonda: We have heard what the principals in this coalition government have been saying on the issue of elections. We have Mutambara on the one hand saying that we need reforms first before we have an election but ZANU PF and, well Mugabe and Tsvangirai on the other hand have both said they want elections as soon as possible and in fact next year. In your view, what mechanism will actually resolve this problem that we have and restore stability?

Reeler: Those are the two arguments currently aren't they? One that says stability will bring good elections and the other argument says good elections will bring stability and these are the two arguments that have been discussed. You have the principals of the two major players saying we have to go to elections, the minority group saying too early. You have MPs saying it's too early and there's an enormous amount of contradictory opinion about whether we should be going to elections or not. Now in our view the question is not so much whether or when we go to elections, it will have to be at some point, we will have to go to elections, it is to do with the quality of the elections that is the key issue here. And that's the major problem isn't it since 2000? In the last ten years all these elections are disputed.

Now in our paper when we were arguing about what were the options, we pointed out that in a way, March 2008 was almost an exemplary election. There was very little pre-poll violence, there was still pre-poll violence; the process of the election through the voting and in the early stages of publishing the result looked very good indeed. The consequence of that election was a very clear result - Morgan Tsvangirai came first in the presidential race; MDC-T had a clear majority and that's the result that the election showed. Now at that particular point and this is the key issue for elections, that particular point, SADC had a number of options. They could have insisted and applied pressure to say you've got a clear result, stability requires you to go with this result and we would put pressure on ZANU PF to accept the result, Morgan Tsvangirai sworn in as president, the MDC assumes the government. That didn't happen and the rest is history.

So our view is that it's the quality of an election that we have to be looking at. Not when but how. Whether it's in 2011 or 2012 or 2020, the crisis will be resolved by an election and that election has to be genuine, free and fair and able to be accepted by the entire international community and the key to that is SADC. They have been given by Africa, the mandate to deal with the regional issue, the regional body SADC has empowered South Africa to be the mediator and the facilitator, whatever term one wants to use on this thing, and they will be the guarantors and the facilitators of any election. And so the west and anybody else can scream and shout, but in the end, it's SADC who will have a primary role in ensuring that the election meet the minimum standards that apply in SADC region and then also ensuring that if the result, for example were to favour the Tsvangirai faction, that they guarantee transfer of power. There's nothing that the EC or the United States or anybody else can do about that and it's not entirely an internal matter because now the GPA has involved the entire region, SADC are the guarantors and that's the key, but they will insist on the kinds of conditions that will allow Zimbabwean citizens to freely choose the government of their choice and guarantee the transfer of power takes place. That for us in a nutshell is the problem and it's very important that we're looking at new constitutions and national healing and those things but if we're not doing the work that will ensure that, with or without a constitution, there will be a genuine free fair acceptable election, then the crisis will continue in our view.

Gonda: I was actually going to ask that with or without a new constitution, can Zimbabwe's security forces for example, be brought under civilian control because they have also been a major factor in this crisis?

Reeler: Well I think the aspiration of the Global Political Agreement was that there would be constitutional reform followed by an election and that constitution would lay the grounds for an election and a new democratic state. Mugabe has already said with or without a constitution, there will be elections next year and we agreed, with or without a new constitution, there will be elections. I think we have some pessimism in RAU that the constitutional process will deliver the kind of constitution that Zimbabweans want, but that's a personal view, we can't pre-judge the process, the process may be highly effective. But in terms of what I was talking about earlier, in SADC guaranteeing or creating the conditions for free and fair elections, the critical issue is clearly the security forces must be under total civilian control and that doesn't mean of one party, it means under the control of the government as a whole and we don't see much evidence that that has in fact taken place, notwithstanding the National Security Council. When members of JOC can carpet a trade unionist and complain about a report and a film, they are clearly interfering in civilian affairs. They have no right to do that, there's no legal basis for them doing it but they nonetheless do it. So that is a key issue as you say, is the return of the security forces to genuine civilian control. It's a crunch issue but against that is also the issues for elections, as I think electoral commission needs to be genuinely independent and has control of all aspects of elections, the voters' roll, the limitation, the polling, how the media is used to get people's views across.

In every way, what we've seen in past elections is that every aspect of the election has failed the test or certainly not conformed to the SADC principles and guidelines for the holding of democratic elections, fails it on every front. So there's a big job to be done; the security forces are important but there's a whole range of other things that need to be addressed with urgency, in our view, if there's a probability that there's going to be an election in 2011.

Gonda: Right and how realistic are calls for a peacekeeping force?

Reeler: They are good calls. My view is that you put peacekeeping forces in countries that are failed states or, you don't put, United Nations will only appear in any of these situations where the country has an inability to be able to run itself. This is not the case in Zimbabwe. The problem is that they don't obey certain parts of the government, so I don't think we'll get a peacekeeping force, I think probably the best we can have is incredibly intense observation and that would require the cooperation of the State in Zimbabwe where you have observers observing the electoral commission, the police, the army, the prisons, the civics, the political parties, the rallies, there are different ways of doing this thing. The notion that we would turn over administration to some kind of peacekeeping force I think is very unlikely but I think SADC could insist on the kinds of level of observation, very intense observation that could ensure a genuine election.

Gonda: SADC is due to hold a summit in August and although it's not clear yet whether Zimbabwe's deadlocked power sharing agreement will be an item on the agenda, speculation is rife that President Zuma may advocate for fresh elections for Zimbabwe when he submits his report to the regional body. What are you reading from Zuma's style of mediation and how significant is his role now to break this political impasse?

Reeler: OK, I think he's already made the statement that he, and Ian Khama has made the similar statement, that this crisis will be resolved by election and we hear speculation that he wants a negotiated timetable for election and I suspect that he and every other SADC leader knows just as well as anybody else that this will be resolved by election but I think he will, my guess is that he will call for some kind of timetable to that. He's not going to leave this process open-ended to drag on for year after year after year.

I think his style is clearly different to Mbeki, it's been a much more assertive style in dealing with Zimbabwe but on the other hand he also has the constraints of being the hegemonic power in this region and definitely not wanting to be seen like a bully and his government, or the government he has inherited has instituted this whole process of the Global Political Agreement so they are going to have to try and make that work too. But I think his hands are to some extent tied by the fact that we have the GPA and if the parties here continue to insist endlessly that they can make this thing work then his hands are tied, but I think he will on the other hand also, push very hard for some kind of resolution and that's going to be the difficulty because it's one thing to push for a negotiated timetable for elections, it's entirely another to guarantee that those elections in the end will be the kind of elections that resolve the crisis.

Gonda: Right and back home, critics have said that the leadership of the MDC is now completely consumed in trying to make this GNU work but on the other hand the party's not building any structures, internal structures and preparing for elections. Now given the fact that all party leaders are in government, will it be prudent for the MDC to reshuffle perhaps cabinet ministers back to the party in preparation for the next elections?

Reeler: I think the MDC, the Tsvangirai faction has a very, very difficult task. They do have to try to make the government work, they committed themselves to it and they're trying very hard to make it work and that clearly takes enormous resources of a party that has had an extremely difficult time in the last ten years. So I think they're stretched, they're stretched in making government work and therefore they're also to some extent stretched in trying to build the party structures ahead of elections. But I think the MDC, one of the positions I have heard from the MDC is that they don't fear elections, what they fear is their inability to effect transfer of power - in fact they won't be given power, they can win an election but they're not going to end up with the government.

So I think they are being pretty realistic. I think it's terribly easy to criticise the MDC all the time and blame them for everything that is going wrong but the reality is they are working against a party that is absolutely determined not to surrender political power and there has been considerable evidence of ways in which they've tried to maintain their political power by means outside the constitution. So MDC is committed to try to do it within the constitution and within democracy and using democratic tools. That can be very difficult with a political party that refuses to play the game by the same rule. So I think they have to be realistic and they do know they're going to go for elections and I think that's why Morgan Tsvangirai said we will face elections and I think they are doing their best on the ground to try and build party structures and maintain government but it's an exceptionally difficult task for them.

Gonda: And as a human rights activist, what are your thoughts on the issue of, on justice issues? Can you have stability at the price of injustice?

Reeler: You know its back to that old argument, stability produces democracy or democracy produces stability? I tend to believe that democracy produces stability and that's a general argument I think that's accepted widely and that the difficulty in Zimbabwe is that so many institutions have been compromised in the last ten years. We have deep concerns about the whole judicial process, we've had deep concerns about the behaviour of the Attorney General, we have deep concerns about the partisanship of the police and so on and so on. So it is a very, very difficult situation here and that the argument I think that some people are saying 'well we have to transform all those institutions before we have a possibility of a decent election', and there's some merit in that argument, if we were to have security sector reform and the police would now work wholly within the constitution and the police act and the judiciary could be seen to be absolutely independent of any political influence and the media space is completely open, shortwave radio could broadcast from within Zimbabwe, there wouldn't be a problem, would there?

And so the argument is can you achieve those things without an election first? And this is the crunch political question, in our view, is we don't believe that those things can be transformed without an election and a transfer of political power because the current political power maintains that situation as it is. And there are different views about that, I'm not sure which view is going to prevail, the only thing that I can be 100% certain of is that whether it's next year, the year after or the year after that, we will have an election and that election will either resolve the crisis or it will attenuate and it will go on.

Gonda: And a final word Tony?

Reeler: I think people tend to be so desperately pessimistic about Zimbabwe. I think that we should see what Zimbabweans have done in the last ten years through democratic peaceful struggle, is quite exceptional and I think people need to pat themselves on the back. The country is a disaster in many ways but there are such encouraging signs all over the place of people's demand for democracy and understanding of democracy that I think it can only be a very bright future for Zimbabwe if we can resolve the problems and if we can persuade SADC to do its job and do its job properly.

Gonda: That was Tony Reeler, the director of the Research and Advocacy Unit. Thank you very much Tony for speaking to us on the programme Hot Seat.

Reeler: Pleasure Violet, keep well.

Feedback can be sent to violet@swradioafrica.com

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