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Zimbabwe's
transition in comparative context
Upenyu
Makoni-Muchemwa, Kubatana.net
October 20, 2010
The Konrad Adenauer
Stiftung Foundation, in collaboration with the Mass Public Opinion
Institute hosted a conference recently for politicians, civil society
and scholars to share their perspectives on Zimbabwe's Transition.
Among the presenters was Cyprian Nyamwamu who shared some experiences
of Kenya's transition.
In concluding
his presentation Mr. Nyamwamu made the following remarks:
- Monitoring
and enforcing accountability in government must be made a systematic
process that is carried out by political non-state actors. In
Kenya this has been largely successful except that the entrenched
culture of impunity makes it to secure behaviour change and governance.
- The state
cannot be left to reform on its own. It is the role of forces
outside and inside the state to escalate the demands for reforms.
This requires a deliberate construction of democratic movement
that galvanises the energies to force democratic negotiations
about the future of our democracies be it in Kenya or in Zimbabwe.
Innovative strategies for ensuring sustainable reforms can only
be realised if reforms are held within a political and transitional
justice framework where reforms are broad rather than confined
to some formal changes that do not open up the state to concerted
reforms.
- In Zimbabwe
like in Kenya, democratic reforms and political transition shall
not be sustainable without a thorough transitional justice agenda
where public and private citizens, officers and groups get to
account for violations and injustices that may have been committed
in the past. A new democratic state and cohesive nation cannot
be expected in countries where victors' justice is the order
of the day and where impunity has taken root.
- There is
need for the Inclusive government of Zimbabwe to be sustained
even with it inherent limitations until the national democratic
project is delivered. V. It is our view that elections in Zimbabwe
before 2013 shall not add value to the Zimbabwe democratic deficit.
It is feared that elections before 2013 may precipitate a return
to the multiple socio-economic, humanitarian and political crises
that were witnessed in the aftermath of the 2008 elections.
- It is hoped
that the democratic forces in ZANU-PF, MDC, civil society, the
private sector and other sectors of the political economy shall
adopt an attitude of 'no reforms no elections'. Reforms
here must mean both reforms on paper and in the real world. Reforms
cannot happen if the only logic of the political actors is power
for the big boys. Those in power must be convinced including through
positive sanctions to embrace and champion reforms for the sake
of the people and the nation.
- SADC must
construct a better national democratic reform framework for Zimbabwe
than the current one. In the 1989 Poland political Transition
example, the President was offered assurances and immunities and
Western European countries invested economic incentives into the
reform pact that saw the end of the monolithic one-party state
rule. This is important seeing as is the case that unlike Kenya,
the international community seems ready to leave Zimbabwe to suffer
on the ropes for longer. In the Kenyan case in the wake of the
post election crisis, the international community made it clear
that Kenya was too important to be left to Kenyans alone.
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