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A gathering storm - Zimbabwe's final hope for reform
MS-ActionAid Denmark
December 11, 2010

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A number of crucial reforms for the reconstruction of Zimbabwe is listed in the GPA. The parties agreed to:

• build a society free of violence, fear, intimidation, hatred, patronage, corruption and founded on justice, fairness, openness, transparency, dignity and equality
• give priority to the restoration of economic stability and growth in Zimbabwe
• conduct a comprehensive, transparent and non-partisan land audit . . . for the purpose of establishing accountability and eliminating multiple farm ownerships.
• create conditions for our people to write a constitution for themselves
• ensure equal treatment of all regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, place of origin and will work towards equal access to development for all
• create an environment of tolerance and respect among Zimbabweans and that all citizens are treated with dignity and decency irrespective of age, gender, race, ethnicity, place of origin or political affiliation And, in doing so,

  (a) respect and uphold the Constitution and other laws of the land;
  (b) adhere to the principles of the Rule of Law.

In this report these individual reforms are generally referred to as "the reforms" necessary to reconstruct Zimbabwe as a democratic country. As Zimbabwe is heading for the conclusion of its second year under the Inclusive Government, threats to reforms are mounting and a sense of dread for the expected upcoming elections is spreading.

Breathing space is still present in the economical sphere though it is narrow. With projected growth between 5,9% (IMF) and 8,1% (MoF). Zimbabwe is in 2010 experiencing real economic growth for the first time in 12 years. This is however from such a paltry base that most Zimbabweans only feel this as absence of decline. They do however vigorously appreciate the stability that dollarisation has brought to the economy, reducing inflation to a 'normal' rate of projected 4,5%, enabling farmers and businesses to plan and invest and shops to stock all necessary items.

Dollarisation has however meant that utilities and municipalities can no longer hide real costs in an artificially valued independent currency. Citizens have experienced dramatic real increases in their expenditure on rent, water, electricity, telephone, school fees, etc. On top of this unemployment in the formal sector remains high, estimated to be not below 85%, and as remittances from the country's substantial population of citizens residing overseas have likely diminished due to economic crisis there, the few who earn money support a growing part of their extended family. Economist John Robertson concludes that consequently, "even if prices are not rising very much, the cost of living is"
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Politically, breathing space appears to have shrunk. Whereas the Zimbabwe Peace Project recorded a drop in politically motivated incidents of violence during 2009, down to app. "a normal" level of 5-600 incidents per month, 2010 has seen a continuous rise averaging about 800 incidents per month. These incidents have mainly taken place in rural and peri-urban areas, and are, according to ZPP, closely linked to the main political parties' attempts to dominate the consultative phase of the Constitution-Making Process.

The CMP serves well to illustrate Zanu-PF's adaptation to the new dispensation. Initially it sought to sabotage the process by creating havoc and violently intimidating participants in the First All-Stakeholder Conference in mid-July 2009. However, as the party realised that sabotaging the process would not carry it forward, it re-oriented its approach. Firstly, it gave up the idea of muscling through the controversial Kariba Draft as this was met with too much resistance. Campaigning for what was seen as a Zanu-PF constitution gave too many reverberations of the 2000 referendum. Instead, it 'dissolved' the draft in distilling the positions most important to Zanu-PF and prepared for a nationwide campaign to have its supporters back these positions. It then delayed the process for almost half a year through confrontations on numerous questions of details, until its party machine had finalised the campaign preparations - and then went whole-heartedly into the process in order to dominate the views collected through the outreach meetings.

Whereas Zanu-PF's support in and capacity to dominate rural areas, especially in the Manicaland and Mashonaland East, West and Central Provinces were demonstrated in the 2008-election to have diminished dramatically, and whereas internal Zanu-PF reports have documented the withering of party structures, the outreach process provided an opportunity for the party to rally its structures, mainly rooted in its control of ward and district administration, to generally dominate the majority of the out-reach meetings. Zanu-PF seems confident that sufficiently popular support was recorded for its positions enabling it to have most of these represented in the new constitution as it is drafted during December-March.

Through its campaign Zanu-PF seems to have scored a double victory by not only gathering support for its constitution positions, but also by utilising the CMP to re-establish the party's influence in these rural constituencies. Violence and intimidation has often accompanied this and political space has concurrently been shrunk considerably for all political parties or positions other than Zanu-PF's. In addition, this ability on the part of Zanu-PF to utilise an issue hitherto regarded as lost for the party, deftly utilising it to create a base of strength, bears witness to Zanu-PF's often overpowering ability to strategic thinking and tactical action - and a similar lack of organisational strength in MDC.

In contrast to Zanu-PF's efficiently conducted campaign to dominate the out-reach meetings, neither MDC nor Civil Society Organisations seem to have made similar efforts to ensure popular backing for their positions. Some attempts have, true, been thwarted by local police, CIO or other strong-arm authorities linked to Zanu-PF, and the majority of the victims in the ZPP-reported incidents belong to these two groups. But this should not obscure the fact that neither MDC nor civil society have launched any attempt to seriously influence, let alone dominate, the process. The reason for this could be the groups' perception that they 'owned' the constitutional issue, having successfully campaigned since 1999 for constitutional changes. This lack of action must be regarded as a major tactical error on the side of both groups, perhaps most dramatically in consequence for the CSO's, for whom the Constitution-Making Process provided a golden opportunity to penetrate territories hitherto not or difficultly accessible to them. Should repression have been the main reason for CSOs not utilising the CMP to campaign in these areas for their constitutional positions, this too seems to have been a major tactical error in lost opportunities - after all, the President himself had repeatedly urged all Zimbabweans to freely discuss these matters nationally. Any hindrance of such debate would have been a campaign platform in itself to widen political space and counter it's narrowing.

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