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Zimbabwe Briefing - Issue 99
Crisis
in Zimbabwe Coalition (SA Regional Office)
January 23, 2013
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Political
Reform and the Challenge for Democratization Post 2012
There is a danger
that the concerted social commentary on the internal political dynamics
of the Inclusive
Government and the stalled reform agenda without regard for
broader democratization issues may miss the most critical factor
this critical process is faced with a transition to democracy rather
than minimal political reform that the contemporary process of pacting
may produce. The Inclusive Government lately believed to be a temporal
transition mechanism following the violent
2008 plebiscite whose outcome was disputed by both the losing
incumbent regime and its opposition will enter its fifth year. By
any measure, ZANU PF has successfully imposed itself on the people
of Zimbabwe by illegitimately engineering another term of office
in spite of losing
the 2008 elections. The former opposition, now partners in the
Inclusive Government and winners of the same disputed elections
have stuck with the same government at high costs to the democratization
agenda. Given that the next elections outside the 1980 plebiscite,
whenever they happen, would be historically a defining moment and
will have drastic implications for democratization and the fate
of the reform agenda, what could be the fate of politics of reform
and how will such politics impact on democratization?
Even the greatest
of optimists will admit to the fact that the reform movement constituted
by the MDC parties and civil society is at its weakest. While this
does not mean that ZANU PF is stronger, it is evident that the split
of the MDC parties and the continuous disintegration of the coalition
of forces that constituted the party's social base at its
formation have eroded. Yet a broad based reform coalition that would
increase opportunities for regime change and possibly foster politics
of participation, negotiation and consensus building over coercive
violence seems to be elusive.
There is need
for politics that puts human interest, the liberation and freedom
of the person at the heart of its agenda. Such politics should fundamentally
rest on the important notion of the sovereignty of the people as
opposed to party or elite domination. In spite of any level of political
support that each of the political parties could enjoy and the parties'
subsequent dominance of the electoral scene, the future of democracy
beyond the next elections, the protection of political-civil liberties
and socio-economic rights will depend on democratic institutions
and civil society strategies, choices and the ability to move towards
inclusive politics. While the convergence of reformers on the basis
of an agenda for democratization would be critical in ending the
ZANU PF hegemony, it is its impact and future role in deepening
democracy that should get every Zimbabwean to call for a broad based
reform coalition. It is important to realise that political parties
and political actors are driven by a desire for political power
to gain sole control of the state. Each political party and their
leaders are behaving on an instinct and gut driven calculus to win
the next elections, control the state and solely determine the future
of the country without necessarily being strategic and critical
in consideration of the long term possibilities for democracy. The
characteristic pedestrian optimism amongst actors within the reform
movement explains reformers' uncritical resort to knee- jerk,
short term rushed interventions whose failures has prolonged the
struggle for democracy. Shockingly by sticking with an oppressive
highly centralized political system based on ethnic patronage advocates
of reform are replicating the exclusive subtleties as systematically
instrumentalized by ZANU PF, thus further reinforcing the same practices
of a system they seek to overthrow.
While this has
clearly failed our country, it is surprising that reformers do not
find the roots of the contemporary democratic deficiencies in the
failure to foster broad based politics, instead preferring to subject
our country to the benevolence and assumed wisdom of former and
future individual leaders. This is a political cultural problem
rooted in both colonial oppression, post-independence big-man
godfather politics which hinges on a superiority-complex tied to
notions of infallibility of liberation leaders, buttressed by monolithic
party domination, class and ethnicity. Subsequently we are trapped
in the narrow politics of god-fatherism which blinds our social
commentaries from exploring the national question from the perspectives
of the national interest above the whims of key patrons at various
levels of our national political system.
Thus without
radically revamping the political system, assuming there is any
reform, Zimbabwe will be faced with minimal change that may foster
stability at the expense of democracy. Political parties may redraw
the electoral framework without necessarily democratizing the political
system in order to buy domestic and international legitimacy. Any
post GPA politics
that does not seek to build broad based consensus underlined by
strong formal institutions of governance beyond the hegemonic ethnic
based elite alliance that has been the basis of the ZANU-ZAPU Unity
Government since 1987 which remains at the centre of our political-structural
model will be futile. By seemingly framing political leadership
within the framework of ethnic balancing, other political parties
seem to have embraced this same nuanced subtle authoritarianism
instead of articulating broad based democratic politics.
The calls for
elections within the context of the emerging consensus for minimal
reforms under the GPA framework should therefore been seen in the
context of a foundational positive step upon which civil society
and political parties should seek to bolster a democracy that goes
beyond ritual electoralism. The dragging contestation over the stalling
Inclusive Government failing to agree on a set of reforms including
the content and process
for a new constitution, the national referendum and dates for
new elections are simply located on the desire by political actors
to retain forth and electoral advantage over opening our society.
We hope that
civil society, community actors and political parties will seek
to drive broad based politics founded on an agenda to deepen democracy
beyond the emerging minimalist consensus. Zimbabweans may not forgive
some of our leaders if they lose them this opportunity for a new
beginning. Thus possibilities for electoral coalition should be
explored to their bitter end not only for the purposes of electoral
advantage, but for the prospects they provide for the people to
collectively contribute to their society committing their social
and economic capital to the leadership, service and development
of the country, thus laying the basis for an inclusive and sustainable
democratic dispensation.
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