Back to Index

This article participates on the following special index pages:

Post - Election Update: October 2008
Zimbabwe Election Support Network
November 07, 2008

Download this document
- Word 97 version (72.0KB)
- Acrobat PDF version (178KB)
If you do not have the free Acrobat reader on your computer, download it from the Adobe website by clicking here.

Introduction

The report covers the socio-political and economic developments in the month of October, 2008. Although ZESN's core business is the promotion of a Zimbabwe where democratic electoral environment and processes are upheld, the political, economic and social developments in the country have a direct impact on the electoral issues and processes.

Continued attempts for a political settlement: The signing of the deal on 15 September, 2008 was met with mixed feelings with the majority of the people hailing it as progressive and hoping it would end the economic doldrums the country is facing. Others expressed their disappointment that the will of the people had been circumvented since the June run-off election was condemned by international observers and did not reflect the will of the people. There is a call by a section of the society to return to the March 27 election and base the deal on the results of that election. Others are calling for fresh elections under the observation of international observers arguing that the current political and electoral framework obtaining in Zimbabwe as well as the polarisation of the country is incapable of producing free and fair elections.

The signed deal was a political framework put in place by the three principles to resolve the impasse currently bedevilling the country whereby the power sharing strategy would have seen ZANU PF being allocated 15 cabinet positions, MDC T 13 and MDC 3. Major disagreements erupted over the distribution of the key ministries of defence, home affairs, finance, foreign affairs, information and local government. ZANU PF then went on to allocate itself all the fore-mentioned ministries and gazetted them. MDC T rejected the unilateral allocation of ministries by ZANU PF arguing that it will reduce their party to a junior partner in the new government. It further went on to argue that MDC T carried the mandate of the people since it won the widely accepted March 29 election. The facilitator was recalled at the request of both parties to break the impasse of the cabinet ministerial allocation. In the facilitator's view the list gazetted by President Mugabe would have allowed the MDC T to play a key role in the priority areas of restoration of economic stability since Mugabe had religuished the Ministry of Finance to the MDC T. The list also allocated ministries of economic planning, investment promotions, power development, state enterprises and parastatals to the MDC T. The MDC T was concerned that ZANU PF would control all the resource-based ministries while the MDC T controls service provision which is currently in shambles. The facilitator together with the principles agreed to refer the matter to the SADC security committee generally referred to as the troika consisting of Swaziland, Mozambique and Angola with the new South Africa in attendance as the current SADC Chair.

The SADC troika failed to take place in Swaziland as Morgan Tsvangirai the MDCT president and one of the principles was not issued with proper documentation by the Registrar General. Tsvangirai was issued with an emergency travel document a day before his departure to Swaziland. He was unable to obtain South African visa in time for the travel. While ZANU PF sympathizers argued that sanctions were to blame to the lack of resources to process the passport application, others noted that it was part of ZANU PF machinations to scuttle the talks ahead of the party's congress in December, 2008. It was recommended that an extraordinary SADC Summit be held in South Africa in order to solve the impasse.

Despite the signing of the agreement and the initiation of the talks a violent clamp-down of human rights defenders continues to take place. On October 27, 2008 150 activists from the Women's Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCoZ) and the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) who were holding a peaceful demonstration in Harare were tear-gased by the police and 42 women from the coalition were arrested for calling for a resolution to the political impasse between ZANU-PF. Reports from the provinces indicate that some high-ranking members of government are going to villages criticizing the political settlement and noting that there will never be unity between the two parties, others are noting that the unity proposed is for the top-ranking officials only and not for local levels while a few progressive ZANU PF senior officials are calling for reconciliation and peace and a respect of the current negotiations taking place. The ZPP report indicate that although physical violence is on the decline in most provinces, verbal and psychological abuse is still on the rise with cases of discrimination, harassment and intimidation reported.

Download full document

Visit the ZESN fact sheet

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP