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The Legal Monitor - Issue 36
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
February 15, 2010

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Government has failed on key reforms

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has admitted that the transitional coalition government has failed to institute significant democratic reforms more than a year after its establishment.

Tsvangirai formed a transitional unity government with President Robert Mugabe after signing an Interparty Political Agreement (IPA) which was expected to usher in a new phase in his decade-long struggle against Mugabe's rule.

The decision to establish the inclusive government came after many influential leaders in southern Africa pushed for a power-sharing arrangement in response to an election their own monitors concluded was neither free nor fair. The coalition government committed itself to resolving a decade-long political crisis by ending politically motivated arrests, prosecutions, seizures of white-owned farms, media censorship as well as drafting a new constitution and holding new elections under international supervision and monitoring. But a year after its establishment, Tsvangirai conceded that implementation of democratic reforms has been sluggish.

"Indeed, as a government, we have not yet made the types of progress or democratic reforms which were the very reason for entering into this new administration," Tsvangirai disclosed in a keynote address at the launch of a Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CZC) report entitled "Cries from Goromonzi: Inside Zimbabwe's Torture Chambers".

Tsvangirai's disclosure is in tandem with a recent brutal assessment carried out by the Civil Society Monitoring Mechanism (CISOMM),

A non-partisan network of civil society organisations dedicated to monitoring and evaluating the implementation of the IPA. The monitoring process is meant to hold the three political principals, namely President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara to account. In its annual review of the fragile coalition administration, CISOMM said the government had failed to deliver as rights violations continued while most benchmarks set out in the IPA were yet to be met.

Apart from bringing relative economic stability, the coalition government has remained fragile and cannot agree on how to implement commitments they agreed and signed up to in the IPA, particularly those relating to the return to Rule of Law and democratisation of critical state institutions of justice delivery.

Although not as pervasive as before, CISOMM said police continued to harass human rights defenders. Political activists who engage in peaceful protests or meetings remain at risk of arbitrary arrest, detention, beatings and attempted abductions.

Frequent wrangling over policy and the slow pace of reforms, coupled with unilateral actions, have held back progress by the fragile unity government. The country is struggling to restore productivity, feed itself and repair its ruined infrastructure - largely blamed on the previous government's three decade-long misrule.

In response to the lethargic progress in government, most international and regional donors have withheld aid and demanded broad political reforms and assurances that Mugabe is ready to genuinely share power with the former trade union leader.

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