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Between
a Rock and a Hard Place: Zimbabwe's Development Impasse
Suzanne Dansereau
Extracted from the publication: Zimbabwe - The political economy
of decline
March 2005
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Introduction
Shortages of food, pharmaceuticals and petrol, inflation rates hovering
between 400 and 600% a year, a drop in tobacco sales to a quarter
of the 2000 level,1 unemployment
and poverty at about 75%, as well as documented human rights abuses
and press censorship are but some of the indicators of Zimbabwe’s
current crisis. Many outside observers blame the crisis on an ageing
dictator trying to hold onto power by ignoring the rule of law,
with solutions resting in the hands of popular opposition forces,
merely awaiting free and fair elections to put things right. This
simple dichotomy is reiterated by the two main political parties.
ZANU-PF presents itself, as the bulwark against Britain’s efforts
to recolonise the country while it describes the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) as a-historic, in search of a rapprochement
with the forces of globalisation.2
The MDC on the other hand, offers itself as the way to return to
normality, blaming ZANU-PF for ‘two decades of misrule and poor
governance at the hands of a rapacious clique of power-hungry politicians
(that) have transformed the jewel of Africa into a failed state’.3
This dichotomy reveals the depth of the country’s polarisation,
but the prolonged nature of the crisis, the difficult search for
a way-out and the lack of alternatives reveal a profound impasse
stemming from the lack of development options available to the country.
The situation
in Zimbabwe resembles that of many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa
experiencing increasing conflict and instability after rising debt
levels, and the introduction of structural adjustment and governance
conditionalities weakened the national economy, narrowed state capacities
and political options. The state is left with few tools to meet
rising demands from popular groups and others excluded from the
benefits of development, especially as they conflict with pressures
from business and donors. Instead, the ruling elite, in a bid to
protect itself, takes the carrot proffered by donors, along with
the stick, drawing economic benefits from its proximity to the state,
while entrenching itself politically through state repression. In
some cases, conflict generated by the exclusion of the many, contributes
to state collapse, particularly if it coincides with regional cleavages,
and especially when fuelled by an illegal trade in natural resources.
Zimbabwe's experience demonstrates that it can also result in a
social or class-based struggle over the direction of the country’s
development programme. The lack of development options can result
in growing resistance from popular groups and intransigence from
the ruling elite, which can also contribute to state collapse.
This paper will
demonstrate the failure of both the inward-oriented development
strategies adopted in 1980 and the export-driven model in 1990,
supported by structural adjustment. It will document the key role
played by Bretton Woods institutions in transforming state-led development
into a market economy, protecting the interests of foreign-owned
mining companies and commercial farmers, and reducing state capacities
to intervene against growing economic and social demands resulting
from rising unemployment and poverty, at a time when capital and
donor agencies pushed for further liberalisation. The inability
to meet those demands resulted in the emergence of an opposition,
shaped less by regional factors4 than
by the country’s labour and urban groups, eventually coming together
to challenge ZANU-PF in parliamentary and presidential elections.
In 2000, the government, feeling its survival threatened, returned
to promises of land reform in an effort to consolidate its economic
base and retain what it considered to be its electoral base in the
rural areas. It took refuge in greater repression against popular
demands and isolated itself from external influences, abandoning
all pretence of adherence to fiscal austerity and good governance.
The paper will then examine proposals put forward by ZANU-PF, the
MDC and Bretton Woods agencies in the light of these failed development
strategies, revealing their lack of alternatives, and thus the depth
and complexity of the impasse facing the country.
1. Business
Report, South Africa (SA), March 29, 2004.
2. T.
Ranger, "Historiography, Patriotic History and the History
of the Nation: The Struggle over the
Past in Zimbabwe",Journal of Southern African Studies, vol.
30 no. 2, 2004.
3. Zimbabwe Independent (Harare), Jan. 30, 2004.
4. Soon after independence, conflict did take on a regional character
as government troops sought to
quell 'dissidents' in the Matabeleland provinces. This history is
highly contested, subjected to partisan
and other conflicting interpretations. (See J. Alexander and J.
McGregor, Violence & Memory:
One Hundred Years in the 'Dark Forests' of Matabeleland. Oxford:
James Currey, 2000.) By 1987,
ZAPU, whose membership was concentrated in the Matabeleland provinces,
agreed to join the government.
Joshua Nkomo, ZAPU President, became one of the country's two vice-presidents,
and
other ZAPU members were given ministerial posts. Tensions did not
disappear altogether between
ZANU and ZAPU but they now tend to be intermingled and cross-over
current conflicts.
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