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Political victories and economic defeats - Managing the post-election crisis In Zimbabwe
E.A.Brett, Crisis States Programme - London School of Economics
May 2005

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‘A government can rig an election, but it can not rig the economy.’ John Makombe, University of Zimbabwe

Introduction
The Zimbabwe African National Union (Partiotic Front) won a two-thirds majority at the recent Parliamentary elections and has therefore established its right to rule for five more years. Violence and intimidation was significantly reduced during the last three weeks of the campaign, so the carefully chosen election monitors from the region could treat the result as a genuine representation of the national will, although not quite a ‘free and fair’ election. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change won virtually all the urban seats and would probably have won an overall majority had it been given full access to the media, and its supporters not been intimidated, denied access to food, removed from voter’s rolls, and the vote in all probability ‘re-adjusted’ after the event in many constituencies, and is therefore left with a residual role in Parliament in the present context.

Our first task is to understand how a regime that was said to be in a state of terminal crisis two years ago has been able to win an election and overcome some of the economic problems that threatened to destroy it. Our second is to examine the ways in which it has managed and mismanaged the economy over the past five years, and asses the viability of the mechanisms that it is using to extract the resources it needs to finance the state apparatus, reward it key constituents, and alleviate the deepening poverty and marginalisation being experienced by most of its people. Our third is to consider the effects of its recent attempts at economic reform, and to identify the major problems that their failure is now generating for the society as a whole.

The regime’s ability to do this is now seriously compromised. Growing competition for contracting resources has produced serious splits in the party that surfaced dramatically during the run-up to the election. The MDC vote has grown in rural areas despite the repressive activities of Chiefs, local police and administration, and violent youth militias, and the Veterans of the anti-colonial civil war, who have spearheaded their repressive activities since 1997, are becoming increasingly disillusioned by their inability to secure any real gains. The government has been able to manage these political threats with considerable skill for many years, and may well be able to go on doing so for some time, but it will not be able to survive indefinitely unless it can sustain at least minimal levels of productivity and its capacity to tax and spend. This article will attempt to show why the new ‘development cabinet’ is likely to be unable to meet this challenge, although it will not attempt to any predictions about what is likely to happen if it fails.

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