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No surprise if desperate Mugabe goes for broke
Dianna Games
August 08, 2005

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/article.aspx?ID=BD4A77544

IT MUST irk Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe that, just as he is firming up his "total control" strategy, SA is trying to spoil everything by imposing conditions on the granting of the loan he so desperately needs.

Still gloating over his party’s resounding two-thirds "victory" in the last election, which SA enthusiastically vindicated, Mugabe must be feeling a little betrayed by his friends.

In fact it is curious to us all that our government has the gall to put the issue of the elections, and even talks with the Movement for Democratic Change, which resoundingly "lost" the same election, on the table at all after SA’s representatives did such a good job of whitewashing an election so obviously rigged in favour of the ruling party.

The land issue is another one. SA has apparently listed a fair and open programme of land reform as another condition. Does this mean the enthusiastic support for the land grab by most members of our cabinet was a farce designed to keep Mugabe happy, even as the country went into starvation mode?

In fact, most of the conditions we are led to believe are on the table make a mockery of our government. They directly contradict the line SA has taken over the past five years on a number of issues, and the related tacit, or sometimes overt, support for such actions which has led more than one of our ministers to arrive back from tours of the country, stage-managed by the Zimbabwe government, spouting propaganda without a trace of shame.

That is not quiet diplomacy. It is spineless fawning over the region’s puppeteer. And if Mugabe rejects all conditions and the loan to boot, SA will have only itself to blame.

In any case, the question is whether the $1bn loan, or $500m or whatever it amounts to, is enough to get him to agree to unravel his complex web of power, because that is essentially what SA is asking him to do.

Mugabe has been consolidating his political control over many years under the noses of the region’s leaders. He has tampered with the constitution to give him wider powers, including the power of veto, changed the laws to legalise the actions of his regime in support of his power, oppressed the nation, rigged elections, silenced independent voices and shored up his popularity with patronage.

"The sole priority of the government is to keep itself in power," a Harare banker told me recently. "Economic fundamentals don’t count except where they contribute to that end. You must realise that the government does not care if it ruins the country in pursuit of that. Most of those politicians need to end their days in power. What else are they going to do?"

Mugabe has shown no signs of slowing down in his bid for total control. Right now his government has a raft of new laws in the pipeline designed to strengthen its powers.

Legislation to allow government control of private schools is before parliament, as is a new law to allow all productive farmland to be nationalised. It includes a clause barring any court challenges to government land seizures, in contravention of the country’s bill of rights.

State-controlled agricultural marketing boards are said to be in the pipeline while price controls on certain goods remain, accounting in part for serious shortages of basic commodities, and the government controls the fuel price in the formal economy.

The government recently refused the reregistration of two independent newspapers, forcing people to continue a daily diet of unmitigated propaganda.

SA’s negotiators need to understand that any mooted reforms, either in full or piecemeal, are in direct contradiction to Zanu (PF)’s strategy of total control. In essence, they are asking Zimbabwe’s government to destroy its own carefully constructed edifice of comprehensive, centralised control.

Dropping treason charges against the leader of the opposition is a small price to pay for a large loan. Even increasing the fuel price is do-able. But asking for the government to rewrite the very constitution that props it up against the tide of change is like asking the ruling party to commit suicide.

Pulling out the rule-of-law card, the revision-of-the-constitution card, the talks-with-the opposition card or even the free-market card will collapse the whole house of cards the president has put in place to entrench his hold on power.

Mugabe has long experience of a scorched-earth policy. Compromising his power is not an option — further destroying the economy is. There is every chance he will go for broke.

*Games is director of Africa @ Work, a research and publishing company.

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