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The 'Mugabe way'
Jonathan Moyo
April 12, 2007

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=304486&area=/supzim0407_home/supzim0407_content/

Will the political machine of Zimbabwe's de facto one-party state enable President Robert Mugabe yet again to outfox everyone as he fights his last battle for power ahead of the watershed elections in 2008? Or will what he himself calls the "Mugabe way" finally make way for a peaceful and democratic solution?

These are the critical questions on the lips of desperate Zimbabweans, both within and outside of Mugabe's increasingly divided government.

While there is now agreement among Zimbabweans across the political divide that Mugabe must go -- and all indications are that he is indeed going -- the method of his exit remains anyone's guess.
Will it be through a humiliating defeat at the 2008 polls, or the graceful resignation of a departing statesman? Will he be overthrown by a palace coup, or shame his detractors by getting re-elected after all, to remain in office for life?

Now 83, Mugabe is adept at using the little-understood mechanisms of his de facto one-party state to play hardball -- under the cover of anti-imperialist rhetoric -- against demands for leadership change by the majority.

Surrounded by pliable ruling-party sycophants and rarely challenged by a weakened opposition, he harbours a delusion of invincibility. His recent decision to seek re-election next year is a telling expression of that delusion.

In African politics, precedent suggests that a president who has remained in power for the entire life of his country -- as Mugabe has done for 27 years -- invariably begins to see himself as indispensable. A notable exception was the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, who was able to see the direction of the winds of change. In 1986, Nyerere voluntarily dismantled his one-party state to make way for today's multi-party dispensation.

Mugabe has been asked on many occasions about his own plans. In response, he has scorned the "Nyerere way" and vowed instead to follow the "Mugabe way". Although he has never explained the difference, an informed grasp of the "Mugabe way" is vital before Thabo Mbeki, in his new role as Southern African Development Community mediator in Zimbabwe, can expect any chance of success.

Every crisis has a history. In 1980, soon after replacing Ian Smith as prime minister, Mugabe embarked on the creation of a legislated one-party state. He disbanded the government of national unity and launched Gukurahundi, a single-minded military campaign in the Matabeleland and Midlands provinces. Up to 20 000 Ndebele people lost their lives.

The brutality was carried out by the notorious Fifth Brigade, a secretive army regiment which reported directly to Mugabe in his then role as prime minister. But its real objective was to eliminate PF-Zapu as a credible challenge to Mugabe. In 1987, Zapu nationalists finally succumbed to the carnage.

The party "merged" with Zanu, which became Zanu-PF, under a treacherous Unity Accord. Its key tenet was the establishment of a legislated one-party state, under an executive president -- a role in which Mugabe morphed from prime minister into a lifelong head of state in the image of [former Malawi president] Kamuzu Banda.

Mugabe's designs in this new role were premised on two hopes. First, he hoped it would postpone succession politics by perishing the thought that anyone else in his party could succeed him while he was alive. Second, Mugabe hoped to get lifetime immunity from prosecution for any human rights violations in Matabeleland.

These hopes began to fade in the 1990s in the wake of new national, regional and international developments. In Zimbabwe, the adoption of an economic structural adjustment programme, supervised by the World Bank, brought unpopular austerity measures.

Further south, the Codesa negotiations in South Africa led ineluctably to Nelson Mandela's release and election as the country's first democratic president. And, with the end of the Cold War, pro-democracy and anti-one-party state movements proliferated throughout Africa.

These developments made it impossible for Mugabe to legislate for a one-party state. Nevertheless, the political and institutional foundations had been laid. Zanu-PF was weakened as a political party with functional grassroots structures, while control of state institutions was concentrated in the hands of people reporting directly to Mugabe. This is the essence of the "Mugabe way".

The crisis in Zimbabwe has made it possible for disillusioned factions to contemplate challenges to Mugabe. But the courageous nationalists with impeccable liberation credentials, who could have successfully sought the Zanu-PF leadership, are now either dead or have been ousted from the ruling party.

Once loyal or harmless factions, such as those represented by the retired General Solomon Mujuru and Emmerson Mnangagwa, now have a clear opportunity. But they are likely, if not certain, to squander the opportunity. Lacking either the stature or the policies to better Mugabe, both fear the consequences of breaking ranks. They are afraid of taking the bull by its horns, knowing they would be crushed to oblivion.

Pretenders to Mugabe's throne can also not count on a fair chance in elections. The "Mugabe way" does not necessarily mean rigging elections in the ordinary sense of the term. Instead, a raft of institutional and organisational tricks ensures opposition candidates cannot compete freely against Mugabe's direct control and supervision of the political machine.

Take, for example, the presidential election in 2002. The military deployed scores of personnel at every village across the country, with instructions to ensure Mugabe's victory in the rural areas.

These military men and women became, in effect, Mugabe's political commissars -- the political lifeblood of the Zanu-PF campaign. As serving members of the army, they were able to command authority over village headmen, chiefs, headmasters and heads of government departments.

All were issued instructions, in the form of "do's and don'ts", on how to vote for Mugabe. Throughout the countryside, villagers were routinely told to declare themselves illiterate at polling stations -- a signal for "assistance" from polling officers, many also from the military, who would "know what to do".

When the votes were counted, Mugabe won the 2002 election by a paltry 400 000 votes.

Given the huge margins of his previous victories in 1990 and 1995, it is not hard to conceive that this result would have been possible without the assistance of Zanu's military commissars in the rural areas. In the circumstances, it is clear that the "Mugabe way" has become deeply institutionalised. The devil is in the detail, and it will take far more than the usual rhetoric to break the Zimbabwean logjam.

This is the stark reality which Mbeki confronts in his new role as a mediator for the SADC region. Besides the military, police and intelligence services, at least 14 government ministries do "commissariat" work to defend Mugabe's political interests and survival.

This makes it difficult to challenge him from within his own party, and harder still to mobilise popular opposition at national polls. Indeed, without these mechanisms of a de facto one-party state, Mugabe has no chance in heaven of winning in 2008.

*Jonathan Moyo is a former minister of information in Zimbabwe. He was dismissed from government in 2005 and is now independent MP for Tsholotsho in Matabeleland North

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