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An unending explosion
George Shire, BBC Focus on Africa
January - March 2008

Whatever the outcome of the election in Zimbabwe, the one thing for certain is that the political weather of the country, of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) region and of Africa and its myriad of political institutions, will change.

Zimbabweans will have a chance to choose representatives from a party forged out of the politics of the national liberation war. President Robert Mugabe-s Zanu-PF stands for reinventing the nation state and its institutions as an instrument and structure that has a distributive instinct and capacity. This is a party that was built on an alliance with the majority of the people and their interests; a party and government that is at peace with its neighbors; and a party that has resisted the attempts by the UK and the West to impose neo-liberal policies and solutions on the people of Zimbabwe. What is the alternative, really? Well, Zimbabweans could opt for parties that are determined to drive individuals to the private market, and to persuade everybody to fall in love with the corporate agenda. These parties would love to see people worship at the afore-mentioned shrine of neo-liberalism to dismantle the traditional defences of pan-Africanism against outside interference. This would reverse the legacy of the movements of the liberation war and are seen as nothing but proxies of the West. The two wings of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) are seen in that vein.

Land, fresh water, energy, natural resources, education, health, new technology and the legacy of the liberation war are the defining themes in Zimbabwean politics, and so is solidarity with those political institutions that grew out of the liberation war in the Sadc region. For many Zimbabweans, these themes will be the key to where they put their cross come the election. Zanu-PF under the leadership of Mugabe is seen as addressing these issues. The MDC on the other hand is viewed by many as being trapped in its own history. It has fail failed to grasp what it is like to operate between a past which is not yet over and a future which has not yet started. It is seen by many as being grounded in forces seeking to resuscitate a neo-Rhodesian agenda. And it is regarded by many as having no effective popular strategy that speaks to the people of Zimbabwe as a whole.

Zimbabweans accuse the West and its media institutions of distorting the realities of Zimbabwe and of playing a major part in the formation and constitution of Zimbabwe as a failed state. They know that the UK and its allies have played a significant if not a central role in destabilizing their government-s efforts to turn around Zimbabwe-s economic fortunes. They take the view that the economic crisis that now grips Zimbabwe began with the grotesque unequal colonial structures that Zimbabwe inherited from Ian Smith-s Rhodesia. They trace the crisis to the impoverishing impact of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank which attached conditions to their structural adjustment programmes in the early 1940s. And they have not forgotten the droughts that followed.

They know that economic liberalization under the country-s Economic Structural Adjustment Programme exposed the failure of a skewed market to meet majority basic needs; and that the suspension of balance of payments support from the IMF and the World Bank resulted in the crash of the Zimbabwean dollar. They and their friends in the region and on the continent know that the combined effect of the European Union smart sanctions and the United States Zimbabwe Democracy Act, which has the support of the MDC, means that Zimbabwe is one of the few countries in the world that has tried to exist without balance-of-payment support or lines of credit from any bank in the world. This has undeniably frustrated the Zimbabwean government-s efforts to address the economic crisis. Zimbabweans see this as the most glaring explanation for the rise of inflation in the country. They know that no economy of a developing country could survive such an onslaught. They know that the Western dominated international monetary system has caused havoc and inflation and not the efforts of their government to carry forward the politics of liberation. The support that the MDC has sought and been given by the UK and its allies and their support for sanctions is what has eroded their support base.

But perhaps they do not realize that Zanu-PF is a lot stronger, popular and more united than it has been for over a decade. More indications are that it will win the presidency, the senate and the parliamentary elections. These will be held under Sadc guidelines which are already enshrined in Zimbabwean law. The search for a new relationship between Zanu-PF and the MDC will start the day after the elections. The Zanu-PF-led government will seek to consolidate its south-to-south connections, its Look East policy and speak to a pan-African cartography of the world, a cartography less turned towards the north and which carries routes of commerce, as well as political and cultural exchanges rooted in the unfinished business of the liberation war. It will seek a fourth Chimurenga (struggle) - a revolution of the mind. It will seek to consolidate its agrarian revolution and extend it to other public domains. It will seek home-grown solutions to its problems in partnership with its neighbors. The MDC on the other hand will have to go back on the drawing board if it wants to remain on the political landscape. Sadly that is unlikely to happen for another decade.

The future of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwean politics is for him, the ruling party and the Zimbabwean people to decide. Whatever happens after the elections will always be regarded by many as the epitome of the revolution stripped bare, the very source and movement of life in an unending explosion. Zanu-PF-s distributive instinct will continue with strength.

* George Shire is a Zimbabwean political analyst based in London

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