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Undoing the anti-democratic politics of inqindi
Elinor Sisulu, Amandla!
April 25, 2008

http://www.amandlapublishers.co.za/content/view/582/154/

"Thina inqindi silazo, siyanqinda futhi." These fighting words by President Robert Mugabe in his Bulawayo election rally on Sunday 23rd March 2008 were taken seriously by his audience. Many of them had experienced the blows of the fist that he was brandishing. From 1983 to 1987 that fist took the form of the Korean-trained Fifth Brigade that massacred an estimated twenty thousand people in the provinces of Matabeleland and parts of Midlands. In May 2005 it took the form of Operation Murambatsvina when army and police units bulldozed homes and businesses around the country in an orgy of destruction that left 700 000 people homeless.

The fist (inqindi) is a source of pride for Mugabe and the ruling ZANU PF. Indeed election posters displayed the slogan "Behind the Fist" superimposed on the image of a fist-brandishing Mugabe. The veteran leader told his Bulawayo audience in no uncertain terms: ""You can vote for them (MDC), but that will be a wasted vote. You will be cheating yourself as there is no way we can allow them to rule this country . . . . We have a job to do and that is to protect our heritage. The MDC will not rule this country. It will never, ever happen. Asisoze sivume (we will not yield)."

In his address to the people of Bulawayo, Mugabe was reinforcing the message given in the weeks preceding the poll by army commander General Constantine Chiwenga, Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri and the head of the country-s Prison Services Paradzai Zimondi that they would not accept an MDC victory. The message to the people of Zimbabwe was transmitted loudly and clearly and emphasised over and over again - it is the fist and not the ballot box that will prevail.

ZANU-PF election manoeuvres

Throughout 2007 the Zimbabwe government had dug deep into its bag of tricks to ensure an election victory for ZANU PF. These included intimidation and violence perpetrated by police, army and other state agents, manipulation of voter registration, removal of people from the voter-s roll and sustained propaganda campaign through state-controlled media, harassment and intimidation of the independent media. To top it all, the pseudo-independent Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), headed by former military general George Chiweshe, was the only body allowed to carry out voter education. I shared the view of many who believed that in this environment it would be impossible for a divided MDC to win the election. I obviously underestimated the Zimbabwean electorate-s desperate desire for change and was shocked when news of a stunning MDC victory began to filter through.

Ecstatic Zimbabweans started celebrating the day after the election when confirmation of early indications of an MDC victory from the V11 notices posted outside polling booths were confirmed by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) monitors and the MDC-s parallel voter tabulation process. They quickly learned that their celebrations were premature when the ZEC took a week to announce the results of the parliamentary elections and by Friday, 5 April, the deadline for the release of the results according to electoral law, no presidential results were forthcoming. Instead, after a marathon meeting, the ZANU PF Politburo set the stage for a rerun.

The ZANU PF master plan that has unfolded since the elections has several elements - discredit the election result by claiming it is rigged against the MDC, thereby setting the stage to reverse the result, close down political space to prevent any public unrest, roll out a campaign of violent retribution and put in place structures of violent coercion throughout the country to ensure victory during the anticipated run off. Undergirding this strategy is an intensive propaganda drive employing the usual anti-imperialist rhetoric and resuscitating that old scapegoat - the white farmers. A war veteran-s march through Harare was followed by token invasions of some of the few remaining white farmers. The objective of these "invasions" seemed to be spiteful destruction of property rather than a genuine land grab.

The little chink of political space opened in the few weeks before the March 29 poll, has been quickly closed down. Police have banned political rallies even though they do not have a legal right to do so. Welshman Ncube, secretary-general of the MDC led by Arthur Mutambara told IRIN news:
"Clearly, the ban is unlawful because the amended POSA [Public Order and Security Act] does not allow for such a unilateral decision by the police. This is just an insidious move to attempt to subvert the will of the people, to deny them their constitutional right of assembly. We have been put in a permanent state of armed suppression,"

While constructing its case of electoral fraud, military and intelligence apparatus has been rolling out its campaign of violent retribution in the countryside, dubbed, in typical ZANU PF fashion, "Operation Mavhoterapapi?" (Operation where did you vote?). The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human rights confirm that reports are being received from all over the country of a terror campaign intended to ensure that people will be too frightened to vote for MDC in a run-off election. Between March 29th and April 14th 2008, Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights ZADHR) has seen and treated 157 cases of injury resulting from organised violence and torture and by April 15, 30 of these patients were still in hospital. It must be noted that many victims of political violence in remote areas are not able to reach ZADHR so the reported cases are a minority of the total number. Judging from past experience of post-election violence in 2000 and 2002, casualties will continue to mount in the coming weeks.

Choices facing democratic forces

What are the choices for democratic forces in Zimbabwe? The MDC immediately embarked on the legal route with an urgent court action to force the ZEC to release the results. Not surprisingly the MDC appeal was dismissed with costs. To rule otherwise, Justice Uchena would have had to be prepared to sacrifice his career, risk his life and face the possibility of exile. The ZANU PF government is not kind to judges who rule against it in politically sensitive cases, as a number of former judges, now in exile, will testify.

In the weeks following the election, Morgan Tsvangirai has been engaged in intense diplomatic shuttling between the capitals of the region. The fact that SADC heads of state actually called an emergency summit on Zimbabwe was an achievement in itself. However, President Thabo Mbeki-s comments after his meeting with Mugabe in Harare and the final communiqué of the summit put a dampener on any hopes that the powers that be in the region prevail over President Mugabe and his military/security establishment to accept defeat and pave way for a democratic transition.

The final communiqué of the SADC heads of state summit is profoundly disturbing. By urging the ZEC to verify and announce the election results and urging all parties to accept the results, they tacitly accept ZEC-s rights to verify results before they have been officially announced. They blithely ignore the fact that those ballot boxes have been in the hands of the Central Intelligence Organisation and that there is a real possibility they have been tampered with. Furthermore, there is no deadline given for the announcement of the results and no indication on what action will be taken if any if no announcement is forthcoming. To date there is no indication whether SADC observers will be present during this "verification" process. The Summit urged the Zimbabwe Government in event of a run-off to "ensure a secure environment" and offered to send a SADC observer mission. Considering the performance of previous SADC observer mission that pronounced the election free and fair before the final outcome was announced, this is not a comment that inspires confidence.

David Chimhini, director of the Zimbabwe Civic Education Trust (ZIMCET), an organisation working to promote voter rights, summed up the views of the civil society activists in his comments to IRIN News:

"The Zimbabwean electorate is disappointed that nothing substantial came out of the SADC summit. For many, it is back to the drawing board because the regional leaders failed to address fundamental issues, instead almost endorsing ZEC's unjustified delay in announcing the results. One would have expected the SADC leaders to come out more firmly than they did. They failed to make pronouncements on rising violence, the failure by Mugabe to attend [the Lusaka summit], the closure of the ZEC command centre without informing interested parties, observers being brutalised, journalists being arrested, and the heavy deployment of soldiers and police officers across the country.SADC diplomacy has proved once more that it cannot address the concerns of the people when they need regional support most. "

Most disturbing of all was SADC-s maintenance of President Thabo Mbeki as mediator on the Zimbabwean crisis. Mbeki-s exhortations to Zimbabweans to wait for the results and his view that what was happening was part of "a normal electoral process" beggars all belief. It also gives some insight into the weakness of the Summit-s final communiqué, notwithstanding the strong comments by Zambia-s President Levy Mwanawasa in his opening address to the summit. I will not go into an analysis of Mbeki-s position - that is the subject of another article. Suffice to say, it is a position that refuses to recognise the inherent violence of the Zimbabwean state.

Whatever the reservations about Mbeki as mediator, the MDC has no choice but to continue to pursuing the diplomatic route. Civil society organisations such as the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition and the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) have lobbied extensively in the region. Regional civil society networks have also responded strongly to the post-election crisis in Zimbabwe. The emergency consultation of civil society activists from all over Africa which took place from 21 to 23 April in the Tanzanian capital of Dar-es-Salaam on 21st April 2008 is an example of the continental response to the Zimbabwean crisis. The Kenyan election crisis has sensitised civil society organisations throughout the region on the dire consequences of government-s that steal and manipulate elections. Hopefully the consultation will result in recommendations on how to respect and protect the democratic rights of the most vulnerable citizens on our continent.

Ideally the Zimbabwean crisis should be resolved by regional intervention. If SADC and the AU withdrew moral, diplomatic and political support for Robert Mugabe and his now illegal government, the Zimbabwe crisis would be very quickly resolved with minimal loss of life. Past experience has shown us that it is too much to hope for and the only choice the Zimbabwean people have is to confront the fist themselves. New and creative strategies have to be adopted to achieve this end. The MDC offers a democratic possibility but not a guarantee that Zimbabwe will change from the politics of the fist. Zimbabweans have to work out not only how to protect their vote but also how to change the prevailing political culture of violence and intolerance.

*Elinor Sisulu works with the Zimbabwe Crisis Coalition.

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