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Coming of the dry season
Alex Magaisa
October 24, 2008

http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/magaisa101.18938.html

They called to say that the first rains had finally arrived. They said the weatherman had promised yet more rains, as if he were the Rainmaker. They said the minister predicted, yet again, that there would be a bumper harvest. But there is no seed, no fertiliser. The villagers are hungry.

There is nothing new here, I thought. What about the politics, I asked. Well, they are still talking, they replied.

By the time I put the phone down, I wondered, whether this was yet another false promise; that despite the rains, this could be, to use the title of Charles Mungoshi's haunting collection of short stories, the coming of another dry season.

Optimism and pessimism

I have seen enough in my years to understand that you are either of two kinds of people.

There is a breed that is highly optimistic -- a type that tries very hard to find goodness in other humans. This type sometimes ends up believing its own wishes and dreams far though they might be, removed from reality.

They believe that every human has a 'core of goodness' - something that if you search harder and more patiently, can be rescued and nurtured for the greater good. Often this type meets with great disappointment when, and it's usually the case, their dreams are dashed.

Then there is another breed that is cautious to the point of pessimism. These ones are more sceptical. They know the human is inherently incapable of being trusted so they take everything with a pinch of salt.

This type does not allow its dreams to stand for reality. It is the pessimistic type; pessimism itself being useful insurance cover against the likely spectre of disappointment.

Yet, this too is a privileged lot, because when they are proven wrong; when things do actually work contrary to the pessimistic view, they are nevertheless pleased. They win both ways. They say, 'we told you so' when things fail but smile with contrived surprise when things do work.

Sadly, I do not belong to the second group. Unfortunately, try though I do, to be cautious and pessimistic, the eternal optimist in me always triumphs. It is a great weakness, I admit, because often I, like others of my ilk, are disappointed. It is a weakness because we should learn to be more sceptical.

On this single occasion though, whilst it was hard to suppress the feeling of optimism, it was, quite rightly qualified with caution. I was therefore 'cautiously optimistic' when the political protagonists in Zimbabwe signed the September 15 Agreement.

There had been too many bitter fights between the protagonists and the text of the Agreement itself was fairly messy. But even then, I thought that despite the technical shortcomings, the signatories could do well to abide by and uphold the 'spirit and principles' of the accord.

Here I was, hoping for that 'core of goodness' in humans to triumph. I genuinely hoped they would but I was wrong to think they could actually do it.

As events since September 15 have shown, there is an apparent paucity of respect, trust and confidence between the parties. It is difficult to envisage a proper working relationship under the proposed structures.

There is a wrong assumption that once the cabinet allocations have been 'agreed', everything else will fall into place. The reality is that whatever happens on October 27 when they meet with the SADC Troika, the gap in trust and confidence is likely to remain.

Creativity for a special problem

But it's not all doom and gloom. Time has come for more creativity in dealing with the preliminary problem of government structure. The structure of government or indeed its composition is not an end in itself. The politicians must ask themselves: What are we trying to achieve in government? Clearly, there are problems that need resolution - that must be the priority.

This question calls for robust policy considerations, as opposed to the identity of persons at the helm of ministries. After all, the idea of collective responsibility essentially means that all ministers are responsible for the decisions taken by cabinet, whether or not they agree with them.

As noted before in this column, the September Agreement has a rather odd requirement that cabinet decisions must be taken by 'consensus'. This means everyone in cabinet must agree. This will be hard to achieve given the painful birth of the new government. It almost makes nonsense of the current fight for specific portfolios.

It seems to me that the matter of governmental structure calls for some innovation on the part of negotiators. A basic problem of the current approach is that they are trying to fit within the traditional ministerial model of government something that is not easily amenable to that model. Having gone to such great lengths to devise a pact that is an extraordinary solution to an unusual problem, you would think that it's logical to extend the innovation further to the manner in which government is structured.

The policy perspective

It can't be too late to try out other mechanisms of resolving the conflict by framing the question from a policy perspective. This would entail identifying the key policy areas, perhaps focussing on problematic areas in today's environment: economic policy; health and social welfare; Legal and Constitutional Reform; Internal (Home) Affairs; External (Foreign) Affairs; National Security Affairs; Education; Food and Agricultural Affairs; etc.

A modest idea might be, instead of resorting to the traditional ministerial model, to constitute special joint executive committees comprising representatives of each party - with the responsibility to drive the agreed policies appertaining to each special area.

The issue ceases to be about a party 'controlling' a particular ministry but a joint body specially constituted according to each policy area. What our politicians should be spending their time on right now is not the identity of the ministers as such but the priority policy areas and how they hope to approach them in government.

This model of joint authority and responsibility of the special executive committees could also augur well for the principles and rules under the Agreement. Consensus must be built through a system that allows for a high level of collegiality between the responsible ministers.

A model where the representatives of each party work together in specially appointed committees is more likely to be conducive for the growth of good team ethics, cross-party relations and also minimise the points of conflict.

Are relations really that bad?

Much is made of the bad relations between the MDCs and Zanu PF at an organisational level or perhaps the leadership level when you consider the relationship between Mugabe and Tsvangirai.

I do believe, however, that outside the political rhetoric, ordinary people might be surprised that politicians on either side actually do have personal relationships which can facilitate a working relationship. They borrow money from each other; they are related in one way or another - through marriage, sharing totems, where they come from, they went to school together, etc.

You just have to consider the reported relationship between Theresa Makone of the MDC, reportedly close to the Tsvangirais, and Jocelyn Chiwenga, wife of the Army Commander who has had her own fair share of battles with Tsvangirai. Or that the new Speaker, Lovemore Moyo, is related by marriage to Zanu PF's Sithembiso Nyoni.

Impecunious MDC MPS have been said to borrow money from their more wealthy Zanu PF counterparts. There could in fact be many more such finer relationships. The clashes do indeed exist, but like in every other sphere of life, it is not impossible to find extra threads that can bind people together, beyond the politics of the day.

In my opinion, having haggled over the cabinet posts to fit within the traditional ministerial model, it might be worth the effort to be more creative. I only offered a modest proposal here. It is flawed and needs better consideration. But the basic idea is not about my proposal; it is that it might do us some good to think 'outside the box', forgive the use of another tired cliché. It's a bleak situation and I fear it could be another 'dry season' in the offing.

*Alex Magaisa is based at Kent Law School, The University of Kent. He can be contacted at wamagaisa@yahoo.co.uk

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