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Zimbabwe: Time to reflect and evaluate the Global Political Agreement
Maxwell Madzikanga
October 18, 2010

Over a couple of weeks now, disturbing news and scenarios have been coming from Zimbabwe print and electronic media. The Global Political Agreement (GPA) euphoria seems to have dissipated and dissolved away silently. The hope that all and sundry had when the GPA was agreed and began to be operationalised has slid away into the dustbins of history.

The political temperature seems to be gravitating towards pre-GPA levels. The previous animosity and aggressive postures are beginning to emerge and entrench themselves once again. There are many contributing factors to this sad and unsustainable scenario- both attributable to the MDC formations and ZANU PF. Politicians from both political parties have concentrated on accumulating power, wealth and influence at the expense of rebuilding the broken walls of Jericho and pillars of Zimbabwe. There have been cosmetic and fragile improvements on the economic front but the population has not gained anything tangible and durable from the GPA except the temporary tranquillity and peace that had began to take root.

The pre-GPA political tone has returned and this hardening of positions and rhetoric from the top leadership of both MDCs and ZANU PF does not serve Zimbabwe in any way. The three political parties have again taken Zimbabweans for a ride and when the opportune time comes some politicians will receive a rude political awakening. Zimbabwe is endowed with many precious minerals, an educated population and workforce, beautiful adulating terrain, rich and diverse agricultural land, enabling climatic conditions, friendly and tolerant people and other resources yet our people continue to eke a subsistence living and survive on less than a dollar a day. Where are all the proceeds from the diamonds sales going? What about the flashy cars and lifestyles our politicians display in a country awash with poverty, fragility, disease and pain.

The country is now likely to be heading towards elections in mid 2011 and I need not be a prophet to say that violence and instability will like lighting return to the cities, mines, the mountains, the valleys, rural areas and service centres. Why is it that after almost two years, the GPA has failed to convince the "current top leadership" to say its time to pass on the political button stick? Is it because our "independence leadership" has become so drunk with power that they are blinded to the demands and reality of the real world? Or is it because the "post independence leadership" has not seen anything different coming from the democratic leadership emanating from the oppositional cadres now in government.

Zimbabwe belongs to the departed, the living and posterity yet the current level of political functionalism both within both MDC formations and ZANU PF is shocking and leaves a lot to be desired. Its time for MDCs and ZANU PF to reflect and account for their political actions. The constitutional reform process has been a monumental failure and I foresee a NO vote prevailing and we will be back to the Lancaster House driven Constitution. This government of national unity (disunity) could have achieved much if Robert and Morgan had humbled themselves before the people of Zimbabwe and had conducted themselves like national leaders way above parochial party political agendas. While our people inside and outside Zimbabwe are suffering, the two national representatives have spent time only attending to minor party-driven and personality-oriented agendas.

Our country is endowed with enormous resources, both discovered and undiscovered. Both domestic and foreign owned. Our children are scattered all over the world, abused, demeaned, ill-treated and tagged as second class citizens yet our own country is bursting to the seams with ancestrally and God-given, abundant resources. Foreign and international companies and conglomerates will continue to exploit our resources while we fight over petty issues, spend long nights and days shouting at each other like arch-enemies. Remember what Josiah Magama Tongogara said when the Zimbabwe Liberation war was ending- Lets go home and never again should we throw stones at each other. It matters not who governs Zimbabwe. That-s not the issue. It could be ZANU PF or MDC or both. But fundamentally, whoever is mandated to govern should espouse African informed democracy, ethics and norms, elected democratically and have the mandate of the people of Zimbabwe. Anointed and blessed by the Zimbabwean soil. Led by a divine hand and respectful of the traditional institutions. We have imported so much from the west and other political systems that our polity is confused, sterile and at best redundant. If our leadership was anointed, watered by the blood of the sons and daughters who died and still lie undiscovered in the forests internally within Zimbabwe and externally in Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania and elsewhere, then all this selfishness would be taboo. Morgan and Robert-have you forgotten the many sons and daughters who were gunned down by enemy fire during The Nyadzonya Raid? If our leadership knew that power engenders responsibility then Robert and Morgan would be working day and night to rebuild Zimbabwe and reflect this nationally and internationally. The President and the Prime Minister should be burning midnight candles discussing national priorities, agreeing and negotiating, compromising and subsequently facing the nation together. This flip flopping by our national leaders is unacceptable especially in a democracy like ours-if we have any remaining. The two leaders have been all over the place, looking left, right, down and up for political salvation. Zimbabwe-s political, social and economic salvation will never come from the east or west-it-s buried under that country called Dzimbabwe. It-s held tightly by those old men and women living in far flagged rural and peri-urban Zimbabwe. Some living and some departed. Some still to come. Zimbabweans don-t eat vocabularies and high end speeches and in any case the current mudslinging won-t benefit posterity.

Reading through papers and political pieces coming from my motherland, one easily perceives the same acidic hatred and pitched animosity that has been the order of the day in Zimbabwe at least beginning mid-1980s. Is this what our elders want to leave for us and our children? A life defined largely by roaming in foreign lands and strange soils. Dying and being buried in lands thousands of miles away from our ancestral homelands? A life where Zimbabweans with much needed superior skills and training spend long nights and days performing demeaning and menial jobs in Europe and other countries. Where children are born rootless in the diaspora? Where the people you represent roam and live uncertain and broken lives in London, Washington, or any other territory for that matter?

It does not need a rocket scientist to conclude that the future looks bleak for Zimbabwe. That our God-given, God-endowed resources will either remain unexploited and most painfully that Zimbabwe as a country will continue to have economic vultures descend and ascend at will to exploit our resources left, right and centre. There is very little substantive nation rebuilding that has been coming from the inclusive government. Critical issues like economic recovery, nation rebuilding, peace and security, employment creation, the issue of Diaspora populations, reconciliation and state building have been sidelined by political ambition, Vasco da Gama spirit and the per diem culture.

Is Zimbabwe ready for an election? Not at all. The country needs a broadly acceptable national constitution. There is no need to rush the process because it-s so fundamental and sacrosanct to nation building and posterity. The constitution making process needs broad acceptance, be resourced adequately, not in terms of per diems for personnel involved in the constitutional process but to ensure that the rationality behind process is clearly understood by every Zimbabwean. That the population is given an opportunity to reflect and to input into the constitutional making process without threats or undue influence from any political actors. That an apolitical and neutral body be mandated and tasked with the constitution making process. When the life of the first phase of the GPA elapses in February 2011, there is no harm in extending its mandate if the constitutional process is not yet completed. For how long Zimbabwe can you continue to leap on two legs? Going round and round in circles like a hurricane.

It is beyond doubt that the events and processes of the last several months have explicitly indicated that Zimbabwe-s salvation will emanate from the four corners of Dzimbabwe. You cannot import or export the sacrosanct processes of nation building and national healing. Unless ZANU PF and MDC leadership unite and work as brothers and sisters, our people, the ones we have trained at great expense and national sacrifice will continue to be poached by other countries, economic vultures and international organisations. Our infrastructure at every level will continue to crumble and deteriorate. I have talked to many Zimbabweans in the diaspora both in Africa and Europe and many are ready to return home if political conditions are improved and their security is guaranteed. Many who have had their rights dismantled, decimated and abused are prepared to forgive and forget the past and move on as normal citizens. They are ready and available to make a contribution to their country of birth yet the GPA has not put in place tangible, accessible, realistic, clear and marketable strategies to capture this critical population.

There are few options that the GPA has at its disposal. Firstly, either the GPA winds down when the agreed period expires in February 2011. This scenario has to be followed by a supposedly free, fair and democratic electoral process. The outcome from such an election will lead to a winner forming a new government-either inclusively or exclusively. The chances are that the electoral process will be violent and followed by the traditional counter accusations of voter rigging and cheating. The usual but justified arguments regarding unequal access to electoral resources and abuse of state apparatus to the advantage of one party. Our communities will remain emotionally fractured and vulnerable and bitter. The loosing party(ies) will definitely reject the electoral outcomes. Lives will be lost and maybe another coalition government will be formed. The configuration of such a coalition would go beyond the two MDC formations and ZANU PF and include other emerging parties as well.

The second option is to extend the life of GPA by another two years. Such an extension affords the country time to finalise and appropriately wrap-up the constitution making processes. Two years is quite a short time in the life of a government. If the GPA is extended by two years, it has to be massively different from the current arrangement. There is need for the development of clear and tangible political outcomes and a mid-point evaluation of the implementation of the key agreed milestones. The key agreements should encompass among others issues regarding the appointment of the Governor of the Reserve Bank, The Attorney General, as well as nominations to ambassadorial and governorship positions. But fundamentally these are not the issues that bring food on the table. The new reconfigured political formation would have to redefine national strategic priorities, articulate clear and inter-party positions with regard to education, health and social services, economic empowerment and the country-s fragile foreign policy. The second option will also enable national healing and reconciliation processes to proceed without interruption. This is a difficult option, but Zimbabweans have already suffered enormously and many don-t want the healing and reconciliation process to be aborted by any political party for cheap political gain.

Aluta continua. The struggle continues!!!

*Maxwell holds a Bsc in Political Science Hons from the University of Zimbabwe, a Bsc Special Honours in Psychology from the University of Zimbabwe, a Master of Science in Disease Control from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belgium, an Erasmus Mundus Master of Bioethics(awarded magna cum laude) awarded by three European Universities. Maxwell also holds several management and health diplomas from reputable colleges in USA, and Europe. Among others, Maxwell has worked as an Advisor to the Former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Health, the National Health Service in UK and the National AIDS Council in Zimbabwe as a National Social Support and Mobilisation Coordinator. Maxwell is an alumni of the US State Department International Exchange Visitors Programme and also an alumni of St Jude Children-s Research Hospital, Memphis USA.

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