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ZANU-PF is just about to hold a conference in Bulawayo,
important for very likely being the last such party meeting before the next
presidential and parliamentary elections are held. It is doing so in a
political environment where in many ways it is the electoral underdog against
the MDC. Yet there are no signs at all that ZANU-PF is willing to deal with some
of big issues that could see the party being electorally wiped out by the MDC.
No one seems absolutely sure if there will be an election
soon, or when exactly. A lot of the work that was supposed to have been done by
the ZANU-PF/MDC unity government since its formation in 2009 remains incomplete.
Negotiations for a new constitution are slow, and it is not
clear there is the money to hold a required referendum on the final document.
The MDC says the electoral playing field is far from even, and that ZANU-PF is
not committed to doing its agreed part on this issue. ZANU-PF says the MDC has
not done enough on its pledge to push for the lifting of Western sanctions it
helped get instituted , while the MDC protests that it cannot force any actions
on foreign governments. The two parties have no shortage of charges of lack of
good faith to level against the other on their respective seriousness to have
all agreed factors in place before an election can be held.
Still, it is expected that most of these issues will be
somehow resolved soon, and that an election can be held in 2012 or 2013. Both
parties may a big show of being tired of co-existing in the inclusive
government, and both at least publicly express great bravado about their
prospects of winning that next election.
ZANU-PF retains control over all the security branches of
State, and over the electoral and judicial machinery. ‘Security sector reform’
is often talked about as one of the most important outstanding issues to be
resolved before the election, so that the army and police are not effectively
branches of ZANU-PF. Given the long intertwining of the army and the ZANU
liberation forces that preceded it, this will be difficult to achieve.
However, the next election will be the first one in which
ZANU-PF cannot expect to have full control over the whole process as before.
SADC is the ‘guarantor’ of the inclusive government and will be involved in
closely watching the election. After the fiasco of the violent, much
discredited election of 2008, the whole world will be watching the election
closely as well.
Since 2008 there have been several high profile international
examples of how it is no longer so easy for an incumbent government to fix or
steal an election and get away with it, at least if the government in question
is in bad books with those who considers themselves guarantors of ‘democracy
and human rights.’
Arguably therefore, ZANU-PF can count on the considerable
benefits of incumbency much less than ever before. It would also be going into
the election with heavy negative baggage.
The economy has significantly picked up since 2008, but is
still struggling, with many Zimbabweans continuing to experience great
hardship. Many citizens put the blame for their hard lives squarely on
President Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF. On the other hand, the improvements that
have been seen since the formation of the unity government are much more likely
to be credited to the MDC half of the government.
ZANU-PF will talk up land reform and its various
‘empowerment’ schemes. Many voters, including some beneficiaries of these
various schemes, may still take the attitude that well-intentioned as these may
be, they have a better chance of working under a fresh government than the one
that has ruled for three decades.
Then there is the big issue of Mugabe coming across as an
ancient, tired and sick old man in comparison to the MDC’s younger and more
vigorous Morgan Tsvangirai. No amount of propaganda can take away this very
significant negative for ZANU-PF.
Mugabe has always been in good form, and remains spry for a
man of his age. But it simply looks desperately sad and ridiculous for ZANU-PF
to be fielding an 87 year old Mugabe who has already ruled for 30 years as its
standard bearer.
That single factor may very well neutralize any others the
party may present as its positives. It serves as a very strong negative
metaphor for how ZANU-PF has failed to allow renewal at the top, even if it
does so at lower levels. Several of Mugabe’s key lieutenants have been
ministers for 30 years continuously!
Regardless of its history, its past successes, today’s land
reform and other empowerment programmes, ZANU-PF with Mugabe as its
presidential candidate would be in a severely weak position against an MDC led by
Tsvangirai as its leading candidate. For election purposes, the many flaws of
Tsvangirai and the MDC look much less serious than Mugabe’s age, the
‘permanence ’of many of his senior aides, the many negatives over the that
ZANU-PF has been associated with over 30 years.
Why this is not obvious for ZANU-PF on the eve of its Bulawayo
conference is a mystery that further reflects very poorly on the party.
Following the revelations of Wikileaks, it is now widely known that many of the
people in his party who will be publicly lauding Mugabe privately understand
what a liability he has become to them.
That there is a huge, widely known dichotomy between
publicly and privately expressed views among ZANU-PF’s top echelons merely
entrenches the idea of an organization that rules its members by patronage and
fear. This might not have mattered much in the days when the party was the only
game in town, but it certainly does now in the face of strong opposition by the
MDC.
At the very least, at this conference ZANU-PF needed to show
strong signs of preparing for the post-Mugabe era. Instead they look utterly
ridiculous talking as if they believe 87 year old Mugabe is still an
attractive, viable candidate when he isn’t.
And yet given Tsvangirai’s many gaffes, the latest being his
current ‘marriage’ fiasco, ZANU-PF may have been able to give the MDC at least
a stiff electoral fight with a standard bearer other than Mugabe.
Regardless of the personalities of the two parties’
respective leaders, they are also quite ideologically different, offering two
distinct visions of development for Zimbabwe.
But even for the many Zimbabweans who are drawn to the
ultra-nationalism of ZANU-PF, it is a message that the party needed to have
founded a strong new advocate for other than Mugabe. That the party has failed
to groom an obvious one (or several) in 30 years in power is not a good
reflection on either Mugabe or his party.
It clearly was too much to expect that anyone within his
party would challenge Mugabe for leadership. No matter how widespread the
sentiment for change amongst party members, Mugabe simply single-handedly
wields so much power that an open challenge is unthinkable. It is not within
the culture of ZANU-PF. But it seems almost suicidal for the party to be cowed
into mouthing support for an unviable but feared candidate, yet also knowing
that could be the single biggest factor in contributing to its electoral
defeat. It seems strange and sad that the party’s fear of its leader is
stronger than the imperative for winning what will be a keen election, and that
may even affect its prospects for long term survival.
If it is too much to expect for ZANU-PF to ask Mugabe to
make way for another leader and candidate, there are other steps short of that
which the Bulawayo conference could
have taken for the party to show Zimbabweans that it was thinking of the
future, and had a plan for smooth transition. One would have been to allow
competition for members to designate a successor for Mugabe without necessarily
asking him to not stand for the next election.
The competition would have been difficult and deeply
contentious. But at the end of it the old Mugabe could have led the party into
an election with a younger deputy who it was understood would lead the party
after Mugabe. In that case, Mugabe’s old age and alleged infirmity need not
have been factors as big as they are going to be under the present scenario.
If Mugabe won the presidential election under this
condition, his party-designated/publicly understood successor would then be in
a strong position to contest an election against Tsvangirai in the event of
Mugabe’s term of office being aborted. The internal fighting over this
succession plan would at least be taking place while ZANU-PF still effectively
controls government, and while Mugabe was around to serve as a mentor. There
would be time to salve the egos of losers in the succession contest, and to buy
them off with positions and the various other consolation prizes any ruling
party has at its disposal.
As things stand now, many voters will not only be turned off
by Mugabe’s age, but they will also know that the contention to succeed him as
ZANU-PF leader will be much more vicious when he is not on the scene. A
successor who then emerges from that process will likely start off being in a
weakened position in a presidential contest against Tsvangirai.
If a free and fair election can be held within the next year
or so, ZANU-PF’s 2011 conference may be remembered as the occasion when a once
great party failed at its final pre-election chance to renew itself to avoid an
electoral clobbering. If so, ZANU-PF’s demise would have been to a significant
extent self-inflicted, as much as because of the conditions that give the MDC
its current electoral momentum.
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