The Zimbabwe Review: politics

Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts

Simple but effective ways the MDC could spruce up its battered image

Sep 25, 2012

Public revelations of the astonishing sexual escapades of Zimbabwe coalition government prime minister and Movement for Democratic Change leader party leader Morgan Tsvangirai have for now totally derailed his party's ability to focus on its message in preparation for an election expected in the next several months. Even before the details of his messy sex life hit the public, the MDC had begun to experience perhaps its most serious crisis of public confidence. Perhaps this is a good opportunity for the MDC to take stock and change some of its ways to prevent a further haemorraging of its public support. Here is a random list of some simple things they could look at doing to try to stem the tide of their relative decline.

A change is not gonna come

Sep 18, 2012

Chido Makunike

Many Zimbabweans hope that there will soon be a fundamental change in how the country's politics are conducted. Whatever change to a more 'free and democratic' dispensation takes place will likely be small and incremental, rather than revolutionary. Here's why.

Ministers Shamu and Makandiwa; when religion and politics both encourage citizen subservience

Sep 13, 2012

Chido Makunike

Webster Shamu, government minister of information and Emmanuel Makandiwa, a minister of religion, have independently made statements that reveal some of the attitudes that are an impediment in Zimbabwe to the idea of leadership that is subservient and answerable to the people. To attain a position of leadership in any situation is so often taken and accepted as a right to lord it over ordinary people. It is going to be a hard and long process to change the attitudes that account for this state of affairs, but there are hopeful signs that this change is taking place at an accelerated pace.

The controversial MDC/ZANU-PF popularity poll result as a sign of a maturing Zimbabwean citizenry

Sep 3, 2012

by Chido Makunike

The opinion poll by U.S. think tank Freedom House suggesting reduced support for the MDC and an increase in support for ZANU-PF has caused an understandable stir. It has particularly done so by going against what had become, in some circles. the accepted wisdom of an impeding electoral landslide by the MDC over ZANU-PF.

U.K. Telegraph appoints Mnangagwa as Mugabe's successor

Apr 8, 2012

'Robert Mugabe strikes secret deal to hand Zimbabwe power to Emmerson Mnangagwa' is the kind of headline that is impossible to ignore when it appears on a news alert in your email inbox. Noticing it is from an article in the Mugabe-obsessed, generally Africa-unfriendly British Telegraph immediately reduces the newsworthiness and punch of the sexy-sounding heading. The Telegraph has had a few of what can be considered Mugabe/Zimbabwe scoops, but it has also cooked up many unlikely conspiracies and dubious stories around the person of Mugabe. The British paper makes its bitterness against Mugabe for his treatment of Zimbabwe's British-derived white farmers clear, and its main jump-off point for its Mugabe/Zimbabwe reportage. But even if this latest Mugabe story turns out to be as thin as many of the Telegraph's previous ones, the typically heavily anti-African readers' comments are sure to be revealing of a particular British mindset on the very emotional-for-them subjects of Mugabe and Zimbabwe.

Deputy Prime Minister Arthur and his knights of the political circus

Jan 1, 2012

One famous Arthur was an English king and his knights of the round table. An infamous modern Arthur is the deputy prime minister of Zimbabwe, Arthur Mutambara. Around his table he is gathering a dubious collection of individuals and tactics in his desperate bid to hold onto his position and perks. A youngish man who masquerades under the country’s fractured political ‘change’ movement, Mutambara is practicing precisely the old kind of politics Zimbabwe needs to put behind. In the process he not only manages to make himself look small and ridiculous, he illustrates how positive political change in Zimbabwe will take much longer and require much more fundamental societal change than just replacing some faces with new ones.

Community share schemes: more questions than just about political gimmickry

Dec 14, 2011

As part of its campaign strategy for a crucial upcoming election in which it must seriously consider the prospect of being beaten by the MDC, ZANU-PF has embarked on a shakedown of mining and other big companies. The shares they are being persuaded or arm twisted into ceding to local communities have been described by some as an ‘election gimmick.’ They probably are at least in part, but there are other even serious questions about them that remain unanswered.

At ZANU-PF conference, the Zimbabwe Independent again fails to solidify party factional fighting story

Dec 11, 2011

The Zimbabwe Independent has made itself an authority of sorts on ‘factionalism’ in ZANU-PF, if only by the sheer, astonishing number of leading stories it devotes to the subject. Given the frequency and prominence the paper has elected to give to this issue, a reader is often disappointed by how little meat and how much repetitious speculation and guesswork there in its ‘coverage’ of it. The just ended ZANU-PF conference in Bulawayo should have been a rare opportunity for the ZimInd to give the reader a more credible, newsworthy angle than usual to its favorite subject. Sadly but perhaps now predictably, it was not
to be.

ZANU-PF's 2011 conference is a lost final pre-election opportunity for reinvention

Dec 6, 2011

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.

Perhaps Zimbabwe’s real problem is of dysfunctional values needing change, not just bad politics

Dec 1, 2011

by Chido Makunike

It is understandable that many Zimbabweans look to the political arena for the big answers to the many problems that plague their country. Many hope a pivotal election in the next year or so will be clean and decisive enough to set a clear direction and provide certainty for the country in a way it seems to lack now. Could this reposing of trust in the political process be misplaced?

What future for Zimbabwe’s Commercial Farmers’ Union?

Nov 9, 2011

From being one of Zimbabwe’s most powerful and influential non-governmental bodies, the Commercial Farmers Union struggles to be heard at all today. Most of its members have been unceremoniously dispossessed of their farms, leaving the representative body of the country’s large-scale white farmers struggling for relevance. Is there much of a future for the CFU?

Alec Russel and the Financial Times: turning tables on Rowan Williams’ tea with Robert Mugabe

Oct 21, 2011

President Robert Mugabe’s ability to stir instinctive, deep-seated anger in British hearts and minds is legendary and astonishing. He must be one of the relatively few ‘brutal despots’ who stirs far more deep-seated negative emotion in a foreign country than even in his own. An article about British Church of England archbishop Rowan Williams’ recent visit with Mugabe, featured in the (UK) Financial Times, is an interesting read on this theme, which is frequently examined on this space.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what do those of Rowan Williams and Robert Mugabe together say?

Oct 20, 2011

Church of England boss Rowan Williams was recently in Zimbabwe to encourage the faithful at a time of a difficult split within the local church. A highlight was also his meeting with President Mugabe, to ask him to use his ‘good offices’ to prevent what is seen as state support or sympathy for one of the feuding church factions. How did it go?

More examples of how donor dependence compromises African sovereignty

By most accounts, Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is a nasty fellow. This alone wouldn't be enough to earn him being distanced by most of Africa's rulers, few of whom can be considered cute and cuddly fellows. But that al-Bashir is welcome in the company of African leaders is still odd because of the particular nature of his alleged badness. Arab al-Bashir is accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Sudan's ethnically African Darfur region. One would have thought this would be one reason to make African leaders at least avoid al-Bashir like the plague, but that hasn't been the case. What gives?

The unfortunate symbolism of an MDC mass salute to its leader

The startling photo below appeared in one of the local papers a few months ago. It was said to be of MDC supporters at a rally ‘saluting,’ military-style, party leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

''Ok, so what could be wrong with party members showing respect to their leader? Why do you have to 'problematize' (Zimnglish) everything?''

Another eviction shows farm tenure security is a long way off

Oct 4, 2011

There has been a lot of loose talk recently about various schemes to avail finance to new, post-land reform farmers. Some of the details of a recent/on-going reported eviction of an 'old' white farmer show why security of tenure cannot be counted on as an element in giving financiers confidence to lend money for farming in Zimbabwe in any big way.

The dangers of characterizing Zambia's election in Zimbabwean political terms

Sep 25, 2011

With the election of Michael Sata as president, Zambia continues to entrench its democratic tradition. It is impossible to ignore the contrast with the slow, reluctant moves towards a free system of elections and routine power transfer in Zimbabwe.

What Mugabe's 2011 UN speech revealed

Sep 20, 2011

President Robert Mugabe, his wife Grace and their entourage are in New York for a UN summit, the second one they have attended in as many months. Mugabe delivered a speech about the fight against non-communicable diseases which was very revealing, though not necessarily in the ways intended.

Deconstructing Tsvangirai's Chicago speech

MDC leader and Zimbabwe prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai was recently in Chicago, apparently on a trip with a mainly business/investment promotion bent. With his coalition government partner and arch foe president Robert Mugabe also in the USA, to address the UN, it almost looks like the two are competing to sell themselves internationally. What does Tsvangirai's main address to a business grouping in Chicago reveal about him?

Even after Wikileaks, Mugabe still completely controls ZANU-PF leadership change process

As more U.S.diplomatic cables are leaked, the main collective response is still astonishment at the degree to which many people close to president Robert Mugabe apparently privately called for him to step down, with some even joining in half-hearted attempts to engineer that result. Lost in that astonishment is the fact that regardless of how widespread the sentiment in favor of leadership renewal in ZANU-PF was/is, the party today is no closer to getting rid of Mugabe than they were at the time most of the cables were written.

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