A president who will not be missed

“Good riddance of bad rubbish” is, I suspect, how a lot Zimbabweans will greet the news that President Thabo Mbeki has been given the sack from the presidency by his party the ANC of South Africa. To say that this is the best piece of news I have heard for a long while is, perhaps, a serious understatement. Of course I was aware that President Mbeki had not endeared himself to many of his compatriots and to the generality of the suffering masses in his country’s neighbourhood.

The signs have not been good for him for quite a while. President Mbeki famously denied that HIV caused AIDS and denied or blocked government action to relieve the suffering of many of his people who were afflicted by the deadly disease. Only in the face of overwhelming global pressure and mounting evidence of the deadly carnage that the disease was wrecking in the country, did Mbeki relent and allow unhindered implementation of AIDS prevention and treatment programmes. But the damage had been done to his credibility and sense of judgement.

Mr Mbeki also launched a crusade to weaken, sideline and punish those he considered as threatening his leadership position. Tokyo Sexwale and Cyril Ramaphosa were early victims and Jacob Zuma had been a target for a long period. Ironically, it is his relentless pursuit of Zuma which has driven Mbeki to his Waterloo before his term as president of the South African Republic had expired. The writing was on the wall when Mbeki dismally lost to Zuma in his attempt to extend his tenure as president of the ruling party by another term. And when he was fingered by the judiciary as having interfered in the prosecution of his nemesis, the game was well and truly up. There was only one way out for him – to drink the cup of poison.

However it is for his role in Zimbabwe that Mbeki will forever be remembered by many people around the world. For eight long years, President Mbeki has worked hard to prop and protect the discredited, increasingly unpopular and brutish neighbour in the north, Robert Mugabe. Of course the support has not been overt and tacit - even a man of his immense power and influence could not openly condone the excesses of his neighbour. But his so called “quite diplomacy” had, to many impartial observers, become a euphemism for protectionism of the abhorrent Mugabe regime.

For eight long years, and perhaps more, President Mbeki watched as Mugabe, in a fit of madness, reduced what was one of the strongest economies in Africa into a complete basket case of poor and hungry masses. He watched or, more accurately perhaps, turned his eyes away as millions of Zimbabwean flooded across the borders to escape political repression and poverty in their home state. He watched and acquiesced as Mugabe stole repeated elections through naked violence and blatant rigging. When his observers and advisors reported on the malfeasance of his neighbour, he ignored or suppressed their reports.

For a long eight years, President Mbeki positioned himself as the mediator of the conflict in Zimbabwe vowing that he would end the unfolding tragedy while he supped with the devil, clasped hands with him and declared to the incredulous and bewildered world that “there is no crisis in Zimbabwe”. With such comforting support, Mugabe was allowed to freely proceed and do what he knows best – inflicting untold pain and suffering on his people.

Many are celebrating the recently concluded talks on a government of national unity in Zimbabwe as a triumph of Mbeki’s consummate diplomacy skills. But even more people will beg to differ and the verdicts have already starting coming in. The agreement has, at best, been received with universal scepticism and, at worst, with outright rejection by many important stakeholders. Even before the ink on the agreement was dry, his long-term beneficiary, Robert Mugabe, was complaining loudly and bitterly to the entire world that he was unhappy with the agreement because the opposition “demanded more than they deserved”.

As I write this article, there is a reported deadlock on the sharing of cabinet positions because Zanu-PF is reneging on earlier understandings and demanding a control of all the strategic ministries while relegating the opposition to second-tier and less strategic portfolios. The signs are not good for the future of the agreement as long as Mr Mugabe remains in any sort of control. Mugabe has been and continues to be the albatross around Zimbabwe’s neck. That is the cardinal fundamental that Mbeki never got to understand or accept through the long eight years of his so-called facilitation.

The departure of Mr Mbeki, deserved and welcome as it is, will be very good news for the oppressed people of Zimbabwe in particular and the African democratic movement in general. It is good news because Mugabe will realise all too quickly that he has lost his protector and has to settle for what he has got now. Mugabe’s hand will now be forced to make this deal work otherwise he will be forced into another election which he will dismally loose. Mugabe is no fool and he should realise that any attempt by him to jettison the unity agreement will have far less attractive consequences for him because the successor regime in South Africa is likely to be far less accommodating to his dictatorial excesses and his waywardness.

For the democratic movement generally, the fall of a powerful political personality like Mbeki was again confirm the time proven tenet of democracy that no leader is mightier than the people he leads. The problem we have had in Zimbabwe (and indeed in other countries under dictatorship) is that Mugabe had grown to believe, rightly or wrongly, that he was bigger than the people of Zimbabwe. That is why he does not respect their intelligence (as attested by his continual attribution of his unpopularity to the British and American interference) nor care for their suffering.

The jettisoning of Mbeki by his party is also a good lesson to Zanu-PF on what it should have done to Mugabe at least twenty years ago when it became all too apparent that he was leading the country astray. There have been many opportunities for Zanu-PF to tell Mugabe to go but there has been very few if any who have launched a serious leadership challenge to Mugabe. Joshua Nkomo did in the early years of independence and he was mercilessly crushed, Edgar Tekere tried in the late eighties and he was buried. More recently Simba Makoni threw his hat into the ring but his motives were as questionable as his efforts were feeble.

The greater tragedy has been that for every single voice of dissent a dozen sycophantic voices have emerged to praise and fawn on Mugabe’s leadership greatness. And the tragic effect of the failure to unseat Mugabe is now all too plain to see - except perhaps by the outgoing President Mbeki who saw no evil and heard no evil in Mr Robert Mugabe. Mr Mbeki will not be missed by the people of Zimbabwe.

A minefield of a political settlement in Zimbabwe

Make no mistake about it, the just concluded political settlement in Zimbabwe is a very bad deal indeed. It is quite obvious that not many people are happy with the agreement and there are good reasons for that. The newly anointed Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, will feel that the deal does not give adequate recognition to his success in the much fairer and free March 29, 2008 elections. President Robert Mugabe has already expressed strong reservations about the agreement.

Many supporters of both the MDC and ZANU-PF feel that their leaders “sold out” to achieve the agreement. The international community is generally sceptical that the agreement will be successfully implemented and are withholding support until they see evidence of progress on the ground. I do suspect that even President Thabo Mbeki, the chief architect of the agreement, is privately ashamed of his shoddy handiwork though, in public, he claims that this was the best solution – “an African solution to an African problem” whatever that means!

Be that as it may, the deal provides some hope of sorts that there is light at the end of the tunnel. My own view is that the agreement is a very positive development for three reasons: Firstly, the deal has for the first time in 28 years loosened Mugabe’s stranglehold on power in Zimbabwe. In spite of his fatuous claims that he remains in “the driving seat”, Mugabe knows that he has been compromised and lost a great deal of the powers he once held. Otherwise why would he be trying so hard to sabotage the agreement if he remained truly in charge? The degree of "loosening" may be debatable but the mere fact that Mugabe has agreed to share power represents a significant shift in the power dynamics in Zimbabwe.

Secondly and, again, for the first time since independence in 1980, the opposition now have a significant say in the governing of the country. Although the degree of "say" may be debatable, the MDC are in a position to begin dismantling some of the more oppressive and obnoxious structures, systems and legislation - access to information, security and public order, etc. Zanu-PF will work very hard to sabotage or block any reform efforts but they will not be allowed to succeed. And I suspect they will not allow themselves to succeed. They know that they have got out of this deal much more than they deserved and they will not fare better in a new round of negotiations – especially with Mbeki’s tenure in South Africa under imminent threat.

Third, the deal provides the last possible chance for providing an honourable exit to Mugabe. I do not think Mugabe has any doubt (neither has his party, for that matter) that the game is over and their time is up. They know that they remain in shared power only because of the courtesy of President Mbeki and other African leaders who allowed that he should not be humiliated out of office but should, instead, be given a soft landing. Mbeki and his motley crew of African leaders will not be amused if Mugabe double-crosses them. There are watching him closely and will not let him wriggle out of the deal. And when the next elections come (be it in two years or five) Mugabe and ZANU-PF will be put to the sword by the voters.

Having made a case of some sort in favour of this very fractured agreement, it is my view that there are three potential deadly hazards or minefields that must be negotiated by the parties if any meaningful or useful results are to be expected from this engagement. The first is the distribution of the cabinet positions. One of the major weaknesses of the agreement which has been made public so far is that it does not specify how the cabinet positions are to be allocated. I do suspect that this would have been discussed and agreed at the negotiating table but the fact that it was not committed into the actual agreement document suggests that there could be some back-tracking and shifts from agreed positions. If that is the case, Mr Mbeki should be expected back in Harare on the double before his smouldering agreement goes up in flames. There has been a lot of speculation as to which ministries have been allocated to which party and I do not wish to add to this speculation

My expectation however is that the MDC will be given some key and strategic ministries which will lend credibility to the power sharing arrangements and strengthen their hand in the difficult process of turning the economy around. It must be remembered that apart from the fact that they actually won the March general elections, what the MDC brings to the table is their claim to the key to unlock international aid and investment which will be critical in bailing out Zimbabwe from its economic doldrums. However such external support will not be forthcoming unless Tsvangirai is given real power and seen to be in a position and making an effort to change things around. Therefore I see the fair and equitable distribution of cabinet sits as critical to the success of the agreement. Anything else is, potentially, a deal breaker.

The second minefield is the land issue. The terms of the agreement suggest that Mugabe’s chaotic land reforms are irreversible. I am not quite sure what this means but to me this is the most reversible of the issues otherwise there will be no progress whatsoever in improving the lot of the people. I believe that redistribution of land to the landless and the poor is absolutely necessary and I fully agree that the British government should be persuaded to compensate the farmers whose land has been acquired for this purpose as per the terms of the Lancaster House agreement. But it is common knowledge that much of the farms that were taken in the last eight years were given to undeserving government ministers, senior civil servants, top brass of the security agencies and Zanu-PF apparatchiks.

It is absolutely silly and sheer madness to suggest and to expect the British government (and any government for that matter) to pay compensation for lands which are in the hands of such self-serving individuals. In my view the issue of land should be guided by one principle or consideration – effective utilisation of the land for food production and economic development of the country. I believe that many of the farms were too big and this resulted in large tracts of unutilised or underutilised land. Such farms should be subdivided and shared with the landless poor. Others who have the means, capacity and capability should be assisted to acquire their own lands which they can farm. The undeserving apparatchiks should be kicked off the lands which they have forcibly and illegally acquired.

The third minefield that is likely to blow up the agreement is the issue of amnesty for the perpetrators of human rights abuses during the Mugabe era. Whilst the agreement is not prescriptive of the action to be taken in connection with political violence and human rights abuses, the new Prime Minister has indicated that perpetrators will be brought to book. This is a most welcome commitment because, in my view, the physical pain and destruction of life and property that have been perpetrated in the name of Zanu-PF are unpardonable. But the big question is whether Mugabe and Zanu-PF will allow their acolytes to be punished.

These and other challenges and uncertainties remain lurking in the shadows and may trip the deal at any time. And quite obviously, the deal itself is not perfect. But it reminds me that the Lancaster agreement which brought in Mugabe was, in my view, only (or mostly) made possible by the internal settlement of a year or so previously in which Ian Smith agreed to relinquish his power to Bishop Muzorewa. I have always had my doubts whether the Lancaster agreement would have succeeded at the time it did were it not because they were negotiating with Muzorewa rather than the more belligerent and tougher Smith.