Desperation and cynicism stocking political impasse

There really must be something good in the political agreement signed on 15 September this year by the political antagonists in Zimbabwe. If it was such a bad deal why is Mr Mugabe and Zanu-PF working desperately to wreck the agreement? And why, indeed, is Mr Tsvangirai and the MDC pushing so hard to have the agreement implemented?

It does not require a lot of imagination to see that there is an element of desperation surrounding the agreement on both parties but for apparently different reasons and motives. To understand what is really happening, it is necessary to get back to the basics – to the justification and purpose of the political settlement.

The need for a negotiated settlement arose out of the reality that Mr Mugabe and his party lost the 29 March election to the opposition. After lengthy delays in announcing the results of presidential ballot (presumably to allow for the manipulation of the results) the contest was declared inconclusive necessitating a run-off contest to choose a winner. The victorious opposition initially acquiesced with this blatant subterfuge but soon realised that the contest was not going to be anyway near fair as their supporters were raped, maimed, murdered and otherwise brutalised. They withdrew from the run-off contest leaving Mr Mugabe to romp home alone in a “landslide victory”.

Unfortunately, the Pyrrhic victory was roundly condemned by all and sundry thus rendering Mr Mugabe’s presidency illegitimate. It is on this basis of illegitimacy that Mr Mugabe, at the prodding of his erstwhile colleagues in the African Union and the SADC, agreed to enter into mediated negotiations. In the circumstances, the negotiations were intended to serve one purpose only – to purge the illegitimacy that had befallen his rule and, by extension, the country.

The resultant agreement would become valid and relevant only to the extent to which it removes the illegitimacy. There were obviously a number of options for achieving this objective. The first would have been to negotiate the complete handover of power from the illegitimate government to a legitimate government based on the people’s will as expressed in the 29 March elections. This would have meant that Mugabe and Zanu-PF would be completely removed from power. This was my favoured option (and I suspect that of many others pundits and observers) but, unfortunately, it was not favoured by the mediator, Mr Mbeki former president of South Africa.

Another option would have been to call for a fresh election which is internationally monitored and supervised to ensure that the failings of the previous elections were not repeated. This would have been the best option because it would have laid to rest once and for all the argument of which leader has the true support and mandate of the people of Zimbabwe. However this option was not considered because the outcome had already been pronounced in the last “fair” election of 29 March. There was no prospect whatsoever that the outcome would be any more different to the “humiliating” defeat which Mr Mugabe had suffered in that earlier round. In fact the prospects were high for an even more humiliating defeat.

This led to the third option – a government of national unity. Under this option, Mr Mugabe would lose his power – not suddenly but in a gradual manner. The GNU was never intended to nor would it have been practically able to confer a stamp of approval (or legitimacy) to Mr Mugabe’s rule. It was only meant to allow the opposition to partly assume the power which they had legitimately won on March 29 while, at the same time, partly wresting from Mr Mugabe the powers which he had lost on March 29 and illegitimately acquired through the invalid June 28 elections.

In my view, the September 15 agreement clearly reflects this dynamic of one party gaining power and the other losing it. That is the only basis upon which this agreement works and, in consequence, will provide legitimacy to the continued tenure of Mr Mugabe on the political landscape in Zimbabwe. The problem is that Mr Mugabe has now come to realise, rather quite late in the process, that he is no longer in charge and that his time at the helm is now virtually over.

Mr Mugabe realises now that by sharing power with the opposition, this will deprive him and his party from manipulating the levers of the state to sustain their continued hold on power. This loss of control will result in his total demise in the not too distant future – whenever it is that the next elections will be held. That is now why he wants out of the deal. I really do not think the problem is about the sharing of cabinet positions. This is important but, in my view, largely symbolic. Governments operate on the principle of collective responsibility and it is never going to be easy for any party to dictate government policy solely on the basis that they hold a certain cabinet position.

Mr Mugabe’s problem is not that he does not want to share the cabinet portfolios equitably - he simply does not want to share anything at all. Sharing means losing something and the old man is not terribly keen to lose anything. But does that mean that he is willing to risk completely destroying the country (whatever is left of it, anyway!) by pursuing a course of complete isolation which his continued illegitimacy will no doubt bring? I doubt it very much. I don’t believe he is that foolish or that clever. He should surely know that retreating from his present position will only invite more attacks from his enemies at a time when his defences are weak and vulnerable.

What Mr Mugabe wants now is to gain as much concessions as he can possibly get away with from the MDC while, at the same time, buying some time to regroup and re-strategise for his future. He is never going to walk away from this agreement because there is nothing else out there that will serve him better. For this reason, it is folly for the opposition to either walk away from the agreement or to give any more ground to Mr Mugabe. They should hold their line and wait it out.

As the opposition holds out, Mr Mugabe’s actions are now clearly and increasingly fuelled by a deadly mixture of desperation and cynicism. Gazetting the allocation of cabinet posts when these had not been agreed by the negotiating parties was a desperate and reckless act of bravado. For Mr Mugabe and his “government” to continue to deny Mr Tsvangirai, the prime minister designate and the next head of government, a passport to enable him to freely travel is a cynical act of the worst kind.

Either of the cases reflect a total lack of seriousness, sincerity and maturity on the part of Mr Mugabe and his party at best and, at worst (and probably more appropriately), an unacceptable degree of recklessness in the face untold hardships. Whatever the case Mr Mugabe should not be allowed to delay the process of change and divert attention from the urgency of resolving the country’s political impasse in order to provide relief to the suffering masses.