Recently a group of “experts” (whatever that means – what makes an expert?) held a meeting in Harare to discuss a wide range of current concerns in Zimbabwe, including whether the Interim Government (IG) is “working”. A report of the meeting has been published by the Research and Advocacy Unit and IDASA and we’ve just put it up on the Kubatana web site. You can check it out here.

The report gives us a lot of food for thought especially in regard to civil society and the general public getting sucked into the “make believe politics” of the IG. According to the report “It was suggested that the donors had contracted what was referred to as the MDC disease of “GNUitis”. The donors thus appeared to a large extent to be setting the agenda, and an agenda which was not one that was required. This went to the extent of organisations such as the UNDP duplicating, and, to some extent, thus commandeering projects already being undertaken by the civics. ”

Below is an extract from the report:

The group noted that the State media, MDC media releases, and politicians from all signatory parties to the GPA were at pains to emphasise that the IG “is working” albeit with “unsurprising” “teething problems”. There are various facets to these statements:

* “Working” could be merely existential in the sense that the IG is intact and has not dissolved in the face of the divergent objectives of, and acrimony between, the signatories.
* “Working” could mean that some governance is taking place which is responsible for bringing a modicum of economic, social and political stability to Zimbabwe after a period of extreme turbulence in all of these spheres.
* “Working” could mean that the MDC’s stated objective of returning Zimbabwe to the rule of law and democratic governance is being incrementally realised.
* “Working” could mean that ZANU PF’s stated objective of “removing illegal sanctions” is a work in progress and the, probably unstated, goal of achieving legitimacy after unrecognised 2008 elections with a consequent easing of international pressure had been achieved.

The group noted that very little power had accrued to the MDC through the GPA, and that the MDC appeared to be reluctant to exercise the little power that it had. This led to an unpacking of the MDC’s concept of a “working” IG. In particular, the MDC argument that, while it recognised that the GPA was highly flawed and left Mugabe’s powers almost completely intact, it had little choice other than to sign and enter the IG. Failure to do so would have resulted in a formal or de facto coup by the security sector and a continued and intolerable humanitarian crisis. This had been avoided by the GPA and the tactic had thus “worked” to this extent. A corollary of this tactic is for the MDC to demonstrate that it is not a threat to ZANU PF – achieved in part by not seeking to exercise power in any sphere which ZANU PF regards as its exclusive domain – to thereby ameliorate the acrimony between the parties, calm the political waters, and for there to be a mutual “re-humanising process” to reverse the dehumanisation that had preceded the accord. This approach was designed to gradually “change the mindset” of ZANU PF stalwarts, and the MDC, simply by virtue of being in the corridors of power, would increase its leverage and be able to open up democratic space sufficiently for free elections to be held under an improved constitution. The approach demanded that the MDC claim that the IG was “working”. The group gave this approach the moniker “make believe” politics.

This entry was posted on December 2nd, 2009 at 2:34 pm by Bev Clark and is filed under Activism, Governance, transitional justice, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.