POST JULY 31…WHAT’S NEXT?

POST JULY 31…WHAT’S NEXT?

Zimbabwe’s July 31 Election is receding into the rearview mirror for a lot of people, for some not fast enough, for others too slowly, but soon it will be a forgotten event, as people grapple with the reality of its results, its impact on our aspiration and implications for our nation. 

The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition has always argued that, while Zimbabwe was on an undeniable transitional trajectory, the possible transitional outcome as the sun sets on the Inclusive government, was that of a prolonged transition. It had argued that whatever the outcome of the July 31 Elections, there would be no democratic outcome to the transition (Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition’s Transitional Barometer #5 of June 27 2013).

Possible Transitional Outcomes - Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle, adapted by dr. p. Zamchiya 

The Conceptual Perspective

The Coalition defined a prolonged transition as a situation in which the incumbent (President Mugabe), would manipulate the elections but unlike in a derailed transition, would also be determined to stabilize or even advance democratic gains made during the transition (read GNU era). That might include avoiding changes to the constitution, making sure that relevant commissions work, enable independent press to continue operating and commit to promoting peace.

The theory, that Crisis posited, was that the incumbent would be faced with two routes to attain this. The first would be to form another inclusive government, with the protagonists for legitimacy or to enable an effective government. The decision would also have the possibility of being a result of external exigent factors such as the political agency and actions of a tenacious opposition, civil society or regional and international bodies.

The second route, is where the incumbent would be bold enough to form a one party government as before the inclusive government but would seek political legitimacy or self-preservation through committing to stabilize or even advance the democratic gains that were made during the initial phase of the transition. The scale of democratization would then also depend on external pressure from the citizenry, civil society, political parties or regional and international bodies.

In theory, in a prolonged transition, there would be no greater likelihood to return to closed authoritarian practices but there would still be, in the initial stages, a challenge in that the democratic gains made during the transition would be co-existing with some old authoritarian practices. Depending on the struggle for democratization, a breakthrough would be found over time, with the intervening 5 years and the early onset of the new regime being a foundational school of democracy needing more time to graduate.

The Contextual Reality

Looking back at the above theoretical framework, and seeing how accurate it seems to be in the aftermath of the election, gives us no satisfaction as an institution whose vision is a democratic Zimbabwe and as an institution that had hoped that the destination would be reached in the shortest possible time. However, it is what it is, and we all have to accept that there is a discrepancy between the world as we want it to be and the world as it. We have to accept that despite the political ideals and aspirations we may have there now exists a political reality that is characterized by a ‘resurgent’ ZANU PF, which is standing on the shoulders of a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

A Defeated Opposition?

On the other hand, we also have the reality of a ‘defeated’ opposition that is taking longer than anyone would want to figure out the most strategic way to engage with this situation. It has stated that it will i) disengage from government but apparently that doesn’t mean withdrawal, ii) go to court and appeal the results as well as iii) take its grievances to SADC and the AU regional blocs, which by and large have endorsed the election as legitimate, for reasons best known to themselves.

The first action needs more than a dictionary to understand and simply shows us that there is a lack of clarity on the part of the MDC itself. It shows that they are still grappling with the “to be or not to be” and ‘to what extent to be’ questions. All so confusing for everyone, including themselves.

The other two actions that have been mooted by the opposition in response to the political reality are legitimate and perhaps even necessary but insufficient to achieve any real remedy. They appear to be exercises in futility.  For starters there is the reality of institutional capture where the judiciary in Zimbabwe is concerned which is well documented. The Judiciary is largely beholden to and at the service of the Executive as represented by President Mugabe, who staked its benches with known and perceived sympathizers in the 6 months leading up to the elections.

In Suit and Enjoying his 15 seconds of Fame: Mawarire J,
the man who history will record precipitated the  fraudulent July 31 Poll,

It is these courts that rushed the entire nation and the region into an election bereft of democratic reforms, which would have imbued it with more legitimacy and made it less prone to contest. Morgan Tsvangirai fared badly in these courts as Prime Minister; there is nothing to indicate that he has attained a “Jealous Mawarire” character, which will allow him to fare any better as a Private Citizen alleging theft by the “owner” of the court.

The other terrain that has been chosen which is the regional front, does not promise too much joy for the opposition either. This bloc, SADC, had an observer mission during the elections, which made pronouncements on the election that do not assist their case much. Different leaders have congratulated the winners, in moves interpreted as endorsements. The truth will count for little to this regional body, especially if it is not backed up by incontrovertible evidence. Add to that the innate wish to be right and the reluctance to self-correct that is inherent in us as humans, and the chances of success become even dimer for the opposition.

The court case only has value in as far as it will allow history to record a statement on the electoral theft, with no hope of recovering the stolen ‘good’. While going to SADC will assist in keeping the region engaged, it must be borne in mind that this is a body which, to all intents and purposes, has failed to shepherd Zimbabwe to a peaceful, free, fair, credible and undisputed election - which is the mandate they attained at the signing of the GPA. The election was largely peaceful but disputed meanwhile the jury is still out on its freeness, fairness and credibility. We would be very disappointed and doomed as a people in SADC, if we have leaders who accept that one (1) out of five (5) is a pass mark.

Tahir Square and its Daily Occupants

The biggest challenge of course is that both actions are not supported at a symbolic and political level by any crisis on the ground occasioned by popular discontent that is acted out. Without that pressure the politicians at the regional level will not act, because for them stability is the ultimate price rather than democratization. To that end, if stability is there they won’t want to upset the cart, and as for the courts, well they have always been built as structures that are impervious to anything other than the law. What makes it really worse is that even if people are intent on some kind of ground action, they need to no what they will be competing against in terms of world political attention, and world emotional sympathy. Think Syria with its deaths, DRC with its never-ending conflict, Egypt with the resident protestors in Tahir Square.

The Futility of the Short game and a possible way forward for the MDCs

So there it is, the short game by the opposition is unlikely to yield results, except to instigate a crackdown upon themselves, their perceived allies, the progressive press and citizens by a parochial regime. This will happen because the regime knows it stole the elections and tried to bury the evidence, but is unsure whether any of these actions are being taken with some credible evidence in hand. 

Given the futility of the short game, the long game for Zimbabweans in general, and pro-democracy actors in particular, is to quickly accept the reality and then begin to think of the bigger picture which involves keeping the ZANU PF regime in check by ensuring that its ill-gotten two thirds majority doesn’t go to their head. This means quickly accepting that to some extent, ‘all is fair in love and war’, it might mean accepting the crushing defeat and taking up positions on what is left of the battleground while trying to safeguard what was fought hard for in the past 4 years as well as the political positions retained at election.

ZANU PF has already shown that it is not hesitant to take up dramatic and high-risk actions that move them ahead while everyone watches in consternation and shock. If the elected local government officials do not take up their positions in councils as part of disengagement, soon Harare will have a ZANU PF mayor and the city will be apportioned to ZANU PF bigwigs, as will other towns and local authorities where they have a presence.

If elected parliamentarians do not go to Parliament, a speaker will be elected and soon, legislation will be pushed through that may be retrogressive, with everyone shouting hoarse from the sidelines. New institutions occasioned by the mew constitution will be set up with people crying foul in spaces where the noise will not make a difference.  The economy will be cut up into nice neat portions, which will be fed to loyal ZANU PF clients as part of their patronage system under the guise of empowerment and indigenization. Diamonds will continue to be piled into big army tankers or pocketed by individuals, with those that don’t fit into the big ZANU PF chefs pockets being thrown East to our erstwhile friends in Asia, old friends in the Arab world and new friends in Israel. A lot of this may be hard to stop, but democratic forces have an obligation to try.

My short analysis is that if the opposition does not have anything that will fundamentally alter the state of affairs immediately and lead to a ‘real’ nullification of the July 31 election, it needs to get over itself, and think clearly about how to ensure that we do not see retrogression in critical areas and spaces of our body politic.

We are now in a prolonged transition as a nation, and that circumstance will not change in a day. What happens in this variant of transitional outcomes will depend on whether we are successful in firstly, forcing ZANU PF not to retrogress to the pre-GNU political realities. Secondly, if that task is successful, stability would have been achieved, and the next task becomes the need to put ‘real’ pressure to advance the reforms that were aspired to in the interregnum covered by the GNU, and some which are captured in the new constitution.

The Role for the rest of us, and our possible saving grace

The above is not just the role of the MDCs. Opposition here also includes existing and intended Political formations. The NCA and its leadership, barring the disagreeable sentiments they have publicly made with regards to the last election, should know that it is their task to assist in the above otherwise whatever political dreams they have will die a still birth. If anything, they have a greater obligation to do so, because from my viewpoint thus far, their envisioned movement has been at variance with the pulse of the people, especially the people they seem likely to capture as a founding support base, which bodes ill for them.

Having said the above, we have stated in our projections that the only way that this prolonged transition can lead ultimately to democratization, doesn’t depend solely on political actors. The scale of democratization will also depend on external pressure applied by the citizenry, civil society, and political parties as well as regional and international pressure. So it is everyone’s responsibility. The sooner civil society and the greater citizenry accept this and stop deferring to the MDCs for action and leadership, the better the chances of success. The sooner everyone accepts that they have a role to play in pushing for democratization, and that it is not just the role of an established opposition reeling from a stolen victory, the better our chances of safeguarding the country from backsliding to the authoritarian days of old.

Those of us who felt robbed now need to quickly overcome this grief and engage with the political world as it is, instead of just mourning about the political world as we would have wanted it to be. Everything is spilt milk now, and we best be advised to go fetch another cup, instead of crying over it.

Ends/

ONE GIANT STEP FOR ZANU PF…MULTIPLE STEPS BACKWARDS FOR DEMOCRATISATION AND DEMOCRATIC ACTORS

ONE GIANT STEP FOR ZANU PF…MULTIPLE STEPS BACKWARDS FOR DEMOCRATISATION AND DEMOCRATIC ACTORS

There is general consensus that the last election held in Zimbabwe on July 31 was irretrievably manipulated, and that the result cannot be said to be truly reflective of the will of the people. The question that a lot of us are failing to answer is how? This failure to clearly articulate how is not unique to Zimbabweans alone, and any expectation for them to explain immediately and provide incontrovertible evidence of how the theft occurred, while understandable is a bit unfair, especially at this early stage.

This is normal in any theft, even petty theft, let alone a heist of the nature that has just occurred in Zimbabwe. Robberies take place and people invest in deep and detailed process that includes all manner of things, from hunches to collection of physical, gathering witnesses and forensic evidence. Some times the hunches are correct, but without physical evidence, or witnesses to corroborate, those who commit the crimes often go scot-free at least for a while. I know that this analogy is fairly simplistic, and maybe seen as just an excuse, but it is not. If at this stage the people of Zimbabwe where in possession of clear answers a few days after the full announcement of results, it would be possible that they had these facts prior to the election, which would have naturally suggested that they could have stopped it.

So bar the elaborate political analysis around this and that, bar the “insightful” exposes on ZANU PF’s amazing organizing and organizational strengths and perceptions of MDC’s ignorance, arrogance and poor organizational and organization skills. The truth is no one except those that carried out this electoral robbery know exactly what happened, and I am certain that they will not be volunteering evidence or delivering a confession any time soon.

Where does this then leave us? It leaves us in a very bad place, where we accept that we were robbed, and accept that the import of the robbery is a step forward for the robbers and many steps back for the victims of the crime. ZANU PF has achieved its goal of reclaiming the state, in the process, those who do not really care for the truth or indeed the supremacy of the peoples will, will congratulate them. They have also in the same breath, carried out this crime in such a manner that instead of all faculties being invested in trying to understand how they did it, and try to arrest them or make them account for this daring crime, the opposition movement is busy finding fault with itself and each other, which basically means that they will learn nothing from this encounter and are likely to emerge weaker with a high probability of falling victim to a similar trick in the future.

A lot of us are left to ponder the future under 5 more years of an unrepentant ZANU PF regime, and what this means for our lives, our country and our future.

There are already dooms day scenarios that are being cast around the collapse of the economy and break down of the nation. These may well come to pass but at the moment they are just wishful thinking, based on the hope that nature will create opportunities that man has failed to create for him/herself. These scenarios are predicated on a notion that ZANU PF has not learnt anything and will revert back to 2007 and behave as if everything that happened in the intervening 7 years did not happen.

While I see, it presents me with a moral dilemma, out of a love for my country, which tempts me to wish ZANU PF well. I am trying to make myself believe that any organization capable of carrying out such a daring robbery will be careful with how it uses the proceeds of the heist. I want to believe that It will learn from its past, and try to make sure that it doesn’t recreate the circumstances that nearly got it caught out in the past. So in spite of history and what I know to be likely, I want to expect greater care from ZANU PF over the 5 years they have been given by hook and crook. But this would represent some form of historical absolution, which is divorced from reality. The reality is that ZANU PF governs poorly, is corrupt and believes that ZANU Pf is the country and the country is ZANU PF. So if they take care of themselves, the rest of us do not matter. They will falter, squander and take us back to the past we are running away from politically, economically and socially.

Add to the foregoing, the reality that the robbery of the 31^st of July will no doubt dint ay thoughts and ideas of effecting some change through democratic means, as espoused through the ballot. The vote has lost a significant amount of appeal for many Zimbabweans who believe they had gone to the polls to choose who governs them. The election rather than prove ZANU PF’s supremacy and popularity, has just proved to most Zimbabweans that voting counts for nothing. It has proved what urban legend often credits to Russian Leader Stalin, that on voting he remarked 

You know, comrades, I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.

Back home, it has proved what Webster Shamu repeated in the run up to the election that you cannot take through the pen what ZANU PF won through the barrel of the gun.

And therein lies our deepest tragedy.

While ZANU PF has made a giant leap forward in terms of the capture and retention of the state, they have done so through closing out any legitimate, peaceful and democratic way of making them account as a political authority. They have closed out the one avenue that would have guaranteed a peaceful way in which accountability at the state level can take place. I am certain that this is done in the false belief that Zimbabweans are a risk averse people and will not do anything dramatic or illegal.  If this were really true, we would have lasted longer under the colonial regime.

By destroying faith in the vote, ZANU PF has set itself up to be resisted in ways that even it has not encountered before. IT forces people seeking change in Zimbabwe to begin to think outside the electoral box, because it is clear that it won’t deliver.  It is true that Zimbabwe is not Egypt and that it is unlikely that Egypt style protests will erupt in the aftermath of this electoral theft. But it is also true that when the people of Egypt found the electoral route to regime change closed they found alternatives on the street. Let us not forget that that last election that Hosni Mubarak held in 2005, he emerged with a majority and electoral mandate (88.5%) more crashing that Mugabe’s 61%.  Up until February of 2011 (an Election year according to the electoral calendar), the Egyptians had not been known for their uprisings. Mubarak had ruled for 30 years. In neighboring Tunisia, which set off the Arab spring, they had been under Ben Ali’s rule for 23 years.

So the reality of the matter is that the analysis that is true today may not hold true tomorrow. Besides it is not political crisis through theft of elections that sets people against the rulers. It is social and economic degradation, poor living standards, high unemployment, failure to put food on the table and blurred future that does that. ZANU PF with its newly found 2 thirds majority in parliament and exclusive province over the executive would be advised to steer away from the conditions mentioned above, lest they want to find themselves shocked by a population that knows it cant vote them out, but has to get rid of them somehow and at any cost.

In the final analysis, it is clear, at least to me, that a people who have set themselves up as a peaceful movement bent on peaceful and constitutional ways of engaging with what has already been qualified as dictatorship, are at this point in time having their faith shaken. One hopes that they continue to believe. I know I will, because of a simplistic belief that you do not fight a monster by becoming another monster, that evil is fought with good, and silver bullets, holy water and a silver cross kill vampires not other blood sucking creatures. It is simplistic, but it is my belief and what guides me in my struggle.

My fear is that while my faith has been shaken but remains there in terms of the above, I don’t think that many of my fellow citizens are that resolved, and I do not have the tools beyond a moral argument, nor the energy to convince them that this is the right path.

So let ZANU PF celebrate the giant step that they have made, and the push back on democratization and democratic forces that they have achieved, but let them be warned that if they do not use their stolen mandate wisely, it maybe the simplest things, something less sophisticated than politics that will put them on their deathbed.

JULY 31 ELECTION…CRIMES ARE NOT ATTONED FOR ON THE DAY THEY ARE COMMITTED

One thing we actually share as a Zimbabwean people is our collective pride in being smart, literate and educated. If this pride is based on truth, how can we actually think that what we had on Wednesday 31 July 2013 can actually pass for a free, fair and credible election?

A lot of us were not participating in these elections as candidates, so our sentiments cannot be dismissed as sour grapes from erstwhile losers. No. They are legitimate concerns of a people granted full citizenship and a right to choose who governs them, secured by our attainment of independence in 1980. 

The purpose of an election is to provide mechanisms that allow us to freely choose who governs or represents us. The only basis on which people are supposed to govern is through consent by the people and that consent needs to be freely given via an election that is free and fair. The process we had on the 31^st of July does not pass the very basic tests of freeness and fairness, by any stretch of the imagination, regardless of the perception of peaceful voting that we saw on Election Day.

Election day was indeed devoid of violence, but as Reverend Martin Luther King Junior would always exhort that ‘the absence of violence is itself not peace, because peace is also about the presence of Justice’.

So the question that begs to be answered in this instance is whether or not in this peaceful process, there was electoral justice? A lot of foreign observers are keen to judge this election based on this one day, in a process that spanned over 2 months, starting with the illegal proclamation of Election Day and rules governing the election in June 2013.

Without stretching the point, I think it is fair to say that judging this election on this one day, which itself was fraught with irregularities and incidences that assisted in stealing the credibility of a process that was already patently un-free and unfair, is akin to adjudging matrimonial happiness on wedding day. Of course even if we have had issues before, or will face challenges later, there will be serious attempts to ensure that the actual wedding day will be a picture perfect moment.

But even if we were to judge this election on election day alone, which we will not do, election day itself showed clear evidence that several tactics to sway the peoples electoral verdict were employed by a range of actors. These actions and tactics made sure that whatever result would come out, could not be said to be “reflective of the will of the people”.

The first issue is the number of people who were turned away from polling stations because they did not appear on a voters roll that no one except ZEC and the Registrar Generals office had seen before Election Day. Added to these multitudes of people who were turned away for non-appearance on the roll, were others who found themselves being registered in wards and constituencies that they had never lived or voted in before.  These are important factors that impacted on people’s ability to choose their national leadership, but they are not the biggest issues.

The bigger issue is why the roll was unavailable until polling day. How does one engage in a free contest without knowing who will judge their performance? The Voters Roll is the single biggest tool in an election, which allows the citizens to know whether they are indeed part of the electorate; while for the competitors it allows them to know their audience and indeed their judges. Under normal circumstances, a voter’s roll should be released for inspection, to both aspiring candidates and citizens, ahead of the elections. The aspiring candidates will then know whose votes they are garnering for and thus target their messages and campaigns accordingly. Political actors, save for ZANU PF, thus got into this election blind, as did a huge chunk of the electorate, who got turned away on election day.

Added to the above are the very real issues of “ghost voters”, and the over 100,000 one hundred year olds in a country with a low life expectancy who continue to be a feature on the voters roll. Add to this the fact that, when the roll finally appeared, you would have in some instances thousands of people sharing the same address, while thousands of others had empty lots as addresses on the roll.

So some people got turned away and were not able to exercise their right to vote, but what about those that voted?

Election day was littered with clear evidence that a lot of coercion took place on polling day. I am certain that when the figures are compiled, the election will go down in history as the one with the largest number of assisted voters ever.  In some instances even high school English teachers were forced to plead illiteracy and receive assistance with their voting choices. Multitudes of voters in both rural and urban areas were assisted to vote in this election. A practice that is afoul of the notion of the free vote, which is supposed to act as the midwife to an election that is reflective of the will of the people.

Besides the assisted voting, you then had the shepherding of people to the polls in groups under a leader. This phenomenon was seen in rural areas were in many instances people were made to line up behind and account for their vote to headman and chiefs. In the cities the most brazen evidence of this could be seen in constituencies like Mt. Pleasant were people were clearly bussed in to vote from God-knows-where.  This evidence was captured on video and well documented by an alert press. It is estimated that over 11,000 people were bussed in to Mt. Pleasant constituency alone. Similar efforts were made in areas like Harare South, Bulawayo South, Epworth and so on. The extent to which these “organized” voters, who were voting away from home, voted their conscience, and expressed their choice freely, is highly debatable.

It seems rather obvious, from the above, that the notion of the secrecy of the ballot which was supposed to insulate the peoples will, was roundly defeated, because of the incontrovertible evidence of pressure on the voter, including, undue influence, intimidation, threats, coercion, and vote buying.

Before Election Day, the fact that the process had been rushed without any democratic reforms that would allow for a free and fair election, is something that did not escape anyone’s attention. It is on record that both local and international publics were convinced that the election process was being rushed.

The public media was unrepentantly playing the role of propagandist for ZANU PF, and true to that situation there was no free formation of voter preferences facilitated. Because candidates and parties did not enjoy fair, free and equal access to the media, the will of the people as brought out in this election is (to borrow the words of Andreas Schedler) “little more than the echo of structurally induced ignorance”.

Both on Election Day, and in the run up to Election Day, it was clear that the process was not inclusive. It is on record that over a million people who wanted to participate in this election were unable to because of administrative, practical and political hindrances to their registration by virtue of their location and age.   On Election Day, the number of people who were turned away in urban areas tells its own story. It is obvious that in this election, the citizens right to equal participation without let or hindrance was not observed.

The competence and integrity of ZEC, which have always been doubted, has been another blight on the election. The manner in which all the critical processes that took place ahead of elections including the voter registration process, voter education process, registration of candidates and the execution of duties including oversight on the media, have shown that either ZEC is totally incompetent, or it totally lacks integrity because its continuous bungling cannot be overlooked. Because hindsight is 20-20, it is obvious that most of what was passed as administrative bungling mistakes were actually part of a ploy to tilt the election in favor of some actors. 

All the above, had the impact of pouring cement on the electoral playing field. Those of us who are optimistic, had hoped initially that we could have a Feya Feya contest and that out of the concrete a flower could emerge. It hasn’t, and we were wrong, the above put paid to any chances the country had of carrying out a free and fair election, and having an outcome reflective of the will of the people.

Without getting into the allegations and suspiciuons of the heavy involvement of the shadowy Israeli Company NIKUV International Projects, in the poll, it is clear that Feya Feya, just based on the above, was a pipe dream, and that there was nothing free, fair or credible about the election on July 31 2013.

Besides the obvious robbery of the peoples vote, July 31 has got serious down stream implications on our country. It has killed most people’s belief in elections as a viable way of selecting leaders. It has further destroyed what ever trust was beginning to be built in public institutions and constitutional commissions like ZEC, and has dented peoples belief in any kind of formalized political opposition.

The theft of this election has put people in a corner, and like a cornered tiger, it is anyone’s guess how they will come out fighting, but it is clear they will be fighting for their lives.

The punishment may not be immediate, but we take comfort in Zimbabwean age-old wisdom, which spells out that crimes do not rot, its proceeds do not last, and that atonement does not take place on the day it is committed.