Abstract
Simpson and Hawkins examine how ZANU-PF, after its shock defeat in 2008, single-mindedly and successfully focused on rebuilding and strengthening its support base. They highlight the serious shortcomings within the Opposition during the IG which helped ZANU-PF capitalise on the MDC-T’s failure to make major inroads into the complex networks of influence and mutual dependence between ZANU-PF and a range of old and new social and economic forces, interests and institutions. They argue the MDC-T’s failure to advance key elements of its reform programme was partly a result of its gradual accommodation to ZANU-PF governance practices during the IG, as well as an indication of just how difficult it is to displace deeply entrenched extractive political and economic systems which had gone uncontested over decades in countries such as Zimbabwe.
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Notes
- 1.
The ‘sexual scandals’ referred to Tsvangirai’s relationship difficulties following the death of his wife in 2009. He was linked, inter alia, to a local businesswoman to whom he had to pay damages after he allegedly withdrew a promise to marry her, and pay maintenance to another woman with whom he had a young son, before eventually marrying another woman in September 2012 who was the daughter of a member of ZANU -PF’s Central Committee. The state broadcaster took every opportunity to serialise the news on his turbulent relationships which had many Zimbabweans gripped, and served to raise doubts over his judgement and suitability as a national leader.
- 2.
For a comprehensive treatment of the historical evolution of the mining sector in Zimbabwe from a political economy perspective see Mawowa 2013.
- 3.
So, for example, in the course of a conference in Johannesburg in September 2010, Tsvangirai stated that Mugabe was “committed to this transition, once that transition is done he is committed to ensure that we have a peaceful election . That will restore his legacy as the founding father of the nation as well as the liberator, rather than the villain he has come to be associated with” (The Guardian 2010).
- 4.
ZANU-PF’s 2013 manifesto was 108 pages long, whilst that of MDC-T stood at 30 pages.
- 5.
So, for example, the manifesto drew attention to a figure of 1,138 earmarked foreign companies operating in 12 different sectors and valued at US$13.4 billion, with US$7.3 billion (51 percent of the value of the assets) thereby available for the economic empowerment of beneficiaries (ZANU-PF 2013, 83). The beneficiary mechanisms included Employee Empowerment Schemes (EES) which would ensure that equity was given to employees of indigenised companies, and Community Empowerment Schemes (CES) with communities benefiting from a share of royalties, profits and dividends from indigenised businesses operating in their areas.
- 6.
Such a mechanism also featured in ZANU -PF’s election manifesto and post-2013 economic plan, though some local wits were to characterise this as a ‘Sovereign Slush Fund’.
- 7.
To this might be added the complexity of some of the MDC-T’s election commitments, which might be understood and appeal to an urbanised middle class and economics cognoscenti, but would not likely have been grasped by the vast majority of citizens despite the fact Zimbabwe continued to enjoy the highest literacy rate on the continent. So, for example, its commitment to promote a “social market economy”, “Foster cluster based development” and “Reintegrate into regional and international value chains” (MDC-T 2013, 11–15).
- 8.
Its 2013 election manifesto stated that “it was the MDC that fought hard and drove the constitution-making process” (MDC-T 2013, 2) and that the “MDC was the driving force in the formation and adoption of the constitution and is committed to its defence and full implementation” (Ibid., 27).
- 9.
In a communique issued shortly before the referendum on the COPAC draft, the NCA complained that the constitution “leaves all power in the President, who is allowed to do what he/she wants.” It noted that the President not only remained as the country’s head of state, head of government and commander in chief, and notwithstanding the need to consult various bodies that to all intents and purposes the President’s prerogatives remained effectively undiminished to appoint Ministers, Deputy Ministers, ambassadors, permanent secretaries, security chiefs, judges, as well as members of various commissions. In addition, the NCA highlighted the absence of a provision guaranteeing the right to vote of the diaspora , and argued that the provisions governing decentralisation were weak while Presidential powers to dissolve the legislature remained essentially intact (National Constitutional Assembly 2013).
- 10.
- 11.
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- 12.
There was an increasing number of reports in the run-up to the 2013 elections that the party’s central bodies were imposing their choice of candidates for local government and parliamentary representatives, and overturning the decisions of local MDC-T structures. Such impositions during the party’s primaries were eventually to lead to a total of 28 candidates opting to run as independents in 2013, further splitting the anti-ZANU-PF vote.
- 13.
As early as 2012 there were signs that ZANU-PF was engaged in a major recruitment drive for party members, and also seeking to increase the number of registered voters in its traditional strongholds.
- 14.
In its 2012 Article IV consultation report the IMF was forecasting that GDP growth would fall to 5 percent for that year (IMF 2012a, 4).
- 15.
These figures also help explain the weakened trade union movement referenced earlier, and its impact on the support base for the MDC-T in a context where employment was regularly reported as being as the single most pressing concern for Zimbabweans.
- 16.
MDC-M was to suffer severe tribulations during the IG . Welshman Ncube, a leading light in the MDC-M team in the IG, and its Minister of Commerce and Industry, would eventually oust Mutambara from his position as leader of the smaller MDC faction, after which the MDC-M became known as MDC-N.
- 17.
A few days prior to the 2013 elections , in a blatantly populist move to secure votes in urban areas, the ZANU-PF Minister for Local Government, Ignatius Chombo, issued instructions to local authorities to cancel the accumulated debts of urban households in terms of rentals, water and sewage and refuse collection payments (New Zimbabwe 2013).
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Simpson, M., Hawkins, T. (2018). A Resurgent ZANU-PF. In: The Primacy of Regime Survival. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72520-8_13
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