The Third Way: Zimbabwe's last Chimurenga (2 of 3)

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By Prof. Jonathan Moyo

THE THIRD WAY IS NOT A THIRD PARTY

I have come across some simplistic claims or suggestions that the Third Way or Third Force is or would be a third party. Based on this assumption some commentators have been quick to assert that a third party in Zimbabwe is a non starter and therefore not viable. Even some academics have made this point. I agree that a third party would not serve any useful purpose in Zimbabwe today beyond giving constitutional and academic expression to the right of Zimbabweans to form and join political parties as they wish. That’s no big deal.

The assumption that the Third Way is an attempt at forming a third party is totally misplaced and not true. Zimbabwe does not have two parties but already has a plethora of them such that one more political party would not bring to three, the number of political parties in the country.

But what then is the Third Way and why characterize the issue in this manner?

In today’s scheme of things in Zimbabwe, the ruling Zanu PF is the political “thesis” and the opposition MDC is the political “antithesis”. These two political formations, which have been dominant and have represented the main political strands since 2000, have become so entrenched in their self-understanding as to eschew internal democratic reform and they have become so diametrically opposed to one another as to suffer from an incurable disease of “Mutually Assured Demonization (MAD). There is no democracy and good governance inside each of these two parties and there is no democracy and good governance between them in terms of how they relate to one another. Our country has been left the worse for this.

CURRENT SOURCES OF THE THIRD WAY

Where there is a powerful “thesis”, especially a bad one such as Zanu PF, facing an equally ineffectual “antithesis” such as the MDC, there sure must result a good and effective “synthesis”. That’s what the Third Way is: a practical synthesis of Zanu PF and MDC!

After the momentous events leading up to the 2000 general elections and the results of those elections, many in Zanu PF believed that the ruling party was set to reform itself or risk extinction. This is particularly true of those Zimbabweans who cherish democratic nationalism and thus value and defend Zimbabwe’s sovereignty which was clearly under attack in 2000. They joined Zanu PF to defend our country’s sovereignty. That is certainly what I did and I have no regrets about it. For a number of historical reasons which should be self-evident to the discerning, and as things stood in 2000, Zanu PF was a logical nationalist platform for the defense of Zimbabwe’s sovereignty and pursuit of democracy and economic development. In 2000 there was no PF Zapu to join because it had been swallowed by Zanu PF in 1987.

If you believe in democracy and economic development, you must first have a country within which to pursue these things because they don’t take place in a vacuum and that’s why for many Zimbabweans, me included, the preservation of our sovereignty in 2000 was paramount and at that time Zanu PF offered the best nationalist opportunity for that and subsequent pursuit of democracy and economic development. The then apparent willingness by Zanu PF old guard to open up and reform the ruling party, based on the proceedings of the Constitutional Commission in 1999, made Zanu PF attractive from a nationalist point of view.

But of course the passage of time has shown that Zanu PF’s attempts to open up and reform were a ruse and the final straw came on November 18, 2004 when the old guard regained control of Zanu PF and proved beyond doubt that democratic reform was not possible within Zanu PF. Mugabe and his colleagues see Zanu PF as their personal property and they are just not interested in democracy. They also have no idea what economic development is. All they want is their own personal development, that of their families and their tribal cliques. In the same vein, they are not interested in sovereignty as a category of the nation and this explains why they have put our nation at serious risk of international intervention through the United Nations and other multilateral bodies including the IMF.

To the Zanu PF old guard, sovereignty means the President’s right to shout obscenities and punch the air at international forums and to dictate things in the name of the ruling party while holed up at State House. In Zanu PF, ministers and politburo members are not supposed to differ with the President and the few who are considered to be part of the presidium. Members of the presidium are not supposed to be challenged during an election even when their positions are constitutionally vacant. What they say and do is supposed to be wise by definition. Now, a ruling party like that is obviously a danger to the nation.

The government has collapsed in Zimbabwe and its failure has become ubiquitous because it is formed from a rotten political party that has squandered every opportunity to reform, especially over the last five years. A dynamic and capable government that is alive to its performance responsibilities can only come from a responsive and dynamic political party that embraces internal reform and can form a capable government.

Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF old guard want to cling onto power, no matter what, pointing to electoral victories which have now become meaningless beyond legal niceties. Yes Mugabe has a legal or electoral mandate to rule and the same is true of his party. But they have squandered their mandates to a point where they now do not have any moral or political legitimacy to rule because of sheer incompetence.

The situation on the ground speaks for itself. Nothing is working in Zimbabwe today. The President is not working. His government is not working. His party is not working. There’s deadwood everywhere from the cells of Zanu PF to State House. And the economy is not working at all. There is misery everywhere for one reason or another beyond fuel and food shortages and the ever escalating cost of living. Over 70% of our population leaves below the poverty datum line. Unemployment in the formal sector is over 75%. The informal sector that used to employ some five million people has been decimated by the government itself, which ironically has a minister responsible for that sector! The business community has been criminalized such that everyone who is in business is now a suspect. Successful financial institutions have been destroyed. There is just no institutional responsibility.

The one major area where the government was expected to show big time success, land reform has become a laughing stock. Farms and farm equipment have become instruments of patronage. There is no security of land tenure. There is before Parliament a constitutional amendment to nationalize land to enhance patronage and not to empower Zimbabweans and promote economic development by giving them title deeds to ensure security of tenure and productive use of land.

Outstanding questions of compensation for acquired land have been put aside when it is obvious that the issue will not go away and indeed should not go away until it is finalized properly. The case for compensating former white commercial farmers for both land and equipment is as compelling as the fact that land reform is irreversible. We cannot have one without the other. If Robert Mugabe does not correct this problem, future generations will definitely do because his formula of either doing nothing or nationalizing land is simply not sustainable. Nationalizing land and using it as an instrument of patronage is not revolutionary at all. The people must have land by owning it. There is now a desperate need for a responsible and capable government in Zimbabwe that does the right things, not just an occasionally populist government that ironically does not hesitate to pounce on its on people as happened during the evil “Operation Murambatsvina” better described as “Operation Murambavanhu”.

With all this, one would have expected the opposition MDC to cash in as Zanu PF’s antithesis. But no, it has not been able to do so. The general reason often given by the MDC and its supporters is that the political field in Zimbabwe is uneven. But honestly, any opposition political party anywhere in Africa that expects the political field to be level is not serious. We all know that the political field is uneven and there is no single ruling party in Africa that is going to “even” or “level” the political field; that must be done by the democratic nationalist opposition.

There lies the challenge: most opposition political parties in Africa are not nationalist. Their ideological platforms are needlessly foreign oriented and their issues are esoteric, globalist and usually pander to predictable positions of Western powers: they do not address the quandary of the common person such as the situation of over 70% of Zimbabweans who live below the poverty datum line or the over 75% who are unemployed. They invest a lot in the grammar of democracy, human rights, good governance and the rule of law but none of this is translated to have practical policy meaning at the grassroots level where people want to see an economic difference in their livelihoods.

This has been the story of the MDC: the failure to be relevant at the grassroots level away from the glitter of media politics and international diplomacy. While the MDC has significantly contributed to the opening of democratic space in Zimbabwe, it has nevertheless failed to develop a nationalistic outlook. Part of the reason for this failure is that the MDC has been unable to distinguish between its “strategic partners” and its “political allies”. The MDC has allowed some of its donors, who would do well to remain as strategic partners in a globalized context, to become political allies and even its spokespersons. An example of this is when British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in the House of Commons on June 14, 2004 that his government was working with the MDC to effect regime change in Zimbabwe. That was a kiss of death. There are many other similar examples that have exposed the MDC as lacking nationalist roots at home, an ingredient necessary for political success on the ground in any African setting.

When an opposition is claimed by foreign interests, it necessarily fails at home. This would happen even in America or Britain. From this vantage point, the MDC has not been an effective antithesis to Zanu PF. Indeed, Zanu PF has taken full advantage of the situation by painting the MDC as a sellout party directed by foreign interests hostile to Zimbabwe while claiming for itself the nationalist center but only, of course, at a rhetorical level. The Zanu PF old guard, Mugabe included, claim nationalism as an ideology but do not practice it.

The MDC has been so outwitted in this regard that some of its influential leaders and many of its supporters have failed to realize that their party cannot succeed without attracting Zanu PF leaders and members to its ranks. Instead, the MDC has routinely rubbished Zanu PF members and leaders and made it virtually impossible for any of them to ever even think of joining the MDC. Ironically, a number of MDC leaders are former Zanu PF members or leaders at provincial or district levels and one would have expected them to understand that an environment of a dominant post independence party in power requires opening doors to members and leaders of that party as part of a well thought out strategy of growing the opposition and making it effective for purposes of attaining political power.

Any opposition political party in an African context needs people with experience in government. It cannot rely solely on newcomers. There’s no precedent for that and Zimbabwe will not be the first to make it. Having experienced people is what helped the MMD unseat Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia. The Chairman of the MMD was Arthur Wina, a veteran government minister under Kaunda and the MMD also benefited from the skills of the likes of Vernon Mwanga, its current Chairman who served Kaunda for some 25 years. In fact the MMD represented a radically reformed Unip outside Unip. The same is true in Kenya where the majority of NARC leaders have their roots in Kanu as government ministers and party leaders. President Mwai Kibaki himself is a former vice president of Kanu and Kenya under Daniel arap Moi. By and large NARCK is a reformed Kanu outside Kanu.

Raila Odinga, a leading political figure in Kenya, served as a government minister under Moi and even became one of three Kanu vice chairmen, deputizing Moi, before leaving Kanu to lead his Liberal Democratic Party that later joined NARC under Kibaki.

These examples and their lessons have been totally lost to the MDC leadership and its supporters who have been either too angry or too impatient or too inexperienced to sit back and strategize properly and effectively from an informed nationalist platform.

The lack of experience on the part of the MDC showed in 2000 when the party supported the rejection of the draft constitution which, by any measure, was a major milestone in Zimbabwean politics. Outright falsehoods were irresponsibly used to trash the draft constitution, falsehoods such as that it gave the President excessive powers when there was no such thing. Even the land clause in the draft constitution was not a big deal because there were countervailing institutions, such as a constitutional court and a constitutional land commission, that were going to ensure an orderly and smooth land reform program.

Also, I can say without any doubt whatsoever that had the draft constitution been adopted, Robert Mugabe would not be President of Zimbabwe today and Zanu PF would not have won the June 2000 general election. Zimbabwe would be having today one of the best systems of governance and our country would be economically prosperous. This did not happen because the MDC was a wrong antithesis to Zanu PF. This might be a painful fact to some but it is true that Mugabe is in office today because of the rejection of the draft constitution. Those who say Mugabe is in office today because of my role in the information department have a shallow understanding of politics and should therefore be forgiven for their naivety.

Most recently, and this is still going on, in the height of the evil “Operation Murambatsvina”, the MDC leadership demonstrated amazing inexperience and lack of communication and political strategy when they falsely claimed that the evil operation was specifically if not only targeting its members. The United Nations report on the evil operation has shown that the operation was indiscriminate, as it targeted Zimbabweans everywhere across the country, including rural areas and affected all kinds of groups including war veterans of the liberation war traditionally associated with Zanu PF. By claiming that the operation was targeting its members, in effect, the MDC lost an opportunity to speak for the whole nation and to grow its membership or support base by attracting to its ranks Zanu PF victims of the evil operation. This is an example of bad leadership and bad politics which always leads to failure.

Thus, lack of a nationalist ideology, lack of experience and a poor strategy in relation to how to deal with Zanu PF leaders and members has cost the MDC beyond recovery.

Against this background, the MDC is also having its own share of very serious leadership squabbles. The causes of these squabbles, no doubt, include infiltration. But there are other causes too, such as the mere fact of not achieving the goal everyone in the MDC thought was within reach in 2000. Fatigue and frustration have set in as they always do when an opposition party that hits the ground like a storm fails to win the first critical election.

Experience in Africa has shown that when there is a critical election, such as we had in Zimbabwe in 2000, the loser of that election—whether it is the ruling party or the opposition—does not recover to win again in the same form. There are many cases to support this proposition and the MDC is better advised to examine those cases and take lessons.

That is why the Zanu PF thesis and MDC antithesis now need a synthesis for our country to move forward and that synthesis is best presented by the Third Way. In other words, the Third way is the resolution of the Zanu PF-MDC stalemate or conflict.