Reject Mugabe's ploy to rule forever

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By Prof. Jonathan Moyo

NOW that the Zimbabwean crisis has undeniably reached its tipping point with catastrophic failure looming on the horizon as everything for everyone everywhere across the country begins to rot or collapse beyond repair, it is alarming to observe that President Robert Mugabe remains doggedly in hot pursuit of a reckless three-pronged strategy to keep himself in power beyond 2008 without having to face the electorate ever again.

The components of this creepy strategy are the reshuffled deadwood cabinet announced this week, the impossible social contract proposed last week by the governor of the Reserve Bank and the sinister proposal to harmonise presidential and parliamentary elections in 2010 under the laughable pretext of cutting administrative costs.

Mugabe’s latest futile attempt to impose a sinister extension of his now unwanted rule came last week on Wednesday at the first meeting in 2007 of the Zanu PF politburo.

While the meeting reaffirmed the Goromonzi position that the 2010 proposal should be sent back to the ruling party’s provincial structures where it faces certain death, the fact that Mugabe continues to single-mindedly push for the widely unpopular proposal poses a dangerous threat to national security, political stability and economic recovery efforts given that he is now a dangerous dying horse whose last kicks could be fatal to the nation if left unchecked.

Ironically, or was it by some kind of fateful coincidence, it was on the same Wednesday of the politburo meeting last week when Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono presented his landmark monetary policy statement that effectively acknowledged failure as the only option under Mugabe’s Zanu PF rule while also proposing as the way forward a non-starter in the form of a "social contract" between a discredited, aloof and dysfunctional Zanu PF government led by an unwanted president, a battered and embittered business community that has grind to a halt and a disempowered and poverty stricken labour force that is now praying for God’s intervention.

Make no mistake about it, world history does not have even one example of an embattled country with such mutually antagonistic would-be partners who are breeds apart in every respect ever entering into a social contract let alone a successful one. A necessary precondition for a viable social contract around the world is a functional and capable constitutional government that enjoys national and international goodwill.

That kind of government is precisely what Zimbabwe does not have today and cannot hope to have under Mugabe who this week demonstrated beyond doubt that he has come to the end of the road when he announced a practically useless reshuffled cabinet packed with deadwood and thus not fit for the purpose.

For example, Samuel Mumbengegwi is a jolly good fellow to those who know him but he cannot and will not be taken seriously as Minister of Finance, particularly in these trying and tragic times of economic turmoil. His appointment engenders economic doom and spreads political despair when it should be inspiring all-round confidence.

As things now stand Mugabe’s officialdom is offering suffering Zimbabweans a self-serving strategy with three mutually supportive but unworkable deals as the solution to the unprecedented economic meltdown, political decay and institutional collapse gripping the country:

* a do-nothing reshuffled cabinet full of recycled deadwood;

* a proposed social contract which is essentially pie in the sky because there is no capable government on the ground that is fit for the purpose with the necessary goodwill to foster such a contract; and

* a proposed sinister extension of Mugabe’s presidential term by at least two years under the cover of harmonising presidential and parliamentary elections in 2010.

There is no deal here. Zimbabwe urgently needs a new competent government with national and international goodwill under a new leader, not a reshuffled cabinet led by a failed and discredited sunset president who wants to cling onto power through mendacious means when he should be leaving office.

Regarding the 2010 proposal, it should be obvious to anyone who cares to think honestly about the sad state of our country today that the plan to harmonise presidential and parliamentary elections merely as a cover for extending Mugabe’s term by at least two years from 2008 — outside a popular election and outside a comprehensive package of constitutional reforms — is tantamount to adding fuel to the already raging fires of instability across the country.

In the same vein, the proposal for a social contract, however well meant or intended, is frankly wholly misplaced under these troubling national circumstances and is akin to burying one’s head in the sand and hoping for the best while there is nothing better or good to justify that hope.

The time has come for Zimbabweans in crucial national positions in government and related state institutions and within Zanu PF itself to realise and acknowledge without fear or favour that the problem is manifestly Mugabe, stupid.

Given the rot in and collapse of all things big and small in our country, Zimbabweans — especially those in Zanu PF, government and related public institutions — now have an inescapable duty to make a clear and historic choice without prejudice whether to put Mugabe first or Zimbabwe first. This means that everyone regardless of their station in life or political affiliation must stand up to Mugabe’s triple strategy.

In order to do that well, it is important to understand that what Mugabe wants to achieve through his triple strategy of harmonising presidential and parliamentary elections in 2010, his reshuffled deadwood-cabinet and the social contract proposed by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is to circumvent popular elections by subverting the constitution for personal purposes of remaining life president.

Mugabe wants to achieve this by any means necessary or available to him with or without executive powers in order to continue enjoying the immunity of his office as an incumbent. He simply does not want to become a living former president with weakened immunity liable to prosecution by his successor or anybody else in or outside Zimbabwe with a human rights bone to chew with him.

In particular Mugabe is hoping to use the 2010 plan, supported by his new deadwood-cabinet and the proposed social contract, to move as early as March 2008 from executive president to a ceremonial non-executive president elected by the two houses of parliament sitting together as an electoral college.

Under this sinister scheme which Mugabe’s propagandists have poorly presented as a "dignified exit" they say is different from the feared "political consolidation", Mugabe would appoint a prime minister from the majority party in parliament who in theory would form and lead either a Zanu PF government or a government of national unity depending on who would be prime minister.

There are two major problems with this among many other worrying considerations.

In the first place, the plan is not part of a wide ranging constitutional reform package which Zimbabwe needs. It is all and only about Mugabe’s immunity needs as an individual. If Gono’s proposed social contract was anchored in broad-based constitutional reforms, then there would be something important to talk about and support because that is what the country needs.

In the second place, the plan views Mugabe’s proposed movement from executive president with ominous powers to a ceremonial president presumably but not certainly without executive powers as a "dignified exit". Yet this movement would in fact neither be an exit nor dignified.

How can Mugabe’s proposed movement, as head of state retaining the title of president, from one highest office to another be an exit when it is clearly a sinister re-entry through the backdoor?

A backdoor re-entry into power without the democratic mandate of the people through the polls is by definition not dignified.

One does not need to be a rocket scientist to realise that, because he would have had unchallenged executive powers for over 27 years and because he would still be president of the ruling Zanu PF, Mugabe could in March 2008 become a ceremonial non-executive president in de jure terms under the 2010 plan while remaining the de facto executive president.

This would be necessitated by accumulated power and political realties within Zanu PF, the military and security organs of the state whose superiors remain solidly behind Mugabe.

In any case, it would be very odd and totally unacceptable to have Mugabe as a ceremonial non-executive president while he is also the president of Zanu PF who presides over the Zanu PF central committee and politburo which are said to be superior to the cabinet and therefore above government. A ceremonial, non-executive president must necessarily be above active party politics as head of state.

As such, it is imperative that Zimbabweans from across the political divide should do everything they can to reject Mugabe’s triple strategy of seeking to remain president for life outside the electoral process for personal reasons of protecting his immunity to the detriment of the national interest.