It has been more than a year under the government of national unity. The performance to this end clearly speaks of a mission impossible in terms of reverting Zimbabwe back to a full democracy and improving a people’s lives.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word transition as, “the process of changing from one state or condition to another.” The questions in the Zimbabweans’ minds today remains - what are we changing from and where are we headed. Squarely, this is the jinks puzzle which defines the power relations in our government. The three political parties will want to gain political power in the next election so that they can look back one day and say we managed to out manoeuvre our opponents during the transitional period.
Therefore, in assessing its fitness to govern or lack thereof, one need to first and foremost debunk the myth that we are in a transition and that during this transition, we cannot squarely measure the performance of the government given the complexity of its making. For too long we have been exposed to the messaging that the government is not performing owing to its numerous centres of power.
From the onset, there laid a great danger espoused in the foundation of the negotiation process. The founding point was that Zimbabwe had produced a hung parliament in the March 2008 plebiscite hence the need to mitigate the pile up of cabinet bills in the august house by ensuring the three feuding parties come together and collectively govern. This has sadly transferred the baggage of a hung parliament to a hung cabinet as the different centres of power govern either through the media or acts of blatant defiance. Resultantly we now have a hung government, whose fitness to govern has become heavily contested.
The argument is that, of these three centres of power, only one is working for the collective good of Zimbabwe and the other two, Zanu PF and Ncube-Mutambara MDC are imbedded in making it impossible to govern Zimbabwe in a translucent and transparent manner. Whatever the case might be, the government has collectively failed to effect meaningful and lasting change in people’s lives. The excuse has and will remain – we are in transition and its complex so non-delivery is poised to happen.
In honest and earnest terms, there is a new culture of ‘wait and see’ as the law of diminishing returns sets firm amongst the political arms. Energy and zeal are fast burning out as promises lead to additional promises. It seems there is a business as usual approach due to political fatigue, when the journey is supposed to be beginning. In the process, some among our midst are fast forgetting the reasons why they accepted to be in ‘transition’. A rude awakening call awaits. How long will the transition last? By their nature transitions are supposed to be time specific. If it’s going to be two years or less than five years, then it’s an acceptable time span.
This argument stems from the fact that the life span of this government is going to be five (5) years which is clearly a constitutional term of the government. Therefore, ZANU PF and two MDCs are essentially serving a full government term irrespective of the fact that the political parties will insist on the contrary. There is nothing transitional about serving a full government term.
There should, therefore, be a paradigm shift in terms of policy approaches from short term to long term since the political parties are going to serve full office tenure. These stop gap measures should stop forthwith and give way to the effecting of developmental and lasting programs that are meant to change the people’s living standards as opposed to the humanitarian and salary governance style that has crept into present day Zimbabwe.
The stop gap measures approach are informed by the reality of the political parties’ comprehension of the fact that an election is pending hence long term investment will not produce results to the electorate. Hence the entire nation is being held by a thread of belief that the reason why the levels of unemployment and industry capacity remain sorry is because of the current transitional phase.
The import thereof, is that if the ‘inclusive government’ is serving a full term of office, it should be held to account for the progress and lack of it during their reign. The three political parties’ manifestos clearly outline that they are going to deliver in the socio-economic and political elements if voted into power – they are in power now for a full term, whether they are voted for or not. The word transition has been abused for too long in this country and should not be continuously used as a scapegoat for non-performance by attaching a time frame to it.
Attempts to juxtapose the element of transition and stagnancy in delivery will be unfortunate and sad. It is will be a virtue of insanity just as saying Zanu PF was failing to deliver in every five year term because it was awaiting a transitional election at the end of its full term. Zimbabwe cannot stomach such thinking so can the rest of the continent and the region.
Our leadership was elected into office, to those who were elected, to make things happen – there is therefore no space or time to go around explaining why the leadership is failing to effect change in a people’s lives. Zimbabwe awaits for the leadership that makes things happen.
This takes me back to the argument of fitness to govern. As stated in the first paragraphs, the next election will be in 2013; this is the most feasible date for all the 3 political parties who agreed to govern the state together on the 15th of September 2008.
ZANU PF cannot fathom being exposed to an electoral test any time soon given the marginal losses accrued in the 2008 plebiscite which was held under minimum conditions of peace. The same is true for the Mutambara factor, if exposed to electoral temperatures this will in all probability mark the end of its political life. The Tsvangirai led MDC is embroiled with factional challenges internally and facing a huge challenge of gaining state power if it goes to an election now, it will come out more weakened.
Both Zanu PF and MDC-T face a serious crisis of primary elections which by their own nature are politically nerve threatening. They draw lines of factionalism as the leadership will be trying to protect the so called heavy weights from being thumped by ‘mafikizolos’.
Comprehensively, if Zimbabwe is to conceive a genuine and true transition, the transition should face minimum standard answers of where the country will go after the next election which will happen in 2013, since transition in one way or the other points to the change of the present state to the other.
Calling for an election before an in-depth transformation of electoral institutions, the state machinery of power, effecting meaningful media reforms in broadcasting and the laws governing the print media will lead to yet another transitional still birth. The vanquished will retain a point of strength and start acting and behaving like winners whilst the genuine winners are left crying to the world over a stolen victory or blocked democracy.
The civil society, should therefore mend its partially broken wings as a watchdog of the basic tenants of democracy rather than making ‘politically correct’ decision to appease narrow political conquests.
It is therefore only fair to call upon the collective arms of the state to stop political grand standing and start addressing the developmental and long term infrastructural questions which still linger in the minds of Zimbabwe’s people in line with the full constitutional term they are serving.
If we are not careful as a people, the entire five (5) years under this government will go to politicking and political voodoo, which does not have any socio-political or economic meaning except narrow and parochial political interests.
Any meaningful political concepts should have the ability to address the long term infrastructural needs. This entails structured efforts towards revitalising our industry which is still wallowing below 30% production capacity and creating employment opportunities to almost 85% of the unemployed resource pool.
Our education system needs a life saving system in the form of proper remuneration for our educators and a surgical treatment of our civil service remuneration to instil confidence in the country’s biggest employer. In the same vein, the state has the duty to educate its people through a non-commercial fee – it must start acting like a responsible being. Our hospitals remain a death parlour trap. Utility access in the form of electricity and water is a mirage. This is irrespective of the fact that the ministers manning them had been criticizing from the outside and we are now shocked with their defining silence when the centre is falling apart.
So is the GNU fit to govern, collectively it is not given its politicking stance rather than addressing the fundamental issues of development in the country. The donations which are pouring into the country are going into non-investment use such as the civil service bill and humanitarian aid. The right arm of government doesn’t have a clue what the left arm is doing for example in mining, the MDC does not have a clue of where the huge monies coming from the Chiyadzwa mine fields are going. ZANU PF boycotts the council of ministries meetings with impunity among other acts of militant defiance.
If there was a semblance of governance fitness, one would have expected by now some transparency over the country’s resource levels and usage. A clear cut road map towards recovery from a decade of recession which is clearly guarded with a unity of purpose aimed at transforming the state institutions.
Zimbabweans should therefore start demanding that their government to deliver – for the government is not in transition but serving a full constitutional term in the ambience of a hung government which by its own nature is not made of angels.
*Tabani Moyo is a journalist based in Gokwe. He can be contacted on rebeljournalist@yahoo.com
