POLITICS-ZIMBABWE: Popular Uprising Seems an Unlikely Course of Action

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Tafi Murinzi

BULAWAYO, Apr 9 2005 (IPS) - The landslide victory of Zimbabwe’s ruling party in last week’s parliamentary elections has strengthened the voice of those who have been arguing that change in the southern African country cannot come through a ‘’rigged” process.

The landslide victory of Zimbabwe’s ruling party in last week’s parliamentary elections has strengthened the voice of those who have been arguing that change in the southern African country cannot come through the ballot box.

The election result also pushes the prevailing socio-economic crisis to a new level. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has rejected the outcome, alleging Zimbabwe’s sixth parliamentary elections were rigged.

‘’This election was stolen,” says MDC spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi. ‘’The results are in no way an accurate reflection of the sovereign wishes of the people of Zimbabwe.”

Western governments have also joined in condemning the poll. But the 13-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU) have endorsed the elections, while acknowledging the need for an investigation.

The MDC leadership says it is heading back to the drawing board. The party has ruled out court action, saying the judiciary has failed to rule on similar charges of fraud relating to the last two general elections which were also marred by violence and intimidation.

Thus, the only viable option left to the MDC seems to be mass action. But sceptics say demonstrations might not take off as the most likely protesters are among the country’s 3.6 million citizens now living abroad, the majority of them in neighbouring states.

As well, the authorities’ reputation for high-handedness is still enough to frighten any potential protesters.

Many remember how an unsanctioned all-night prayer meeting on the eve of the election was brutally crushed, as have many previous public protests by the activist group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA). Several members of WOZA are still in hospital nursing their wounds.

Since announcement of the election results, police in the capital Harare have been on high alert fearing protests. So far they have arrested 18 MDC youth and questioned the party’s youth leader Nelson Chamisa. The group is accused of involvement in a short-lived demonstration as well as distributing leaflets urging Zimbabweans to take to the streets.

Despite the political impasse, mass action still seems an unlikely course of action for Zimbabweans. With stoic resilience, they have endured economic hardships and an erosion of political and media freedoms in the last five years.

In the aftermath of a populist land-reform programme preceded by a four-year military intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the economy has contracted by about 40 percent while unemployment stands at over 70 percent. Food shortages are rampant, due to triple digit inflation and the government turning away foreign donors.

Yet protest action has not been seriously contemplated in the country. An attempt, dubbed the ‘final push’ was made by the MDC in 2003. It earned MDC Morgan Tsvangirai a treason charge, without giving the party any enduring success.

This reluctance by the Zimbabwean opposition and civil society to adapt open agitation as a long-term strategy has often led to a perception, particularly in the country’s powerful neighbour South Africa, that Zimbabweans are too afraid to confront their government and demand democracy.

South African’s own fight against the apartheid regime was mainly through a wide and sustained mass action which, coupled with international pressure, made an impression on the government despite its formidable security apparatus and determination.

‘’The difference is we don’t have many people helping us,” says an activist who points to acquiescing neighbouring states as well as South Africa itself whose ‘quiet diplomacy’ appears bent on preserving the status quo.

Elsewhere in the region, mass action has had mixed results. In September 1998, in its first military intervention since the end of apartheid, South African troops were sent into Lesotho in support of the government, beleaguered by an army mutiny.

Despite periodic protests in the DRC, rival militia factions continue to run the roost in the vast country.

Among those who might be feeling vindicated by the results of last week’s elections is Lovemore Madhuku, who heads a civic group which holds that a new democratic constitution is the only basis for a popular transition in Zimbabwe. The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) contends that the present electoral process allows the president ‘to subvert the will of the electorate’.

Madhuku has long argued it would be shown ‘’again and again” that the MDC is only participating in elections in order to maintain a presence and not to gain power. Madhuku, a law lecturer, who has personally been arrested 13 times, beaten and left for dead after a protest, says participating in a poll is far easier than delivering democracy which, he says, is not possible under current conditions.

Of the 120 parliamentary seats contested during the Mar. 31 poll, President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party got 78. The MDC obtained 41 and one seat went to an independent candidate.

Despite its hope of widening its gains made during its first showing in 2000, the MDC got 16 seats less. It argues it actually won as many as 94 seats.

But what the five-year-old party is having difficulty swallowing is that it failed to get enough seats to prevent President Mugabe from getting the two-thirds majority he needs to change the constitution to suit his purposes. The 81-year-old former guerrilla leader has already said his party will re-introduce the Senate, or upper house, which will be populated by some of ZANU-PF’s losing candidates.

Besides the seats his party has won, Mugabe is mandated by the constitution to appoint 30 legislators into the house of assembly, effectively pushing his majority in the 150-seat chamber to 108.

‘’Pushing for constitutional reform does not mean talking to ZANU-PF but rather, forcing the ruling party to accept changes through continuous mass protests and making the country ungovernable,” says Madhuku.

He says the aim of the mass protest must not be to replace Mugabe but should be a ‘’broad-based” demand for democratic reforms. He, however, says the MDC does not have the capacity to organise such mass action. Bulawayo Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube, who ranks as one of the most outspoken critics of President Mugabe, has also been urging peaceful mass action as the only way to usher in a new dispensation in Zimbabwe. But he adds Zimbabwe does not yet have the leadership to organise such a protest.

The pro-democracy group Sokwanele says last week’s election proves that ZANU-PF ‘will never’ be defeated through the ballot box as long they run the elections. ‘’Quite simply, ZANU-PF will not permit any party, however popular, to beat them in an election,” it says.

The group says it expected the MDC to have learnt its lessons after suffering two previous ‘’stolen elections”. ‘’The question now is whether the MDC has any other strategy apart from mobilising voters and winning elections,” it says.