Joel Netshitenzhe

Article: Zimbabwe: The Artificial Stalemate

20 March 2005

Has South African discourse on the Zimbabwean elections reached a stalemate?

In this scenario, each school of thought is merely going through the motions. The views on the conduct of the elections are otherwise preordained; and, in the immediate post-election period, the dominant one will be determined by who shouts the loudest.

South Africans will then more intensely talk past one another and then throw up their hands in despair and, exhausted, find some other pastime to exercise their mind: succession in the ANC, “travel-gate”, Iraq...

In other words, positions on what transpires in Zimbabwe in the coming two weeks are cast in stone: “there will be a free and fair election”; “there will not be a free and fair election”! As people go on Easter holidays, the press statements are already drafted waiting for April Fools Day.

Of course in addition to ourselves, other nations, for all kinds of reasons, also have an interest. There are those, emerging from elections that marked ‘heroic and historic first steps’ towards freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq, who see Zimbabwe as an outpost of tyranny in the league of their worst enemies.

And in tow, their media, as if they were direct instruments of state foreign policy, conjure up all kinds of negative descriptions of the South African government for ‘failing to do what the West Africans (supposedly alone and in circumstances similar to Zimbabwe) did in Togo’ where an insipient coup was nipped in the bud. The signals are clear and ominous: you have to repeat after us now – “there will not be a free and fair election in Zimbabwe” – or else!

Stalemate!

But are the issues this straight-forward?

For a start, it would be the height of folly on anyone’s part to decree that the election in Zimbabwe will be free and fair. This is simply because, if in the comfort of our trenches we are wont to forget, the election has not yet taken place. Conversely, it would be to sink to the bottom of despair to assert that, as a certainty, the elections shall not reflect the will of the Zimbabwean people.

In the latter category are proponents of regime change – anything that contains within it the possibility of President Robert Mugabe’s party winning is perforce a farce. If nothing can be done now about this terrible “gogga” the only other option is to bide time and wait for him to depart from the political stage. The starting point is simple: by hook or by crook, Mugabe must go.

A more civilised version of this is an approach that sues for an MDC victory in the elections. The MDC itself and its allies of course are pursuing this option, including through solidarity demonstrations. However, a natural derivative of this can be to exaggerate the difficulties: if you lose, it will be because the dice were heavily loaded against you!

Then there would be another extreme: there are no problems in the conduct of the election, just trust the participants especially the ones who wield state power and everything will turn out well.

Where does the South African government fit in all this? Simply put: none of the above!

As government, and working with the Southern African Development Community (SADC), we refuse to prejudge the Zimbabwean election. We do acknowledge the changes that have been introduced to electoral legislation which have somewhat improved the political space. We do welcome the fact that, unlike before, opposition parties, and the MDC in particular, have been granted airtime on radio and some coverage on television. There is consensus that, compared to the last two elections, violence and intimidation have diminished.

In other words there has been some progress.

But the MDC and independent candidates complain about access to the voters’ roll, which according to reports has not been finalised yet. Print media is massively polarised, with opposition papers having been decimated in the past few years. Further, reference is made to the Public Order and Security Act, which, it is alleged, is sometimes used against opposition candidates when they seek to hold meetings. Questions have also been posed about the effectiveness of the new Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.

So the challenge remains: how do Zimbabweans improve the political environment in the coming period to mitigate the adverse factors that have been cited! Can this issue be resolved through philosophical a priori judgements, or should each case be dealt with in its concrete manifestation during the campaigns?

This is the approach that SADC and the South African government have adopted. Firstly, we hope – nay believe – that the Zimbabwean leadership of whatever hue are capable of realising that it would not be in their interest, to paraphrase President Thabo Mbeki, to behave in a manner that undermines the freeness and fairness of the election. Secondly, a South African government delegation has been sent, in addition to all other Observer Missions, because we seek to work with all the Zimbabwean actors to ensure that problems are dealt with as they arise.

This will be the focus of the next two weeks. Any other approach would be defeatist and despairing.

And we are not oblivious of the fact that there will be life after the elections. If anything, the coincidence of electoral platforms of the main parties on all the major issues – strange as it may sound – is one source of hope that the reconstruction and development of Zimbabwe, led by a leadership united around a broad national vision, may start in earnest when the sound and fury of an electoral contest have been spiked.

Joel Netshitenzhe CEO: Government Communications (GCIS) and Head: Policy Unit (PCAS) in The Presidency

An edited version was published in the Sunday Times

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