The 2013 Election in Zimbabwe: The end of an era

The July 31st 2013 Elections in Zimbabwe ushered in a renewed period of political domination by ZANU(PF) and its President, Robert Mugabe. This election followed five years of a SADC- facilitated Global Political Agreement (GPA), which was put into place after a contested presidential run-off election in June 2008. The recent elections, which once again established ZANU(PF)’s mastery over the country’s political domain, were passed as free and peaceful by SADC and the African Union but contested by both Movement for Democratic Change parties and the western countries.While there were clear problems in the process leading to the election, it is also apparent that this was not the only factor that determined ZANU(PF)’S ‘victory’. This article provides an analysis of the multiple factors that contributed to the current conjuncture including the different party strategies under the GPA, changes in Zimbabwe’s political economy and interventions at regional and international levels.Department of HE and Training approved lis

Elecciones, mediación y situación de punto muerto en Zimbabue

La mezcla de esperanza y desesperación que siguió a las elecciones de marzo de 2008 en Zimbabue y la violencia que se desató tras éstas dieron paso posteriormente a las nuevas posibilidades ofrecidas por el acuerdo político firmado el 11 de septiembre de 2008 por la Unión Nacional Africana de Zimbabue-Frente Patriótico (ZANU-PF) y las dos facciones del Movimiento para el Cambio Democrático (MDC) lideradas por Tsvangirai y Mutambara, respectivamente. Los múltiples aspectos de la crisis en que se ha visto envuelta la política de Zimbabue en el último decenio han agotado a las fuerzas sociales a nivel nacional y han conducido a un acuerdo político que, aunque no ha conseguido sacar del poder al partido ZANU-PF, sí prevé un reparto de ese poder con las dos facciones del MDC

Is Zimbabwe heading towards another disputed election?

As Zimbabwe’s elections on 31 July approach, the Southern African Development Community is under pressure to complete its self-imposed mandate from 2007, writes Brian Raftopoulos

Zimbabwe: race and nationalism in a post colonial state

A research paper on post-colonial nationalism and race relations in Zimbabwe.Among the many paradoxes of the Lancaster House Settlement in Zimbabwe is that, even as the agreement formally ended settler colonial rule in the country, it provided the framework for continued white privilege, on the bases of persistent control of the economy by this elite, and through them, transnational capital. The consequences are that there are serious ambiguities in the discourses and practices of race and nationalism currently operational in Zimbabwean society. Thus, on the one hand, the currently favoured ’rationality’of market values, entrepreneurialism and other components of the high nostrums of capitalist ideology, resonating in the Structural Adjustment Programme, have given a renewed confidence to those forces unwilling to confront the structural causes underlying continuing racial inequality in this ’post-settler colonial society!’1 This ideological trend has appeared more credible because of the growth of Black elite formation, already initiated, although in a proscribed form, during the colonial period. On the other hand the more general magnitude of economic and social differentiations between the major racial groups, and more particularly for the Black petty-bourgeoisie, the continued frustration of large sections of this class in their attempts to establish more permanent niches in the accumulation process, have made it difficult for the leadership to dispatch the question of racial inequality too hastily without severely damaging what remains of the self-respect of the 1980 agenda. As a result the policy of ’reconciliation’ enunciated in 1980 is a cauldron of contradictions

Beyond the house of hunger: the struggle for democratic development in Zimbabwe

As the first decade of independence drew to a close in Zimbabwe, there were increasing indications, particularly in the urban areas, of growing disillusionment with the operations of the Zimbabwean State. In September 1988, University students took to the streets in protest against what they saw as the growing tide of corruption within the State and Party machinery. In the following months, a major expose' in a national newspaper, The Chronicle, catalogued high-level corruption in the State involving the illegal sales of motor vehicles. Also in 1988, Parliamentarians, usually noted for their sycophancy, apathy and empty cant, spoke out in a brief but vigorous flurry of criticism against nepotism and corruption. In April 1989, just over a year after the signing of the Unity Accord between ZANU (PF) and PF-ZAPU, a new challenge to the Government emerged in the form of the Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM) with the latter campaigning basically on an anti-corruption and anti-one-party state platform. As the country moved into the last quarter of 1989, students again demonstrated in early October following the detention of the president and secretary-general of the Students' Representative Council. Finally, between April and June 1990, the State had to confront a protracted series of strikes in the public sector. The reaction of the State to these developments was at one level to reveal an aggressive stance. In 1988, response to the students' demonstrations, students and lecturers were threatened with detention, hastily arraigned before the courts on charges that could not stand the tests of judicial demands, and a Kenyan lecturer was deported. The State's response to the 1989 student protests was even harsher, leading to student detention and the summary closure of the University of Zimbabwe on 4 October 1989. Two days before the closure, the president of the Students' Representative Council strongly attacked the State, noting that, "the institution of Government has thus been rendered completely disreputable and hence the incumbents have lost legitimacy" (Mutambara 1989). In an allied move, the Secretary-General of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Morgan Tsvangirai, was also detained by the State authorities because of his criticism of the closure of the University as "a clear manifestation of rising State, repression, which has already been felt by various sections of society" (The Chronicle^ 7 October 1989). As regards the opposition party, ZUM, several of its members were detained, and the operations of the party made difficult. Yet there has been more to the State's response to criticisms than coercive interventions. As a result of struggles between sections of civil society and the State, as well as conflicts within the executive, legislature and judiciary wings of the State, and the highest organs of the ruling party, there have developed important arenas of democratic debate and participation in Zimbabwean society. There still exists a substantial degree of Press freedom in which regular debates and criticisms of the Government can be found, Alongside State-influenced papers, can be found an important array of privately sponsored monthly magazines, such as Moto, Parade and SAPEM, as well as a weekly newspaper, The Financial Gazette. Regular discussions and debates are held in fora organised by intellectuals and attended by enthusiastic audiences. When this is added to regular elections which have on the whole been "free and fair", it can be seen that there is a vibrant struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe. An important basis of this struggle has been the growth and expansion of the Black petty-bourgeoisie which has developed after a decade of experience in public sector management, the large formal business sector and the emerging business sub-sector. Emerging from the experiences has been an increasing desire to become established, private businessmen. The basis of the tendency has been the limits on capital accumulations in the State, continued White control of the economy, and the proclivity for macro-economic policy to favour the monopolistic sector of the business community. Moreover, as large sections of the Black petty-bourgeoisie have found themselves excluded from the benefits of the post-colonial policy of "Reconciliation", demands have grown for more active participation not only in the economy but in the political process. These demands have resonated both amongst the petty-bourgeoisie in opposition, and within the State and Party structures. Moreover, even as the State has lost legitimacy amongst sections of the urban population, it has retained a popular presence amongst the majority rural producers. Nevertheless, it is not a support base it can take for granted in the absence of a substantial land reform programme. In addition, in terms of an overall alternative within Zimbabwe, the rightist drift of ZUM brought little hope of confronting the existing inequalities in the society. Thus as the united ZANU (PF) party takes the country into a Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) seeking, in the words of the Senior Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development, to "shift quite decisively away from a command economy to one which promotes free markets and private enterprises (The Financial Gazette, 28 March 1991), there do not appear to be easily identifiable alternatives in Zimbabwe. There has therefore been an ambivalence on the part of the State on the question of democratic participation and development. On the one hand, the desire to remain accountable to the agenda of the liberation movement, however nebulous the precise content of that agenda, has not been a fiction. Moreover, there has been a certain sensitivity to debates and discussions going on within civil society about such issues. On the other hand, an aggressive, heavy-handedness has been shown against certain groups in the national body politic, attempting to assert their autonomy from a certain definition of the "national interest" in ways considered adventurist and without a viable programmatic alternative. At its worst, the latter reaction has been characterised by authoritarian prescriptions

Review: Jenny Kuhlmann, Transnational diaspora politics: cross-border political activities of Zimbabweans in the United Kingdom

Review of the monograph: Jenny Kuhlmann, Transnational Diaspora Politics: Cross-Border Political Activities of Zimbabweans in the United Kingdom, Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2013, ISBN 9783865837417, 412 page

Current Politics in Zimbabwe

This chapter was published in the book " Zimbabwe: The past is the future" edited by David Harold-Barr

Zimbabwean politics in the post-2013 election period

"Die Wahlen in Zimbabwe von 2013 haben den Griff Mugabes und der ZANU-PF auf die Politik des Landes gefestigt. Der Wahlausgang ist das Resultat einer Kombination verschiedener Faktoren. Dazu gehören nicht nur die Langzeitwirkungen der ZANU-PF-Unterdrückungspolitik, die mit einem radikal-nationalistischen Diskurs begründet wird, sondern auch die Veränderungen der Sozialstruktur infolge der politischen und ökonomischen Umgestaltungen seit den späten 1990er Jahren. Nach den Wahlen von 2013 haben die enormen ökonomischen Probleme, vor denen das Land steht, das Mugabe-Regime gezwungen, einen konzilianteren Ton anzuschlagen; auf der Suche nach wirtschaftlicher Unterstützung bemüht man sich um eine Wiederannäherung an den Westen. Beim Versuch, diesen ökonomischen Herausforderungen zu begegnen, muss die ZANU-PF auch mit dem zunehmenden Kampf in den eigenen Reihen um die Nachfolge Mugabes fertig werden, denn seine Regierungszeit nähert sich dem Ende." (Autorenreferat)"The 2013 elections in Zimbabwe confirmed the grip of Mugabe and ZANU-PF on Zimbabwean politics. The electoral outcome was the result of a combination of factors that included not only the longterm legacy of ZANU-PF's coercive politics, constructed through a radical nationalist discourse, but also the changes in the social structure of the country as a result of the reconfiguration of Zimbabwe's political economy since the late 1990s. In the aftermath of the 2013 elections, the enormous economic constraints confronting the country have forced the Mugabe regime to take a more conciliatory tone as it seeks to re-engage with the West in the search for economic assistance. In its attempts to find a path through these economic challenges, ZANU-PF must also contend with the growing battle for succession within the party as Mugabe's rule draws to an end." (author's abstract