Zimbabwe: Elite deal does not resolve underlying crisis -- Aluta continua!
September 23, 2008 -- In our last update, in the July issue of Socialist Worker, we reaffirmed our long-held position of the likelihood“ of an elite political settlement between the ruling party and opposition around a Western-supported full neoliberal economic program”, given the domination of all the political parties by bourgeois elites who are fearful of political implosions from the collapsing economy and the rank opportunism of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leadership. The deal signed by the leaderships of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the MDC in September substantially confirmed our fears. We look at the deal and what it means for working people.
Despite gains MDC remains junior partner
The main elements of the deal include that MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai,
becomes the new prime minister who shares executive authority with the
president and cabinet. In addition he will chair a Council of Ministers that
will oversee the implementation of government policies, although Robert Mugabe
will continue to chair cabinet. The opposition has a majority of 16 to 15 in
cabinet. The two ZANU-PF deputy presidents remain, with two deputy prime
ministers reserved for the opposition. Mugabe remains the head of state and
government, although required to consult Tsvangirai before making most
appointments. The deal will last for up to five years although subject to
review after the first eighteen months. The deal mandates a constitutional
reform process that will lead to a referendum and new constitution in eighteen
months’ time, overseen by a parliamentary select committee.
The deal has received mixed reactions, with many ordinary people and some civic
groups cautiously welcoming it in the hope that it will bring an end to their
suffering, as well as the beginning of the end of the Mugabe dictatorship. The
Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU) have endorsed
it. Western countries, led by
“The perspective of a government
of national unity between the opposition and ZANU-PF is shared by the elites
now dominant in the ruling party, in the two main opposition parties, and by local
and international capitalists. Their main efforts, despite current
disagreements, are driven towards achieving such a goal, as an instrument in
pre-empting social revolution in an important periphery capitalist state sent
into mortal crisis by the failure of neoliberal capitalism…”
As for MDC we argued that:
“its primary
preoccupation is towards reaching a sell-out agreement with the ZANU-PF
dictatorship that will not benefit the poor and working people … the opposition
is dominated by the petite-bourgeois elite, who long ago prostrated themselves
before Western neoliberal forces and are now eager to get into state power,
even as junior partners, and accumulate as a neo-colonial dependent capitalist
class.”
And for ZANU-PF:
“ZANU-PF elites now want the peace
to grow and launder the wealth acquired in the last decade but cannot do so in
the context of a crisis-ridden state under siege from the West… (and) despite
his rhetoric, Mugabe is now ready to capitulate and enter into an elitist
compromise deal with the MDC, the West and business. But only after the 2008
elections, which he hopes to use to legitimise his party’s claim to being the
senior partner…”
Whilst for the West, we argued:
``To ensure that ZANU-PF
elites do not relapse as they did in 1997, the forces of global neoliberalism
demand a political guarantee in the form of co-option in government of their
trusted agents in
The mixed reaction to the deal, including the cautious welcome by
ordinary people, lies not only in their desperate economic condition but also
that the deal itself is a mixed bag. It is not exactly a replica of Joshua
Nkomo’s 1987 Patriotic Front unity deal. Tsvangirai is more than a ceremonial
prime minister if one takes into account his control of the House of Assembly
and urban municipalities, the opposition majority in cabinet, the right of the MDC
to opt out of the deal and that the MDC remains a separate political entity
unlike Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU) [was in 1987] and that the
MDC remains the relative gatekeeper of Western economic support. Tsvangirai
indeed enjoys at least on paper more power than his friend Odinga in
This is why many bourgeois analysts pushed Tsvangirai to sign, arguing the
MDC’s realistic objectives in the talks could not be full power now, but to get
a strategic toe hold in the state, neutralising the most vicious attacks on his
party by the regime and thus be better prepared for the next elections, which Mugabe
is unlikely to contest. Without defeating Mugabe in the streets, like the
Patriotic Front in 1979, this was the best achievable result under the
circumstances, they argued.
But the comparison with 1979 is misplaced. The Patriotic Front elites
conducted negotiations even as they accelerated the war. And even then they
were forced to make major concessions, accepting a deal that left the white
settlers with legislative veto power, control of the civil service and
judiciary and the land, for at least 10 years after independence. But they had
a fall-back position on a mobilised peasantry and armed cadreship whilst they
retained substantial control of the armed forces and national treasury.
On the other hand Tsvangirai, supported by a dupliticious and largely
cowardly civic society, actively undermined any attempt at serious mass action
solely relying on Western sanctions. Not surprising the MDC has been forced
into a deal which gives a desperate dictatorship breathing space to renew
itself, whilst laying the foundations for massive long-term assaults on the
living conditions of working people. Make no mistake, despite the above concessions,
the MDC is the definite junior [partner] in this deal with very unclear chances
of success whilst the future of the deal itself is very uncertain.
The subordination of the MDC was painfully evident in Tsvangirai’s face
as he cringed and covered his eyes when Mugabe was lambasting the West and opposition
at the signing moment! Whilst “humiliating” in form, the deal as Mugabe himself
has said, in substance, leaves ZANU-PF “in the driving seat”:
a)
First, contrary to the MDC’s earlier demands, Mugabe remains
with most executive authority. He remains the head of state and government with
authority to appoint ministers, chair cabinet, dissolve parliament, declare
war, enter into international treaties, assent to legislation and appoint or
dismiss key state officials like the service chiefs, judges, Reserve Bank governor,
ambassadors and permanent secretaries. All he is required to do, in exercise of
some and not all of these powers, is to consult the prime minister or parliament,
but not necessarily agree with them. This is made worse by the fact that the MDC
signed a deal without even an agreement on what ministries it would get. The
humiliation for Mugabe is the need to consult a person he has long derided as a
stooge of the West, but he signed because he still retains the basic power, as
he is now showing by insisting on holding most of the key ministries. The
opposition’s slight majority in cabinet does not amount to much because its
decisions will be made by consensus, giving ZANU-PF veto power. Tsvangirai’s
much vaunted Council of Ministers is little more than the administrative and
implementing sub-committee of cabinet, as no executive authority vests in it.
b)
Second, the deal affirms ZANU-PF’s position that the land
reform program is irreversible and any compensation paid to the white farmers
will be from
c)
Third, unlike the Patriotic Front, the MDC has no real fall-back
position if the deal collapses. Its only guarantor is a mediator who has now
been ousted. Having consistently neutralised the mass action route, the MDC has
solely relied on the Western sanctions. But the MDC is not in full control of
this. Locked in a hotel room and virtually coerced by then-South African
President Thabo Mbeki and Mugabe to sign there and then or risk immediate
collapse of the negotiations, Tsvangirai seems to have signed a deal that does
not meet the full approval of his Western allies.
The West has only partially endorsed the deal, because whilst supporting
an elitist negotiated settlement they do not want one that leaves Mugabe in
substantial power and his dignity and land reform program intact. They need to
humiliate Mugabe to make him an example to other Third World nationalist
leaders who have imposed neoliberalism, especially in South Africa, that they
cannot try to retain power by appeasing rebelling masses by retreating from
such programs, or attacking private property, especially of a globally
connected white minority, or attacking the Western imperialists at global
forums, as Mugabe has done.
Tsvangirai took the gamble that the West would eventually side with him,
even if not fully happy with the deal. This seems to be happening now, but only
partially, as the West is still maintaining the sanctions to ensure that the
new regime complies with its political and economic demands, but many of which
the regime will not accept. These include paring down Mugabe’s powers, modification
of the land reform program, the MDC receiving key economic ministries and
removal of Mugabe’s key state officials like Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono
and the service chiefs, as well as an all-out free market economic program
including acceleration of Gono’s dollarisation of the economy. The West will
continue humanitarian aid, which it uses on the one hand to disguise its savage
economic siege and at the same time to undermine Mugabe’s support in his key
rural hinterlands. In any case the current global financial meltdown imposes
limits on the West’s capacity to dole out large aid sums.
With the economic siege continuing, especially in an environment of
global economic crisis and a still stubborn and dominant regime, the deal looks
very fragile and may unravel sooner rather than later. Popular acceptance of
such an expensive and over-bloated government, proportionately the biggest in
the world in a country with the world’s highest inflation, is likely to wane
rapidly if the promised economic recovery fails to take place, with the draft
national constitution a possible flashpoint. At such a stage Mugabe’s continued
control of the security apparatus, the state and treasury will be decisive and
the opposition’s nakedness and foolishness in signing such deal exposed.
Despite the deal ,
prepare for more poverty and repression
Even if the deal holds, one of its fundamental problems is that its
success lies on a Western-supported economic neoliberal program, whose efficacy
is today being dramatically challenged by the financial meltdown in the
Yet it is such an economic paradigm of austerity for the working people
and the Third World and subsidies for the rich that is being pushed by the West
as a necessary precondition for any support of the deal. In their election
manifestos both the MDC and ZANU-PF have indicated their willingness to comply.
So despite the deal, employers, businesses and capitalists will continue paying
workers starvation wages, imposing inhuman price increases on basic goods and
services indexed to the US dollar and an acceleration of privatisation of
water, electricity and education.
So the respite that many expect from the deal is highly unlikely.
Poverty, deprivation and suffering for the ordinary people is likely to
continue, and with it repression as the now united political elites seek to
deal with hungry and increasingly angry working people. The looting of state
resources by politicians, now both from ZANU-PF and the MDC will reach
unprecedented levels. This is why we urge working people to reject this elitist
deal and continue the fight for a better future.
Aluta continua! The
regime can be defeated
We are cognizant that in the short term the possibility of massive mass
action is slim. This is because people are exhausted, hungry and weighed down
by the long-running crisis, as well as the misleadership, duplicity and
opportunism of the opposition and civic elites. The deal sows further false
illusions in appeasement with the dictator. We saw it with how many supposedly
radical civic leaders in the Peoples Convention suddenly lined up behind the MDC
as the deal neared signing. This scuttled the days of mass action in
However, given the fragility of the deal and the worsening global economic
situation, we are convinced that the deal is unlikely to deliver economic or
democratic salvation for the ordinary people. Continued poverty will likely
continue to trigger small to significant revolts around bread and butter
issues, such as we see with the teachers’ and doctors’ strikes. The challenge
will be to generalise and link such different small actions into broader and
bigger campaigns supported by all the various forces still ready to fight
including the newly established regional solidarity campaign led by COSATU. And
in doing so always deepening the ideological basis of our struggles and
movements to clearly expose the root cause of poverty and dictatorship as
capitalism.
At the same time working people and their organisations must continue
the struggle against the de facto continued rule of the illegitimate ZANU-PF
regime including an all-out resistance to the attempt at imposing an elitist
constitution driven and controlled by politicians in their so-called select committee
of parliament. We therefore welcome the positions taken by the the ZCTU and the
NCA to continue to demand a genuine people-driven constitution and the holding
of free and fair elections thereafter. With Mugabe’s ally in South Africa, Thabo
Mbeki, ousted there will be further scope for expanding regional mobilisation
especially involving COSATU, the SACP and social movements in South Africa,
which have all rejected the deal as well.
United front
But to ensure progress it is imperative that there be the urgent regroupment
in a united front of the radical, anti-neoliberal and left forces, including organised
labour. To avoid the treachery we experienced in the People’s Convention, from
the imperialist-funded and -controlled groups that dominated, hence watering
down the anti-neoliberal and anti-imperialist character of the People’s Charter
and sabotaged the resolutions on mass action, it is essential that there be a
serious shakeout and split of civic society between the militant, serious and
pro-working-people anti-neoliberal movements and the opportunistic, cowardly
and imperialist-funded and -controlled ones. We hope the coming Zimbabwe Social
Forum in October provides a further platform for remobilisation of the radical
forces.
Whilst, in the short term, the regime might have bought itself some time
with this sell-out deal and through continued repression, it cannot last in the
medium term because it has no solution to the escalating economic crisis, it is
alienated from its capitalist class base
and hated by the masses, whilst it suffers massive serious internal divisions
around the unresolved succession question. This is why the regime made
significant concessions to the MDC and was so desperate for Tsvangirai’s
signature.
In the medium term therefore there remains a possibility of a people-centred
resolution of the Zimbabwean crisis that smashes both the dictatorship and
elitist plans to replace it with a regime that perpetuates the neoliberal
capitalist agenda. But its removal is not automatic and will require concerted
united front struggle on a regional and anti-neoliberal basis.
Such a solution immediately means: a new people-driven constitution
prioritising economic rights of working people, free and fair elections and
democratic rights; land redistribution and support to the peasants; nationalisation
of the major sectors of the economy and the general subordination of private
property to satisfy society’s needs such as education, health, transport,
housing and food. The People’s Charter is the most suitable starting point but
with need for serious modifications.
But as history has taught us, such reforms cannot be sustained in the long term unless the very system of capitalism which breeds poverty and dictatorship in the first place is uprooted, locally, regionally and internationally, and replaced by collective and democratic ownership and control of the economy and the state by working people, i.e. socialism.