(NEWZIMBABWE) Mugabe has outmaneuvered MDC

Mugabe has outmaneuvered MDC
Posted By Gilbert Nyambabvu
23 Mar, 2010 at 8:14 pm

A COLLEAGUE reacted to news that President Robert Mugabe would seek re-election if asked by Zanu PF, and that such elections could be held whether or not there was a new constitution, by saying the elderly gent was having a laugh at our collective expense as a nation.

Said colleague said Zimbabweans should pause and consider the wider and full import of his remarks. Indeed one cannot help but concede that the veteran leader used his unusual meeting with both commercial and public media editors to clarify two important issues.

In the first instance, by suggesting that he was available to stand for re-election if asked by Zanu PF, Mugabe effectively triggered a stampede for his “endorsement” as the party’s candidate for the next general election.

Hardly any surprises there, I hear you say.

It has since become obvious that none of those pansies in Zanu PF who would succeed him has the guts to tell Mugabe to step aside either because of a misplaced sense of filial loyalty to the man, or outright terror at the political and existential consequences of such a challenge.

I suggested to my colleague that pretty soon we would have the usual suspects — war veterans, the party’s youth league and provincial executives — begin the process of “asking” the First Secretary to represent Zanu PF yet again at the next general election.

And, already, the Youth League have not disappointed.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Mugabe declared that general elections must be held early next year whether or not there is a new constitution.

Now, this was a bit of a bolt from the deep blue.

The Zanu PF leader said the country has neither the money nor the time to ensure a new constitution is in place by the time the power sharing administration must wind-up its business and hold elections.

It is possible the President was just posturing. But then one needs not be from mars to realise that Mugabe and his party would rather the next elections are held under the much-amended Lancaster House document.

Again, Mugabe is smart enough to recognise that although he has comprehensively out-flanked Morgan Tsvangirai in the government, Zanu PF is yet to reconnect with the electorate, making the possibility of “free and fair” elections a risky proposal for the party.

Still, Mugabe charitably offered his rivals a “compromise” should they refuse to go for the said elections in the absence of a new constitution (as indeed they have made clear they would not).

He said in that event, the coalition partners would have to work out an extension to the life of the inclusive government.

Such an extension would, of course, retain Mugabe as Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (well, that’s how they refer to him now).

As such, elections or no elections, Mugabe is, deo volente (God willing), likely to remain President.

Heads or tails, the man still wins!

We thus have a situation which polemicist Nathaniel Manheru would summarise in one word: Icho!

Mugabe can have his laugh – it is, surely, his deserved due.

Meanwhile, those who prosper personally and materially as long as Mugabe remains in power are necessarily delighted.

His would-be successors are furious, but understandably helpless.

On the other hand Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai tried to put up a brave face by declaring he was ready to take on Mugabe, but on the somewhat fanciful proviso that either SADC or the AU agrees to deploy peace-keepers.

The gentleman is clearly ill-served by his advisers and this level of naivety about regional and continental politics for a whole Prime Minister is, to say the very least, quite incredible.

Surely he must know that SADC and the AU would rather run a mile than be asked to force the sovereignty-obsessed Mugabe to allow the deployment of peace-keepers in Zimbabwe.

If this is Tsvangirai’s condition for contesting the next election, then we can expect another boycott, because it’s simply not going to happen.

Meanwhile, MDC-T supporters, frustrated by this turn of events, moan to no end about Mugabe’s “treachery” and lack of “good faith” over full implementation of the Global Political Agreement.

They forget that it is not Mugabe’s duty to facilitate Tsvangirai’s ascent to high office. Mugabe’s duty is to his party and its supporters and that responsibility necessarily entails making Tsvangirai’s political life as difficult as possible.

MDC-T supporters, many of whom have sacrificed life and limb for the cause, must ask of their leaders how and why it has all gone so wrong.

The opposition had Mugabe by the unmentionables in March 2008.

And yet, instead of administering the a crushing squeeze, Tsvangirai contrived to nurse the man and his party back to political health by signing up to the Global Political Agreement (GPA).

Now, who better to explain why this was political kamikaze on the part of the opposition than Italian philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli?

In his political treatise, The Prince Machiaveli warns: “Men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.”

In other words, one must never do their enemy a small injury.

The Prime Minister’s supporters may plead, in his defence, that Tsvangirai had no choice but to agree to a compromise because the country was on its knees and people had surely suffered enough.

In that case, cynics would advise the MDC-T leader and his supporters to cease all pretences at being a political party and join the Red Cross; because politics is not about the people. The object of politics is power.

Yes, the country’s economy was teetering on the brink of total collapse. But why should Tsvangirai and his party consider it their responsibility to reverse this decline?

The point, quite simply, is that since it was the economy (stupid!) which had nearly forced Zanu PF out of office, any arrangement that addresses this challenge necessarily saves Mugabe’s political skin.

Both MDC formations concede that the GPA is flawed (in favour of Mugabe) but argue that it was a necessary compromise. However, some would say the GPA is in fact a good example of what renowned Israeli academic Avishai Margalit calls a “rotten compromise”.

Discussing his book “On compromises and rotten compromises” at the Carnegie Council in December 2009, Professor Margalit describes a rotten compromise as “an agreement to establish or maintain an inhuman regime; a regime of cruelty and humiliation …”

Margalit said while compromise is at the heart of politics, “rotten compromises” should be avoided at all costs.

He said problems with “rotten compromises” relate not only to the content of the agreements but also to the people with whom they are signed adding that such deals invariably “sacrificed justice for the sake of peace”.

Margalit warned that “the trade-off between peace and justice is no laughing matter. It can be a tragic choice.”

Victims of past abuses would argue that the GPA does sacrifice “justice for the sake of peace”.

The agreement also gave Mugabe legitimacy while making Tsvangirai an ineffectual Prime Minister — ranking a distant fourth in the country’s executive structure after the President and his two deputies.

How the MDC-T leader expected to be able to force and drive reform from this position of weakness boggles the mind. Witness what has transpired over the time the inclusive government has been in office.

While the economic benefits cannot be disputed, the political costs of the GPA to the MDC formations are debilitating.

Mugabe has used the reprieve graciously provided by GPA to plan and prepare for an eventual reclamation of full political authority.

And so he should, for says Machiavelli again: “War should be the only study of a (leader). He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes his ability to execute military plans”.

Mugabe has successfully refused to move an inch on most of the major issues Tsvangirai said he wanted re-visited; the so-called “outstanding issues”.

Crucially also, Mugabe ruled out any reform of the country’s avowedly partisan security services while the public media remains hostile to the Prime Minister and his party.

It remains to be seen whether the latest intervention by President Jacob Zuma will make any difference. But with elections now set for early next year, there hardly seems to be any point in pressing the case of Gono, Tomana and the provincial governors anyway.

Still, Tsvangirai’s strategic blunders are not limited to agreeing to be railroaded into signing the GPA by a FIFA World Cup-obsessed SADC.

The MDC-T leader refused to entertain the idea of forming a broad coalition with other opposition forces ahead of the 2008 ballot, believing he could go it alone. He wanted it all for himself, and believed his own propaganda he had Zimbabwe locked down.
The arrogance!

As it turned out, the opposition vote was divided and Zanu PF ended up waltzing to victory in constituencies the party would otherwise not even dream of winning. Again, the MDC-T leader fails to recognise the need to play a crafty hand with regard to powerful elements that presently live in fear of prosecution for past infamies such as Gukurahundi, should Zanu PF lose power.

In addition, key regime figures are concerned about the security of riches accumulated over the last three decades should there be a new political dispensation.

Cue Machiavelli again: “… It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has, for enemies, all those who have done well under the old …”

Prior to the 2008 elections, Tsvangirai threatened to prosecute those responsible for past abuses. He also vowed to take action over corruption as well as “equitably” re-distribute the land.

While these may have been the right things to say, the timing was appallingly inappropriate. Such threats necessarily put those who have much to lose and a lot fear in the event of a Zanu PF removal from power on the offensive.

Indeed, after the inconclusive March 2008 election, Mugabe needed only say to his henchmen: “Well Cdes and friends, this is it! I guess we can all expect to lose our riches and prepare to spend what remains of our lives in jail. Thankfully, I’m past my prime, age-wise, and will not be a guest of the state at Chikurubi for too long.”

It may be morally objectionable politics to give security assurances to some of these elements and their victims would rightly be outraged; but in politics it is sometimes necessary to disappoint supporters for the “greater good” (and, as the case of Charles Taylor shows, such guarantees can always be revisited anyway).

It’s the sort of position Machiavelli would endorse.

The Italian, now on his death-bed, is said to have been visited by the Pope who asked him: “Machiavelli, will you now renounce the devil and all his works?”
Machiavelli scarcely opened his eyes. So the Pope repeated, “Will you now renounce the devil and all his works?”

Opening one eye, the writer responded, “This is no time to make enemies.”