(NEWZIMBABWE, THE INDEPENDENT UK) Mugabe 'has won over nation - again' - UK paper

Friday, March 16, 2012

(NEWZIMBABWE, THE INDEPENDENT UK) Mugabe 'has won over nation - again' - UK paper

Mugabe 'has won over nation - again': UK paper
16/03/2012 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter

A BRITISH newspaper which has traditionally been one of President Robert Mugabe’s harshest critics claimed Friday that the veteran leader had “won over a nation – again”.

The Independent said through “a crusading indigenisation programme – the corporate version of the farm invasions a decade ago” – the 88-year-old leader “has suddenly, in the eyes of many Zimbabweans, regained the revolutionary credentials he earned fighting white rule in the 1970s.”

With elections set to be held in the next 12 months, the newspaper claims to have found firming support for Mugabe on the ground as some of his populist policies begin to bear fruit.

“Emboldened by international sanctions, he is riding a wave of populist glory born of lots of rhetoric and a few converging realities: tens of thousands of resettled peasants have reaped bumper tobacco crops, civil servants have taken possession of thousands of hectares of redistributed farmland, and national pride is back, boosted by major diamond finds,” correspondent Alex Duval Smith wrote from Harare on Friday.

The newspaper claims it found Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T party – Zanu PF’s main political rival – “has suffered its share of corruption scandals”.

“It has failed to reverse poverty or define itself as a reforming force within the power-sharing administration. And the indigenisation programme, despite its popularity, has divided the trade unions, the MDC's electoral heartland,” it said.

“It is a climate in which poverty grinds on and politics boils down not to delivery but to which party makes the best promises. To many Zimbabweans, President Mugabe once again looks like the country's best defender.”

The conclusions will sting the MDC-T which insists that Zanu PF’s indigenisation push – like land reforms before it – is only benefitting a small clique at the top and not the poor mass of voters.

But Zanu PF points to community share schemes which have seen large mining corporations giving away shares to local communities and employees. The party has vowed there will be no let-up as it fixes its eyes on foreign banks including Barclays, Standard Chartered and Stanbic which have been asked to cede majority shareholding to locals.

Indigenisation Minister Saviour Kasukuwere told the Independent: “People now understand what President Mugabe has been aiming at. He is the only politician who has clearly articulated his thoughts, unlike the other political parties who are just feeding on our people – look at the corruption in the local councils they [both wings of the MDC] control.

“How can they win elections when it is clear that they are a tool, an agent? They are incompetent, corrupt characters."

Zanu PF is increasingly confident it won't need to resort to violent tactics of the past to see off its rivals.

"We want peaceful, free and fair elections. Let us sell our ideas," Kasukuwere said, echoing similar calls by Mugabe who has agreed to travel around the country with his rivals Morgan Tsvangirai and Welshman Ncube to address so-called "peace rallies" organised by churches.

[CLICK HERE to read the Independent's full report]

Labels: INDIGENIZATION AND EMPOWERMENT ACT (ZIMBABWE), SAVIOUR KASUKUWERE