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www.africa-confidential.com 7 July 2000 Vol 41 No 14 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL SOUTH AFRICA 3 ZIMBABWE The bigger the better ZANU-PF’s Pyrrhic victory At a cost of 30 lives and the forced removal of more than 6,000 The ANC government prefers efficient large-scale commercial farmworkers, the ruling party has scraped home farms to a wide-ranging Another eighteen months of economic stagnation and high-tension politics lie ahead after the ruling resettlement scheme for Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front squeaked to victory in the 24-25 June parliamentary smallholder farmers. But the Zimbabwe confrontations have elections. The Movement for Democratic Change’s winning of 57 seats against ZANU-PF’s 63 seats reminded the ANC of the was impressive, given the violence and intimidation against opposition supporters, but it does not promise importance of pushing through an early end to the power struggle. The MDC is planning to contest the results in at least 10 constituencies. credible land redistribution before Battle lines are being drawn for local elections due in August, when the MDC is again set to sweep the it becomes political dynamite. board in the towns and cities, and for the presidential elections due before April 2002. The MDC, just nine months old, is winning votes through courage and gusto - and most of all because it isn’t ZANU- KENYA 4 PF. Compared to the ageing and often intemperate stalwarts of ZANU-PF, the MDC is an attractive youthful party, full of trades unionists, human rights activists and academics who have somehow A tangled web managed to win some business support. It is a coalition formula that went terribly wrong with Frederick Nairobi’s civil service chief, Richard Chiluba’s Movement for Multi-Party Democracy in Zambia, but for now the MDC is ZANU-PF’s Leakey, said that Kenya didn’t want nightmare: a credible, well organised opposition party, which is capable of exploiting the ruling party’s to be infected by the Zimbabwe economic mismanagement and corruption. virus, following reports that Until the presidential polls and the exit of President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabweans can expect an squatters had occupied land in extended election campaign punctuated by desperate discussions with creditors and the International Coast Province. Land inequities in Kenya owe more to class and Monetary Fund, as well as new battles over constitutional reform between ZANU-PF and its opponents. political manipulation than to race. For now the ZANU-PF leadership and its sponsored ‘war veterans’ want to maintain the occupation of white farms - both as a negotiating tool and as a political symbol. Alongside the occupations is the government’s insistence that the latest 841 designated farms be handed over for resettlement. NAMIBIA 5 Too dry for crops Hunzvi’s torture chamber War veterans’ leader Chenjerai ‘Hitler’ Hunzvi tells colleagues he expects to be Minister for War Namibia’s 4,000 white farmers Veterans, although most of the ‘veterans’ he leads are jobless, disenchanted youths from the towns. The have been shocked by the occupations in Zimbabwe, genuine veterans have launched a court action against Hunzvi for the misuse of their pension fund: in especially by the support of their the furore surrounding the farm occupations, the case against Hunzvi was held up. Hunzvi also faces President, Sam Nujoma, for charges, substantiated by Amnesty International, that he allowed his doctor’s surgey to be used as a torture President Mugabe’s policies. chamber to ‘punish’ opposition supporters. Opinions differ as to whether Mugabe may find it useful for the Attorney General to pursue the corruption case against Hunzvi and have him put back in his box. But ZAMBIA 6 Mugabe probably finds the land issue too politically important to rein in his chief propagandist. So the occupations and the head-to-head confrontations with the MDC will continue. That prospect and its The race to consequences for living standards, already in sharp decline, appals many Zimbabweans. Yet few see any alternative. succeed Most ZANU-PF supporters are in post-poll shock. Many are genuinely surprised about how unpopular The knives are out in the race to their party proved - even with all the advantages of incumbency: a monopoly of state funding for political succeed President Chiluba and parties; support of the state-controlled print and electronic media; and the officially-backed and financed ambitious Environment Minister Mwila has already been suspended intimidation campaign in rural areas. ZANU-PF activists believed their own propaganda and expected for breaking the rules. He may yet the party to win comfortably. There seems to have been little systematic ballot-rigging; presumably the start a new party. intimidation and violence in the countryside (where about 70 per cent of the voters live) were supposed to have done the trick. POINTERS 8 Certainly President Daniel arap Moi’s Kenya African National Union, which in the past decade has successfully and blatantly rigged two national elections and countless by-elections, makes ZANU-PF Chad/Cameroon, look like amateurs. Neither can many of Mugabe’s closest political allies outside Africa be impressed: no self-respecting Asian or Middle Eastern autocrat - such as Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad or the Sudan, Gambia & Sultan of Oman - would have submitted themselves to a Zimbabwe-style electoral test or to the sort of Sierra Leone criticism and abuse Mugabe now receives from the local private press. Under fire; Hall of mirrors II; death Many younger ZANU-PF supporters are turning on Mugabe, blaming his political style for the party’s on the river; and Kabbah in court. failure. Within hours of the declaration of the results, several of the new crop of ZANU-PF MPs and at 7 July 2000 Africa Confidential Vol 41 No 14 And this is ZANU-PF’s biggest problem. If Mugabe retires soon, ZANU-PF majority there would be an early presidential election which the party would, MDC majority Korekore on present showing, lose. Yet if Mugabe stays, he will continue to 0 Kilometres 100 MASHONALAND dominate government style and policy so that the party will be unable 0 Miles 50 MASHONALAND CENTRAL to repair the damage. WEST ST A E Party factionalism is increasing. Sharp differences are emerging on D a Zezuru N k A n HARARE L economic reform and policy towards foreign donors. And there is now o A T N O a regional divide: ZANU-PF is no longer a national party as it holds H S A no urban seats; it has no seats at all in Harare and the suburbs, with only MATEBELELAND M two in all Matebeleland. The MDC have urban seats galore, and NORTH ZIMBABWE Manyika Ndebele MIDLANDS MANICALAND several rural seats: it was only in ZANU-PF’s heartland of Mashonaland Karanga Central that the MDC failed to win any seats at all. ZANU-PF won no BULAWAYO K seats in three provinces. Total population: a l Ndau This creates problems for ZANU-PF party managers. Former 13 million a Shona-speakers (75%): n MASVINGO Home Affairs Minister, Dumiso Dabengwa, who lost his seat in Karanga, Korekore, g Manyika, Ndau, Zezuru a Matebeleland, said the election result spells the end of the 1987 Unity Ndebele and related MATEBELELAND groups (20%): SOUTH Shangaan pact agreed between ZANU-PF and the late Joshua Nkomo’s Kalanga, Ndebele Venda Others (5%): Zimbabwe African People’s Union (which dominated Matebeleland Shangaan, Tonka, immediately after Independence). Mugabe flew down to Matabeleland Venda, Whites for a service to commemorate the first anniversary of Nkomo’s death - after ensuring that Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius least one provincial chairman were telling journalists that Mugabe Ncube, would not be leading the service. Ncube has become one of must go as soon as possible - to allow the party to redeem itself in the the Church’s most prominent critics of the government, speaking of its upcoming elections. There is probably near unanimity in ZANU-PF ‘constant campaign of violence and intimidation’. Last month Ncube that Mugabe should announce his departure well before the 2002 said he had been warned that his name was on an assassination list election. Only hyper-loyalists and presidential relatives suggest he drawn up by the Central Intelligence Organisation. should be allowed to stand again. But Mugabe’s promise on 2 July to re-examine the circumstances Some believe the party could recover ground by engineering an in which more than 3,000 people were killed in the 1983 security economic upturn (aided by donors funds and restored credit lines) and clampdown in Matebeleland did little to boost ZANU-PF’s standing. then holding a snap presidential election. Such new wave thinking Neither will Mugabe’s probable appointment of sons of Matebeleland, doesn’t impress the party stalwarts who will dominate Mugabe’s new such as Dabengwa, former Local Government Minister John Nkomo cabinet and try to orchestrate the choice of his successor. They are and former Tourism Minister Simon Moyo, as nominated MPs help likely to advise Mugabe to serve his full term but allow his anointed ZANU-PF much. Dabengwa and Moyo were badly defeated, and successor gradually to take more of the limelight. One such stalwart Nkomo (who is ZANU-PF’s National Chairman) didn’t even stand. told Africa Confidential: ‘The President is a great constitutionalist. He In Masvingo, the ZANU-PF vote was saved by a propitious redrawing will insist on serving his term until the end, he would see giving up of electoral boundaries: the MDC won more than a third of votes cast early as cowardly and defeatist.’ From the other side Zimbabwe now has a multi-party political system.
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