Zimbabwe before and after the June 2000 elections: an assessment

Dr Denis Venter, June 10, 2005

"What is happening in Zimbabwe is bad for Africa", said a Ghanaian academic at a recent meeting, with colleagues from Nigeria, Senegal and Kenya concurring. There was a profound sense of hope being frustrated, of stereotypes being reaffirmed, once again of a country (this time Zimbabwe) embarrassing the African continent. The most common perception was that of democratic government under siege, of constitutional governance being undermined, of the rule of law being flagrantly disregarded. Clearly, the issue of land in post-colonial Africa is of enormous symbolic and practical political significance. But whatever the legitimacy of the land issue in Zimbabwe, the fundamental principles of democratic governance have been consistently, deliberately and openly violated in dealing with this vexed problem. Once a worthy cause (land) becomes contaminated by the manner in which it is dealt with (undemocratically), both government and the worthiness of the cause lose legitimacy. This happens not because of "biased" media coverage, "racial prejudice", the "arrogance" of Western powers, or an "un-African" response to the problem. Rather, it is because there is no binding commitment to democratic governance and the consequences that flows from such a commitment.

Introduction

The shock defeat of the Zimbabwean government's proposed new constitution in a national referendum on 12 and 13 February 2000 had delivered a sharp rebuke to both the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) party and to President Robert Mugabe, who had appeared to take for granted that far-reaching constitutional changes would be endorsed by a compliant electorate. Although more than 10 political parties participated in the referendum, the main race was between ZANU PF and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Final results indicated that the constitution had been rejected by 54,7% of those who voted, as against a 45,3% yes-vote. Urban areas voted overwhelmingly "no", overcoming rather narrow "yes" majorities in the rural areas - although voter turnout was extremely low at 26% of an estimated 5,1mn eligible voters. As a result of the rejection of the proposed constitution, which would have concentrated more power in the hands of the president (inter alia, seizure of white-owned commercial farming land without state compensation, and severe restrictions on the freedom of the press and electronic media), parliamentary elections on 24 and 25 June 2000 were held under the existing 1979 Lancaster House constitution. Although the referendum result had shaken the government's confidence and underlined the extent of its unpopularity among a weary electorate, the outcome was still not sufficient to signal an imminent defeat of ZANU PF. Significantly, the government moved to unilaterally amend the constitution to include clauses enabling land confiscation to proceed, effectively negating the referendum result - 5mn hectares of land is to be "acquired" for re-settlement purposes before the end of 2000, and the government intends to resettle some 157 000 families under the second phase of a resettlement programme in the next five years.

The political crisis in Zimbabwe deepened since mid-February 2000 with the death of more than twenty members of the opposition MDC and several white commercial farmers. Mugabe seemed to be going for broke in the June 2000 parliamentary elections; under unprecedented political pressure, his calculations were overwhelmingly short-term and electoral: the land issue had become his only trump card as he fought for political survival. ZANU PF had, therefore, resurrected the land issue as a means of tightening its grip on the rural vote and Mugabe was gambling that deep-seated grievances would triumph over current realities. His hope appeared to have been that his supporters would develop amnesia and forget real and pressing issues such as the almost total collapse of the economy: run-away inflation approaching 65% and rising (forecast to reach 86% by year-end, running the risk of spilling over into hyper-inflation and heading towards triple digits); massive unemployment at around 60%; extremely high interest rates of above 70%; M3 money supply growth at an estimated 40%; foreign debt at 59,6% of gross domestic product (GDP); estimated real GDP growth of - 4,6%; a budget deficit forecast to rise to between 15% and 20% of GDP; expected agricultural production growth of - 4,5% and gross fixed investment growth forecast at - 10% by the end of 2000; a contraction of tourism, with hotel occupancy dropping by 60% to between 10 and 20%; continuing fuel shortages and power cuts; widespread corruption and mismanagement; and an HIV/AIDS pandemic affecting as much as 45% of the population of some 12mn people. He was banking on the assumption that for the millions of poor people eking out an existence on over-crowded communal land, the prospect of resettlement on white-owned commercial farms would be an extremely strong incentive to vote for the ruling party.

While Zimbabweans are agreed that there is an urgent need for land reform, they want to see a programme that is properly planned, transparent and actually delivers land to the landless poor rather than to Mugabe loyalists, who have been the main beneficiaries of the limited redistribution so far implemented. Although the land issue might have won some support for Mugabe's flagging regime, it could also compound the economic crisis that voters saw as the most important election issue. Only 9% of those asked in a recent opinion poll thought land was a top priority; meanwhile, commercial farm invasions had disrupted agriculture - a Z$32bn a year industry, the backbone of the ailing economy - and tobacco production, the country's largest single foreign currency earner, had been severely affected. In a few cases, entire tobacco crops had been destroyed. The Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) estimated that millions of dollars worth of tobacco had been lost, and next season's crop also look like being badly hit. The yearly tobacco auctions saw only 30% of the normal amount of tobacco being available on the first day of the auctions in late April, in a year when 220mn kg had probably been produced. White commercial farmers do not dispute the need to redistribute land; but they argue that it would be economic suicide to seize land from experienced farmers and hand it over to people with no experience of large-scale farming. Agriculture accounts for 18% of GDP and 40% of annual export income of about US$2bn; more than half of the manufacturing sector is also dependent on agriculture.