Early Elections May Salvage Zimbabwe and President Mugabe's Legacy

After the 2013 elections, people laughed when Morgan Tsvangirai did not protest the weird results.  As President Mugabe’s supporters deliriously celebrated what they were calling a landslide electoral victory and mandate from the people of Zimbabwe, the laughter became louder than before when Tsvangirai said: "Tongai tione."  It was as if he had given up on his prospects of ever leading the nation of Zimbabwe.  Right now, however, Tsvangirai is beginning to look like he knew what he was leaving behind when he was vacated from office.  The Government of Zimbabwe had dangerously low reserves of liquid money.

As time has chugged forward, and with the cash reserves depleted, Zimbabwe is penniless.  No less than the Minister of Finance has said this.  As a matter of fact, he has been sounding this alarm for a little while now.  He started off by telling the nation that the diamonds at Chiadzwa-Marange had all but disappeared without a trace or a single cent making its way into the treasury.  This is a lament that he has not stopped.  Not too long ago, he openly said that the money from the diamonds had  not flowed into the treasury as was supposed to be the case.  Chinamasa does not tell us why we have been bleeding money, nor does he mention the suspects.  What we know is that the former Minister of Mines, Obert Mpofu, made at least one trip to the Indian city of Surat.  While there, interesting statements were issued as diamond deals were being signed amid a lot of fun fare and grinning and smiling.  It took the then-Deputy President Joice Mujuru to tell the nation that Zimbabwe’s diamonds were bringing a boom and a boon to India, this while our own people were struggling due to poverty.

A fellow member of the cabinet, Minister Priscilla Mupfumira, was said to have blamed Minister Chinamasa for the government’s failure to pay the workers in a timely fashion.  It was only a matter of time before the ordinary people felt the impact. Once it hits them, the gates of Hell were likely to open and, in the process, let loose on the nations all sorts of demons.  While on a trip to France, the same minister is said to have admitted the fact that the Government of Zimbabwe is in a state of penury.  He was on a trip to entice French investors into Zimbabwe.  I have no idea how we are supposed to woo investors into a country that has woeful roads, a dilapidated railway system, a remarkably filthy capital city, chronic power shortages, zero supplies of constant and clean water, unemployed youths milling around the city blocks and streets by their thousands, and general lawlessness.  Zimbabwe epitomizes the kind of a socially and politically unstable environment that investors tend to avoid at all costs.

Now that the Government of Zimbabwe is openly admitting that it has run out of money, with no help from the usual places like China, it is apparent that Morgan Tsvangirai’s approach of passive resistance is making him look wiser and wiser with each passing day.  He may very well be a maligned political leader but Tsvangirai is not an idiot.  His wait-and-see approach is beginning to look like the strategy of a genius, and President Mugabe appears like one who has walked into a terrible snare he setup himself.  Come to think of it, in the immediate aftermath of the 2013 Elections, the president took a rather unusual length of time to put together his cabinet.   A month is a long time for a triumphant president to pick his cabinet.  It was as if he had found himself victorious but with a situation that was beyond hopeless so much so that the victory may have felt like a defeat.

President Mugabe may have no other way out of this one but to call for early elections, possibly before this year is out.  He will also have to order his squad to avoid tempering with ballot boxes.  In addition to that, he will have to accept the electoral verdict.  Right now, it is quite apparent that that approach is the only way he is likely to get any meaningful reprieve.  Some of the supporters of one of his deputies, E. D. Mnangagwa, are agitating for the violent and non-constitutional seizure of the reins of power from Mugabe, but that is a stupid and dangerous idea.  We do not want innocent people to get caught up in the inevitable crossfire. Elections offer a legitimate way to resolve sticky matters such as we are facing right now.  The elections have to be credible, let me point out.

There may be some members of Mugabe’s own party, including those in the armed services, who may want to pull a fast trick.  They need to perish such thoughts because the situation seems to be reaching that threshold where the use of violent repression may end up being ineffectual.  The use of violence is proven to work, as is attested to by history. However, that history also tells us that violence has its own limits.  If the government mows down hundreds of rioters in the streets of Harare, the survival of this government will hang on a thin and febrile thread. We may then face a hard and catastrophic landing. Even the hard-nosed Mnangagwa may end up fleeing like the Dickens to save his life from the angry mobs.

To decompress this panted up fury and, therefore, manage a soft landing, elections may be the only viable option. Will this happen? I have grave doubts it will.  Rather than be forced to face the same no-win situation like Ian Smith faced with his Zimbabwe-Rhodesian project, President Mugabe ought to take the initiative.  If he does not do that, he may very well have elections forced on him as one of the conditions he has to genuinely accept and put into effect before Zimbabwe’s would-be benefactors cough up the kind of money needed to prevent the dam wall from collapsing with the entire nation downstream of the catastrophic water, figuratively speaking.  If he is forced to stage elections, he runs the danger of losing face and his reputation as Africa’s anti-imperialist warrior.  His political journey may end up with a wimp, and his legacy capped with capitulation.