Zimbabwe: in the eye of the storm?

THEY say the perfect eye of a tropical storm is often calm, quiet and serene. The sky is clear and everything seems beautiful, a welcome relief after the heavy and violent storm.

But at the same time it’s an eerie silence; an odd and uncomfortable calmness. You probably think the worst is over. But this is deceptive.  

This sudden reduction in the intensity of the storm and the apparent serenity as the eye passes over the land is only temporary. For soon, the next eye-wall will follow causing a sudden increase in storm intensity – a violent interruption to the calmness. It is at this point that one is most vulnerable because it catches you unawares having been deceived during the eye-phase of the storm that the worst was over.

Sometimes, looking at politics in Zimbabwe, you do wonder whether the country is simply in the eye of the political storm; that this is but a temporary phase which will be followed by yet another violent storm. To be sure, this is by no means the perfect eye of the political storm. The harassment and arrests of civil rights activists; the violence and disruption at the farms in recent months continue to disturb the peace.

Yet most Zimbabweans seem to agree generally that things are different from and getting better compared to the chaotic and violent situation of 2008 and the years preceding it. Some might be forgiven for thinking and hoping that the worst is behind us. But is it really over or is this merely the deceptive eye of the storm?

I ask this question because the expectation is that at some point this GNU will have to give way to a popularly elected government. It is envisaged in the Inter-Party Agreement (IPA) that forms the basis of the GNU that there will be a free and fair election at some point in the future. When exactly that will be remains a grey area.

Originally, it was said the GNU would last no more than 24 months but lately there have been mixed signals with ‘5-years’ figure coming up from time to time. The way I see it, Zimbabweans may have to get used to the idea that this GNU will be with us for a very, very long time. A number of factors conspire to make this a real possibility.

First, there is a real fear that Zimbabwe is not ready for an election and that it is unlikely to be ready in the next two years. There is a fear that the election represents the eye-wall that could violently disturb the purported calm and stability that the GNU seeks to achieve.

The United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) painted a bleak picture of the situation recently suggesting that the situation could deteriorate if a new election is called.

Sekai Holland, Zimbabwe’s Minister for National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration added to these concerns indicating there could be a wave of fresh violence. All this is ominous.

Second, an election would naturally involve competition between the parties. This would entail a break in the partnership between the parties in the GNU. Already there are concerns that the parties are scheming against each other in order to be better positioned at the next election. Not only does this threaten the success of the GNU, it also means that there could be further instability as they jostle for power.

Third, at this early stage, there is no evidence to suggest that the key conditions and players that existed prior to the GNU will have changed. The parties will be the same. The principal candidates are likely to be the same. The electoral structures may have been reformed under the proposed constitutional reforms but a change in structures does not necessarily mean that there is a change in the behaviour and culture of the human agents who have played decisive roles in previous elections.

Given the prevailing attitude and behaviour of the leading figures in the security structure, it remains unlikely that any victory other than Zanu PF’s would be given effect. In short, the election could be yet another exercise in futility.

Fourth, there is very little and slow progress on the fulfilment of the main structural precondition for new elections. It is that there must be comprehensive constitutional reforms. This process was initially expected to take 18 months from the inception of the GNU. Progress has been painfully slow and success remains wildly uncertain. Not only is there a problem of resource-shortages, there is also debilitating controversy over the process. All these factors could conspire to derail or at best delay the constitutional reform process.

By-elections: Political Gamesmanship?

Indeed, given the fears over new elections it is not beyond imagination that the GNU itself or parts of it could engage in political gamesmanship and dilly-dally with the constitutional reform process and use that delay as justification for postponing the elections.

There are some in government who might see their future closely tied to the fortunes of the GNU and a new Constitution is not necessarily in their immediate interests. They could throw spanners into the works just to prolong the life of this creature.

Due to deaths, appointments to new stations, and other factors since last year’s elections, certain vacancies have arisen in Parliament. These vacancies must ordinarily be filled by holding by-elections in the respective constituencies.

But there are already signs indicating that the GNU is hesitant about holding elections in the immediate term. This is evident in the confusion surrounding by-elections, which confusion seems to be deliberately calculated to avoid by-elections at all costs.

The makers of the power sharing agreement foresaw the problems that could arise from by-elections so they inserted Article 20.1.10 which regulates the filling of parliamentary vacancies.

It states that, “In the event of any vacancy arising in respect of posts referred to in clauses 20.1.6 and 20.1.9 above [parliament], such vacancy shall be filled by a nominee of the Party which held that position prior to the vacancy arising.”

The effect of this is to say for example that if an MDC-T MP vacates office for whatever reason, the MDC-T would be allowed to nominate a replacement and the other two partners to the IPA would not contest that seat. The idea was to minimise competition between the partners which could potentially undermine the stability of the GNU. This clause forms part of the transitional provisions in the Constitution governing the GNU’s operations.

Nevertheless, as we will see shortly, this is an imperfect arrangement which fails in legal terms to achieve what the makers of the IPA intended, namely to avoid potentially divisive elections.

It is interesting to note that the related Article 20.1.1 of the same agreement states that, “For the avoidance of doubt, the following provisions of the Interparty Political Agreement, being Article XX thereof, shall, during the subsistence of the Interparty Political Agreement, prevail notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Constitution …” These provisions include the Article 20.1.10 referred to above.

This seems to suggest that the clause allowing parties to nominate their own candidates to replace those of its members who may have vacated office takes precedence. However, it is important to note that whilst this clause prohibits the partners of the unity government to contest a vacant seat, it is silent on whether or not other political parties or independent candidates are also prohibited from so contesting.

The agreement binds the three partners of the GNU and even though it was made part of the Constitution, it still does not exclude the right of other political parties and indeed independent candidates from contesting any vacant seats.

In any event, doing so would have been a clear breach of Article 23A which was introduced by the same Constitutional Amendment No. 19 to provide for the protection of ‘political rights’. These rights include the right of a person to vote in and contest in a free and fair election.

Therefore, evidently, by-elections should be held to fill the vacant positions. The risk of course is that there is nothing to stop one of the partners – for example MDC-M and Zanu PF from ‘sponsoring’ independent candidates to contest against the nominated candidate of the MDC-T or vice-versa.

The ‘sponsoring’ parties can pretend that they have nothing whatsoever to do with the ‘independent’ whilst helping him to win the seat thereby diminishing the parliamentary position of the other party. These risks mean that none of the parties are pressing ahead with demands for by-elections.

Rather, as we have observed, parliament, the government and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission are shifting responsibility to each other as if holding by-elections is something that has never been done before. They know what needs to be done but they are reluctant to hold them.

There is only one reason for this: they are uncomfortable with the storm that would be caused by elections at this delicate stage of the transitional process. The fears are probably not unfounded but it does raise the question as to when exactly Zimbabwe will ever be ready for a free and fair election?

It seems to me that we are in the eye of the storm. The storm itself is not over yet. The question is whether we have sufficient mechanisms to deal with the impending storm, as the other side of the eye-wall approaches. It will arrive one day.

Alex Magaisa is based at, Kent Law School, the University of Kent and can be contacted at wamagaisa@yahoo.co.uk