Propaganda and the GPA

QUITE apart from being evidently ridiculous, the sudden emergence of a whole catalogue of titles preceding any and all mention of President Robert Mugabe’s name in the state media also demonstrates just how perverse the game of perception management has become in “modern” Zimbabwe.

It is easy to hastily dismiss this “Idi Amin phenomenon” as yet another asinine Zanu PF propaganda ploy and, in the process, fail to realise that this is part a strategy aimed at managing internal and external perceptions of the dynamics of power within the inclusive government.

Negatively defined, political propaganda suggests an attempt to influence public opinion, and therefore behaviour, through among other things deliberate lies, half truths, concealment and or distortion of information.

Yet it is neither a half truth nor an outright lie to call the President “Head of State and Government and the Commander in Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces”.

Indeed ZBH news-readers have their collective ‘vadzimu’ to thank for the fact that whoever came up with the idea did not go so far as to include “His Excellency Cde Robert Mugabe, who is the Head of State and Government, Commander in Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Chancellor of all the State Universities in General and the University of Zimbabwe In Particular, President and First Secretary of the ruling Zanu PF party, Patron of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association and Life President of the Republic of Zimbabwe” as some have mischievously suggested.

More seriously, however, the important question is why sections of the media that are subordinate to state authority are suddenly repeating these titles with such annoying regularity as if they were ever in doubt?

The objective is clearly not to persuade and or extract some kind of approval among those who no longer support the President and his party; that particular Sunday has since come and gone.

Rather, Zanu PF’s media handlers are, first; trying to awaken and re-energise the party’s base; whatever remains of it. Secondly, and more importantly, they want to instil confusion and despondency within the opposition ranks.

Calling Zanu PF the “ruling party” and President Mugabe the “Head of State and Government and Commander in Chief of the ZDF” is an ominous reminder to those in doubt, both within and outside the country, that the President is in very much in charge; despite the power sharing agreement.

It should be remembered that the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC agreed to join the government assuming they could use their presence there-in, and the authority and responsibility this implied, to build the infrastructure necessary for an eventual take-over of power.

Sadly, they were very, very wrong.

This is a consequence of both Thabo Mbeki’s convoluted Global Political Agreement and the MDCs’ own naivety in rushing to sign the dotted line without realising they were actually putting their necks on the political chopping block.

While the power sharing pact has certainly helped stem the country’s inflationary mayhem and near-economic collapse, it has, however, brought the opposition no closer to a take-over of power while Zanu PF’s stranglehold on government has been entrenched, albeit without popular support.

Under most systems, the Prime Minister is the actual and presiding head of government while alternatively, a presidential form of government makes of the Prime Minister a senior member of cabinet with responsibility over the civil service and implementation of the President’s directives.

Clearly, the MDC’s interpretation of the Prime Minister’s authority and responsibility as provided under the GPA is informed by the former while Zanu PF takes the latter view.

What Mbeki and the negotiators who drafted the deal intended is anybody’s guess.

I will readily admit to never reading the actual text of the GPA, having suspected that the devil would find refuge not in its actual details, but in the manner the respective signatories interpreted its provisions.

It became evident soon after the principals appended their autographs to the GPA that the two (or three) political parties would seek to walk in opposite directions.

The MDC hoped they could  force change from within by, among other things, pushing through constitutional reform, opening up the media industry to other (and perhaps more sympathetic) players as well as decoupling the government bureaucracy and other key state institutions from Zanu PF control.

Conversely Zanu PF sought to re-assert its control over government and country by either slow-walking or completely stone-walling any such reform and yet using what international goodwill the GPA generated to help reverse the country’s economic collapse.

Signs that the deal was born to parents who had in fact filed for divorce were evident from the very beginning for anyone who cared to look.

Yet, Tsvangirai, perhaps ever the optimist, dismissed these as the work of residual (and therefore insignificant) resistance by reactionary elements within Zanu PF that ware opposed to the inclusive government.

But one year into the life of the GPA, little, if any progress, has been made on the specific deliverables the MDC promised its supporters.

The RBZ Governor and the Attorney General remain in office and it is obvious they will not be forced out. Again, although the MDCs have named new Provincial Governors and Ambassadors, these are yet to be appointed.

In addition, the constitutional reform process has degenerated into a circus; Zanu PF retains control of the state media while new private players cannot get licences.

Perception management has always been a key objective of Zanu PF’s media strategy and the party’s control of the state media ensures that it can significantly influence the themes and direction of public debate.

Witness how Zanu PF used its hegemony in the media to rename the MDC formations, MDC-T and MDC-M.

From the day the inclusive government was formed, Zanu PF’s strategy was always to create the impression that the MDCs are not equal but junior partners in the inclusive administration.

That is why the state media stopped calling Tsvangirai “mutungamiriri weHurumende” and instead referred to the President as “Head of State and Government and Commander In Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces”.

Add to this Zanu PF’s successful obduracy on the other so-called “outstanding issues” of the GPA and the perception that President Mugabe and his party are firmly in charge begins to gain traction in the country, the region and the rest of the world.

It maybe a duplicitous and “Philistinian” brand of politics; but politics is not golf. There is nothing gentlemanly about it.

The two MDCs must quickly carry out a strategic rethink of their role in the GPA and find ways of reasserting their space, authority and responsibilities within the inclusive government or they are definitely doomed.

The fact popular support may be on the side of the opposition is insignificant; because, as history teaches, governments do not always need the backing and consent of the governed to remain in power.