We have all been growing, haven’t we?

But first things first. As I write this sentence, the world media networks are agog with news that President Hosni Mubarak has just stepped down. Frankly I am not surprised, although I am a lot too cautious to be swayed by the rather gratuitous “conclusions” which are already being drawn.

But I could not miss one piece of humorous irony in the whole drama coming from that crib of human civilisation. Upon hearing that President Mubarak had stepped down, the Liberation Square is said to have exploded into “Mubarak, Mubarak”, which I hear means “congratulations” in Arabic, or some such expression of hailing a welcome development.

One moment you are agitating that Mubarak must go. He obliges, he goes. The next moment the whole demonstrating square explodes “mubarak”, only this time spelt with a small “m”!

If you are Egyptian, you immediately know there is no running away from Mubarak, is there?

Who is now in charge?

Beneath levity, the National Democratic Party remains in the saddle. It is interesting the Vice President is the one who has announced the stepping down of the President, as well as outlining the roadmap to the next dispensation.

The military, itself quientessentially a product of Mubarak the soldier, Mubarak the commander and ultimately Mubarak the commander-in-chief, seems firmly in the saddle — or around it — deriving much fillip from its tactful handling of the social unrest which left its reputation intact and even reinforced. Need we wonder then that even when Mubarak steps down, it still is mubarak?

Very soon the people will disperse, all having collectively enjoyed some collective catharsis by way of news of Mubarak’s departure. That could mark the end of their collective rule that lasted 18 days of street action. After all that, the people disperse — back to their old homes, or old homelessness — to leave power to recede back to palaces and citadels.

Hopefully this time power will recede to Egypt, not to the West relying on Egyptian caretakers.

Coquettish West

The Western world is wasting no time. It is pronouncing itself unambiguously, all in support of what has just happened, of the white revolution as if to suggest the West has always been on the side of the people.

Obama speaks like the Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces, President of that great civilisation. He is not.

Of course the West was not behind the Egyptian people, could never have been, given that the West has been misappropriating the sustained growth spurts of Egypt, thereby creating the cesspool of poverty and insecurity that has bred the uprising. What is happening now is frantic repositioning by the West, in order to regain control of the burning city Mubarak is walking away from.

The West is flirting and flaunting, and the future of a new Egypt pursuing a different destiny, largely depends on whether or not it succumbs to, or resists this depthless, shamefaced coquetry.

When Stiglitz speaks . . .

I am indebted to one of my many readers whose name I may not publish, since I have not secured her permission to do so. After my installment on Egypt last week, she drew my attention to a piece by the world renowned scholar, Joseph Stiglitz, published by the British Guardian of February 6 this year, titled “Steadying Tunisia’s balancing act”. The piece is a must read for anyone curious about events in North Africa.

Specifically, the economics don warns against confusing growth with development, growth with job-creation, itself the tractive grievance behind the current mayhem in North Africa.

Reawakening in the Arab World?

I am also happy that Egyptian anger against US presumptuousness has now overflowed into the public domain. It was beautiful listening to the Egyptian Vice President reminding Barack Obama that Egypt is the world’s oldest civilisation and should be handled with great care and respect.

It certainly was a sharp rebuke to a country which only came into being in the late 18th Century, indeed a stinging rebuke to a President who has just gone over two years of his first term, with little prospects of another term.

Frankly, US voices and demands on Egypt suggested US is a stakeholder in the affairs of Egypt, a factor possibly founded on the long relationship US has had with Egypt. But one would have thought this was a relationship founded on mutual respect and mutual distance. Such distance and respect cannot amount to telling a sitting head of state when to step down, when to reform, who to talk to, who not to talk to. All these go right to the very pith of sovereignty and the US was roasting this very sensitive portion of Egyptian being.

Another equally wonderful voice came from the Saudi Arabian monarch. The King reminded Obama that Saudi Arabia can in fact step in and replace US as Egypt’s leading donor country. This was after Obama kept telling the world US would soon review its US$1,3bn worth of assistance to Egypt.

I thought the import of my piece last week was to highlight the slow but inevitable fatwa on US policy in the Middle East. Did validation of such a thesis have to come so soon? Prophecies should surely come true posthumously?

The question which never arose

We have all been growing, growing up in the past two years of the Global Political Agreement, GPA for short. I have followed with both interest and irritation as our media — again in their exquisite herd fashion — gallop furiously headlong towards a dead-end line to which their current coverage on the life span of the GPA is sure to deliver them.

The intense debate on the matter suggests a genuine interest in the fate of the GPA. Except the media have all along pretended so hard to prove they were at best nonplussed about the “life” of the GPA, at worst violently opposed to it as an example of how-not-to-settle-national-political-question.

One would have expected the media to dirge GPA’s expiry, indeed to compose burial songs for its rapid interment. Surprisingly, what is coming through is deep angst, deep anomie expressing itself as the existential what-shall-we-do-now-that-the-GPA-is-dead question.

In making this point, I am of course noting the Herald’s perfunctory coverage of the same matter simply to keep the readers informed that the GPA’s second anniversary is next Monday, and that there are varying views about its desirability.

For me, that is well in order. What would not be is building an uproarious hue and cry over this uneventful occurrence as if the sun will start rising from the West as a result. Indeed, the Herald has shown leadership on this one.

Where is the headline?

Let us clear the deck so we deal with real issues which this media-led mediocrity threatens to snow under. The President is unhappy with the present “makeshift” legal structure on which the GPA and therefore the country’s governance system rests.

He has made that known, in plain English too. As an experienced statesman and as a practical man, he has been quick to enter a caveat though. Whilst he feels uncomfortable to last a day longer as President under this makeshift legal structure, he has indicated he is prepared to extend the life of the Inclusive Government — itself the executive expression of the GPA — by six months at the very most.

The Inclusive Government hits its second year on Monday, which is what has fluttered the media dove-coat. But the President has already indicated he has no problems in extending the thing by another six months, at the most? So where is the headline? Where is the crisis?

The sun that never closes

When one reads through the Global Political Agreement, one finds no clause that confers a lifespan to it. None at all. This is one arrangement which can live for as long as it is wished, die too as fast as it is wished. Its life is the goodwill from its makers. For all we know, it could have withered on the vine. It did not, which means it met a need.

Simply, there is no reference to two years anywhere in the agreement which again is written in plain, legible English for anyone to read. A good two years later, our media do not know that there is no such sunset clause in the agreement? It is a bit staggering. Surely the practice worldwide is for serious media institutions to have reference points on legal matters, whether in-house or outside their establishment? Why not here?

You do not need a Chamisa or a Gumbo to tell you there is no sunset clause in the GPA, for the GPA. Unless you are an illiterate in the newsroom, in which case you are the proverbial holy man on the burning grounds of hell. It is as true that GPA has an express life span as it is true that a snake has beautiful thighs, to borrow a dramatic phrase from one of my readers!

Government all time

GPA or no GPA, Zimbabwe has to have an executive authority in place at all times. The only time there is some modification to this, even then one at the level of nuances, is when we are drifting towards elections.

Parliament gets suspended within set times. Government continues well towards the twilight period of actual polling. By law and practice, we always have a government above our heads all the time. Assuming the GPA had a definite time span, the government that resulted from it would still be in place until the President takes certain legal measures that prepare for elections.

And that government would still be exercising lawful authority until such time that we have an incoming one. This is by law and by practice, since 1980. That legal structure and that practice has not been modified by the GPA.

The deal that no one party can kill

What is sure to end the GPA is fatal disagreements among the signatory parties. It is not necessarily fatal disagreement between any two parties. GPA provides for the continuation of the GPA even in circumstances in which one party decides to pull out.

Welshman Ncube is aware of this provision, which is why his party would never be as foolish as to contemplate pulling out to register objections or displeasure of any kind, over any matter. Again, you saw the same media ignorance at work when such suggestions were being made.
The one thing you cannot do as a single party, let alone one which is as simple as the MDC-M, is to cause to crumbling of the GPA simply by your own withdrawal. Not even Zanu-PF can do that. There has to be many other follow-up actions, well outside the GPA, for the GPA to collapse.

Only negative unanimity can…

What can quickly collapse the GPA is a unanimous decision among the contracting parties to terminate its life. This is a neater, more civilised, but highly unlikely development. Surely if there is sufficient amity to consensually agree to end GPA life, then there must be enough goodwill to resolve any differences encumbering it?

What is more likely is to render the GPA unworkable for other parties, in which case you either precipitate a negative unanimity, or a deadlock which then allows the President as the constitutional head of this government to step in and call for elections, in the absence of a GPA position. That is the more likely course, is it not?

The deal which all need

Going beyond scenario-building to the real world, it is clear none of the parties want the GPA to end. The President has just told us it has worked "beautifully". Prime Minister Tsvangirai has on two occasions protested against his partners in the GPA, but without attacking the GPA edifice. Or if he has appeared to do so, it has all been out of ignorance and clumsiness. Both are not in short supply in his party.

Tsvangirai's secretary general Tendai Biti is much more upfront. He wants GPA to live forever, and uses the recovery of the economy to support this wish.

DPM Mutambara, well, well, well. He has just told us he has some unfinished business for the nation, thanks to the GPA which allowed him to serve it. He will not go; he will not quit and has said as much.

The head that seeks the crown

Welshman Ncube? Oh my God, uneasy lies the head that wears the crown! Or seeks to wear it! It has been a tempestuous four weeks for him, hasn't it been? But weeks full of valuable lessons on what can and what can't in politics. Law deals in guilty/not guilty absolutes. Politics has many grey tones and the good professor, fighting another, has had to learn this the bitter way.

But let us not lose the argument. Welshman Ncube is not attacking GPA. Quite the contrary, he is looking for a place in the sun under it. He wants to be both a principal of the GPA, and a DPM in the Inclusive Government. The schism-ic politics of the MDC-M amount to an endorsement of the GPA and its outcome - the Inclusive Government - never a rejection of both or either. Where then does the media get their anxiety over the GPA?

Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow…

More illustratively, Cabinet met this Tuesday, met as inclusively as ever. It discussed the affairs of the State without the slightest tinge of impermanence in the few hours it convoked. It took very long views on matters before it. More interestingly, the National Security Council met on Friday, again discussing matters of State with the confidence and tone of a structure that has a tomorrow, another tomorrow, many tomorrows beyond the day, the year.

Interestingly, the NSC discussed the violence - stupid violence if you ask me - that rocked a small section of Harare. The focus was on securing the inclusive arrangement, securing the GPA against its looting and stone-throwing detractors.

Significantly, the solutions proffered depend on collaborative action by the contracting parties, not mutual annihilation, itself a sure way of carting GPA to a well-chilled morgue, then to the cemetery once the papers and rites are ready. Solutions on offer to presume a kicking GPA, never kicking it to oblivion.

Elections you cannot escape

So there is no basis for worry, any worry. Where then is the worry? The real worry, a worry using the carapace of GPA, is over elections which are becoming increasingly inevitable, indeed increasingly attractive to one party in the GPA. There is an infantile belief that the lifespan of the GPA has anything to do with Zimbabwe's electoral fate. Of course the two are as near and as linked as the North and South on our globe.

Procedurally, the GPA is a political and legal structure, and a process which must lead to elections. It is staked with items whose sole reason is preparing the country for another harmonised poll. It must restore peace in the country; it must encourage healing; it must create institutional foundations for better governance, free and fair elections.

Above all, it must get Zimbabweans to express themselves on the constitutional order they wish for themselves. With all these and other preconditions done, it must ensure Zimbabwe holds a free, fair and uncontested election that must produce a government.

When political time is not calendar time

Simply, by looking at the GPA's constitutional programme, it is clear the February 14 "deadline" has no meaning at all. And our journalists must know that political time is quite different from calendar time or newsroom time. In politics, time ticks as fast as you want it to, which is why two years can arrive six months later.

If one spoke to the leadership of the constitution-making process, you clearly get the impression that this vital process winds up sometime in July or August. Yet it is a process of the GPA. So how does the GPA have a lifespan far shorter than processes upon  which it is founded?

Mating everywhere

The extension of the GPA shall not be done with any fanfare, shall not be a grand affair. After all, what the village hears is the shouting between a querulous couple; it is never the mournful delights as limb meets limb in those nuptial moments behind bolted doors, behind engulfing darkness. This is why even the law takes stock of when last a divorcing couple made love, well before it pronounces a marriage irretrievably broken.

Sorry guys, there has been lots of mating in the GPA. How much of that the priest is keen to bless, well, I leave that to the holy fathers!

Legitimacy versus authority

I said the real issue is to do with elections which other parties do not like, and which Zanu PF would want soon after the constitutional issue is settled. The inclusive government answers to the need for an executive structure in the country, thanks to the GPA. But it does not confer legitimacy, which is why President Mugabe is most uncomfortable about it.

Of course both MDCs would want to suggest GPA grants legitimacy, for as long as it is working harmoniously. That is an argument of expedience. Legitimacy derives from the people and secondarily from the laws of the land. When the President spoke about a legal makeshift, he was addressing a more fundamental issue of legitimacy which is sorely lacking now, and which can only be remedied through credible elections. The Inclusive Government gives executive authority; it does not create governing legitimacy.

Divorce date on the marriage certificate?

Illustratively, the arguments on the life of the GPA, both before and after its launch, heavily show why it cannot itself be a source of legitimacy. Few know that at the time of the negotiations, it was Zanu PF - not MDC formations - which opposed the insertion of a sunset clause in the agreement. Zanu PF wanted the agreement to last the life of parliament, which means five years. The MDC formations were dead set on an arrangement - a transitional arrangement - which would last only two years, strictly. They even did not want this whole process of getting the views of the people on constitutional matters. They just wanted the Kariba draft adopted in Parliament and passed as the new supreme law of the country.

By hindsight, we now know why. Such an approach would have seen the whole process accelerated, or more accurately abridged. Then everything would have fitted in nicely within the two-year time slot. Zanu PF resisted stiffly, and even deployed an argument which was devastatingly commonsensical. It argued that to suggest a life-span for the GPA was analogous to a party in a contracting couple demanding that a divorce date be written into the marriage certificate on the day of wedding! Surely if the marriage is no longer wanted, the couple can just part ways, argued Zanu PF. That argument won the day, which is why we never had a sunset clause in the agreement.   

When views transpose

Two years later, Zanu PF which made sure the GPA had closure by way of a lifespan, today is making sure the same clause it rejected at the negotiating table be imported into the GPA now. Two years later, MDC-T which failed to introduce a sunset clause in the GPA, today is only too happy it failed, and considers any talk about setting a time limit to the GPA anathema.

By way of views, MDC formations are now what Zanu PF was during negotiations. By way of views, Zanu PF is now what the two MDC formations were during the negotiations. A dramatic sea-change on both sides, but never towards each other, only across each other! We have grown, haven't we?

To temporize or to end?

Now, you cannot talk of legitimacy in respect of a structure whose lifespan rests on political calculation and expedience. Zanu PF no longer needs the GPA because it thinks it stands a better chance of restoring itself electorally as the untrammeled ruling party it once was. The two MDCs badly need the GPA to temporise, to gain time to reorganise for elections they mortally fear would bury them forever. Besides, they have tasted power. It is sweet and exquisite. Better shared power, however imperfect and incomplete, than being out of power altogether. The reference point is power. It is not the people, themselves sources of primary legitimacy.

The MDC formations have tried to use every trick in the book to dissuade the country from going back to the polls. They have brewed violence we saw in Harare at the beginning of the week. The idea was not only to vindicate the dire and self-fulfilling predictions of their secretary general who predicted the violence under a month ago while South Africa. It was also to poison the environment ahead of the much anticipated visit by the Foreign Minister of China.

A Chinese minister visiting a country where his citizens are bruised by wanton looting would lose appetite for any deals with Zimbabwe, would he not? Except that is to underestimate the historical relations with China, indeed to underestimate how far Zimbabwe and China have already gone by way of cementing their partnerships in various fields.

More flimsy excuses

The MDC formations have tried to push the argument of the constitutional process which they say is incomplete. This argument included denying the process decent funding for its completion. Again, the problem was in underestimating the system's ability to source alternative funding, which should be coming pretty soon. For same ends, they will try to suggest there is no money for elections. Again, that argument will come to grief.

They have already tried to argue that the national healing process is not yet complete. May be settling the political question is laying a firm foundation for genuine national healing.

They will argue in the name of the economy and the need to recover it before it is rocked by democracy! Except if you talk to business people, they will tell you what has hurt and is hurting this economy is uncertainty, is the absence of a clear policy direction which only comes from a winning party, never from inherently antagonistic parties trying to be polite to one another, to partition and share power against power's intrinsic dictates.

I will not mention attempts to destabilise key institutions of the State, not least among them the Security structures and the civil service.

Anger over sanctions

What spurs and angers Zanu PF towards more strident calls for elections soonest is simply and squarely the duplicity which the MDC-T has shown in respect of ending sanctions. MDC-T has been running with the hares while hunting with the hounds. The Americans have confided this to Zanu PF. I cannot think of a more impeccable source than your enemy being forced by circumstances to reveal on her friend.

After February 16 when the EU renews these sanctions, Zanu PF anger can only grow worse, and with it a stronger push for a political settlement which allows it to regain full reins of power, so it can deal decisively with sanctions. Indeed, this is part of the story over diamonds.

The Inclusive Government has not enhanced Zimbabwe's capacity to deal with the actions of hostile states. It has not been helpful. Quite the contrary, it has allowed the MDC-T to continue betraying and stabbing this country, while appearing to be in government, while feeling patriotic about it. It is a wrong sense of legitimacy milked out of the inclusive structure we have in place. Soon that will stop. Icho!