| The best Zimbabwe news site on the world wide web |  |
| NEWS |
| FORUMS |
| NEWS ANALYSIS |
| READERS' FORUM |
2008 Elections: One Candidate, One United Front
By Jonathan
Moyo MP
THERE
is something about the national mood sweeping across Zimbabwe today
and steadily gaining irreversible momentum ahead of the watershed 2008
election.
This ambiance is reminiscent of the political mood that gripped the country in 1979 ahead of the historic 1980 independence election.
In 2007 President Robert Mugabe is increasingly finding himself in exactly the same political predicament that surrounded Bishop Abel Muzorewa in 1979 and eventually led to his humiliating defeat at the 1980 polls whose voter turnout was as massive as the turnout in 2008 promises to be against Mugabe and Zanu PF.
While the causes of the mood in 1979 and 2007 are of course different, not least because then Zimbabwe was under illegal occupation by Rhodesian rebels and today it is an independent sovereign country, the political and economic consequences of then and now are exactly the same.
To those who remember it, the essence of the political mood in 1979 was a national consensus in which everyone had gotten fed up with the war and the economic sanctions associated with and wanted it all stopped to end what was ubiquitous and indiscriminate suffering.
At the same time, it had also become clear to all and sundry that Muzorewa and his UANC government had no capacity to stop the bush war and the economic sanctions to end the suffering whose toll was raising hell for everyone in the country regardless of their race, ethnicity or political affiliation.
Come the general election in 1980, an overwhelming majority who had supported Muzorewa ditched him not really because they disliked him but mainly because he simply could not stop the war and economic sanctions. This is why Mugabe won the 1980 election because that was the only way of stopping the war and economic sanctions by getting him out of the bush and making him in charge of government.
And so by some cruel turn of history repeating itself, the 1979 mood is back again 27 years after independence. While Zimbabwe is this time not having a bush war, it is clearly in the throes of a silent war marked by economic sanctions and other ills whose combined impact is equivalent to the consequences of a brutal war.
The political and economic meltdown is widening and deepening with inflation now well above 2000% while basic goods and services are either unavailable or unaffordable on the back of widespread unemployment and collapsed social services particularly in health and education.
In its panicky response, the now dysfunctional Zanu PF government is resorting to the crude use of violence as its political manifesto while it blames the country’s crippling ills on economic sanctions and other machinations of Western governments and their alleged local puppets with whom it says it is at war.
All this has made ordinary Zimbabweans regardless of their race, ethnicity or political affiliation to conclude as they did in 1979 that it is time to stop the raging but silent war together with the economic sanctions associated with it in order to end the ubiquitous suffering.
And, as was the feeling in 1979, there is now a growing national consensus that the incumbent government cannot stop the silent war and its economic sanctions to end the endemic national suffering. In other words, whatever Mugabe and Zanu PF say, promise or do, they simply cannot end the horrific suffering afflicting Zimbabweans today. In fact, each day that goes by with Mugabe and Zanu PF in power necessarily means more and worse suffering.
Therefore, just like the 1980 historic election was primarily about ending the war and economic sanctions to end the suffering occasioned by UDI rule inherited by Muzorewa, the essential purpose of the watershed 2008 election is about ending the raging silent war and the suffering from economic sanctions all occasioned by Mugabe’s unilateral quest to remain in power for life.
This is why, although little is being spoken about it, the self-evident and increasingly contagious national truth is that something very big and historic will happen in 2008. For the same reasons that saw Muzorewa and his UANC booted out in 1980, Mugabe and Zanu PF do not have an electoral chance in 2008.
While Mugabe’s propagandists and securocrats who have not campaigned in any election let alone contest one themselves continue to make foolish projections of a Mugabe victory at the polls, the fact is that he stands to lose the 2008 election in a big way for the same reasons that cost Muzorewa in 1980 because he simply cannot stop let alone reverse the devastating political and economic meltdown in the country. Zimbabweans can see that the only way forward is to vote Mugabe and Zanu PF out.
But this history on the horizon will only be possible if the 2008 election is free and fair and if the political field is to some degree leveled in advance of the election through political mobilisation by progressive forces.
Above all, this history will be made if progressive forces across the political divide do what the Patriotic Front failed to do in 1980, that is, to contest the election bound by the patriotic and strategic principle of “One Candidate, One United Front”.
On April 2, 2007, the President of one of the two feuding MDC factions, Arthur Mutambara, recognised the importance of this principle when he observed in a press statement that “it is essential opposition parties do not compete against each other in the (2008) elections. There is a need to galvanise and energise the entire national electorate by presenting a united front against Zanu PF. We believe in a single candidate philosophy and principle in all elections (presidential, parliamentary, senate and council, etc)”.
However, it should be appreciated with some considerable emphasis that, from a strategic point of view, the principle of “One Candidate, One United Front” is not about uniting opposition parties per se but about mobilising progressive forces from across the political divide for joint progressive electoral action in the national interest.
In order to achieve the desired outcome which is there for the taking, it is important for everyone concerned to understand that there will be no electoral breakthrough in Zimbabwe if people seek to move forward while looking backwards or stuck up in their usual old narrow ways. There is an urgent need to be strategic, realistic, open minded and all inclusive guided by principles and not principals.
More particularly, it should be understood that a United Front that does not have strategic national appeal to multitudes of Zanu PF members, supporters or sympathisers and neutrals out there will not get anywhere.
Besides the adoption and active implementation of the principle of “One Candidate, One United Front”, there is also a need to take note of key national issues around which some national and international consensus is now building even though some of those issues still have contentious elements.
Specifically, the following issues call for urgent attention and action at the level of principles that should bring together a United Front in the run up to the watershed 2008 election:
•
Given that 2007 is a terrible drought year, everything possible should
be done to ensure that there is no politicization of humanitarian aid.
• The
holding of free and fair democratic elections with international assistance
under the auspices of Sadc. In this regard, it is important to appreciate
that the 2008 general election involving presidential, parliamentary
and local government candidates would require resources and logistical
support of a scale never before experienced in Zimbabwe. Consequently,
and given the current poor state of the economy, it is important to
accept now that this election will require international assistance
and to work out the relevant modalities early in the process.
• There
is a need to prepare for the ending of Zimbabwe’s international
isolation and to restore the country’s international status as
a respectable and responsible member of the international community
that benefits its citizens through sound international relations including
cooperation with Sadc, the African Union and the United Nations as well
as constructive engagement with international financial institutions
such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
• There
is a need to accept the importance of legal and constitutional respect
of property rights by the government of the day as an expression of
the rule of law in the national interest and in support of the economic
interests of the State on behalf of its citizens and other interested
parties wishing to do business or to invest in Zimbabwe.
• An irreversible commitment to the enactment of a new democratic constitution which should be implemented by not later than the end of the first year following the 2008 election and under which all contentious legislation would be necessarily repealed and replaced.
Virtually all of the above issues have been part of national debate, and have defined areas of differences between the Zanu PF government and sections of the international community, over the last seven or so years. For this reason, considerable consensus on key aspects now exists. The task ahead is to build on that developing consensus in order to end the suffering that is bleeding the nation.
Professor Moyo is independent MP for Tsholotsho. He can be contacted on: moyoz@mweb.co.zw
JOIN
THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
newsdesk@newzimbabwe.com
All material copyright newzimbabwe.com
Material may be published or reproduced in any form with appropriate credit to this website