Managing the bad news from the Pretoria talks

Managing the bad news from the Pretoria talks

• Sanctions could strangle Zimbabwe 'baby' at birth

• Be watchful when hunting with hounds

• There're no angels in politics

• After the Zanuslide, beware of Zanu PF bearing gifts

• On the legality of Tsvangirai's pullout from election

• 'St Paul moment' can't be far for Mbeki

• What would Masipula say of military rule in Zim?

• Zimbabwe's disenfranchised voters

• MDC must prepare for worst case scenario

• Understanding Mugabe's 'End of History' ideology

• Zimbabwe's winter of discontent

• Zim's presidency and balance of power

• Mugabe's crisis of legitimacy

• Judging Justice Uchena's judgment

• Did they have to die for this?

• Challenging ministers' constititutional authority

• Waiting for Godot

• Mugabe: beware the Ides of March

• The Godfather and the Zanu PF Mafia Part III

• Fallacy of the secret ballot in Zimbabwe

• The significance of Dabengwa's conversion

• Preventing a tyranny of the majority

• Who is imposing whom and why?

• The Tsvangirai-Makoni question: the results

• Can Tsvangirai make the ultimate sacrifice?

• Makoni'sbattle against conspiracy culture

• Makoni and the politics of stability

• The trouble with gifts for the judiciary

• The limits of megaphone central banking

• Makoni, Tsvangirai & Mutambara: wise men from the East?

• Democracy without wealth: the Gordian knot in African politics

• Democracy: Africa's elusive dream?

• A non-human rights perspective of Zimbabwe's collapse

• Zanu PF succession: Mujuru and Mnangagwa in tactical retreat

• Zimbabwe: when the elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers

• Big Joes, Little Joes: Zimbabwe's merchants of disorder

• Politics is for the well fed, an old timer told me in Mbare

• The Godfather and the African Mafia Part II

• The Godfather of the Zanu PF Mafia

• The President's missing clothes

• Confronting Zanu PF's anti-imperialist rhetoric

• South Africa's self-serving quiet diplomacy

• When will Africa demonstrate solidarity with Zimbabweans?

• Do they sleep soundly at night?

• Indepedence: was it worth the sacrifice?

• Judges under pressure: the Madzimbamuto case

• Succession debate a means of control for Mugabe

• Reflections on Ghana's Jubilee

• What happens when politicians fail?

• Fanon and the car as a symbol of progress

• Could change in Britain have impact on Zimbabwe?

• Machiavelli and perils of change in Zimbabwe

• Of rats, donkeys and the CNN story

By Alex T. Magaisa

NOT even the Rotina Mavhunga, she who famously duped a whole government into believing that she could miraculously extract diesel from the rocks of Chinhoyi, could predict the outcome of the current talks over the future of Zimbabwe.

But it was not beyond prediction that the secret talks in Pretoria would generate rumour and head-banging amongst those of us on the outside.

You have, here, a whole country sinking in the quick-sands of poverty, desperately clutching at the straw that is the talks; a whole nation whose future is in the hands of the chosen few ensconced in a secret location far away from home. Then you have a very public declaration of a veil of secrecy over the talks. Surely, that’s a potpourri that contains all the ingredients for conspiracy-theorising, ‘leaks’, rumour-mongering and confusion.

How do you keep those millions from trying to peer through that veil; from attempting to lift that veil to be the first to know what really is taking place?

It is perhaps stretching the imagination; perhaps giving credit where none is deserved, but one is tempted to think there is a hand of manipulation in this whole scenario, especially the events of this week of ‘leaks’ upon ‘leaks’. If you know there is a huge appetite for news out there and you know the appetite will escalate the longer the talks go on, perhaps ‘leaks’ become tools to tamper with that appetite. Give them something to chew. You would think that sowing the seeds of ‘leaks’ and rumour was all part of a grand conspiracy to create confusion.

If so they have been successful in keeping everyone occupied with peripheral issues. Indeed, for a good few days, the media has spent time arguing over who has got the better story; over who, among them, has the more authentic ‘leak’! The media itself became the main story.

But there is also that crucial question which always haunts negotiators of difficult questions. How, sometimes they have to ask themselves, do we break bad news to an expectant public? That is because, surely, these talks will produce a hotchpotch of compromises that will likely anger significant portions of the public. So the predictably unpalatable news has to be managed and packaged carefully.

If for example, a Prime Ministerial position for Tsvangirai and retention of a limited Presidency by Mugabe were likely to be greeted as bad news at the first instance, ‘leaks’ of worse offers and scenarios may, rather conveniently, emanate from Pretoria, until, eventually, everyone is so tired and desperate that they are more likely to say, ‘Izvi zviri nani’ (This is better), when in fact that was the originally intended plan. That way, you have to think, bad news is repackaged as a reasonable outcome.

It should not be surprising, therefore, if there are more ‘deadlocks’, more ‘leaks’ and more recesses or adjournments, offers to have a third, perhaps fourth and fifth Vice President, etc. Finally, they will emerge, briefcase and folders in hand, and claim to have ‘found the solution that is good for Zimbabwe’. Originally delivered, it might not have been great news but after doses of worse proposals, that position will seem like a victory of sorts.

If there is one thing that we can be sure about, it is that those men and women in Pretoria are not performing a building exercise. They are simply fire-fighters trying to douse a raging fire. If we are expecting more from them in terms of solving the myriad of problems that Zimbabwe faces, it is probably because we are desperate.

But, as so often happens with fire-fighters who have limited facility, they will have to improvise. I am not sure that this improvisation will produce the best result but then I have never expected them to find one – because they cannot. They will come up with something that will hardly satisfy everyone’s taste.

Some readers have asked the question: what happens if the talks fail? It is a hard question because we can only speculate, building on the evidence before us. There can be no doubt ha Zanu PF is under pressure for the talks to succeed. They have no answer to the economic malaise. If the talks fail, they will be left with a very hot potato on their ageing hands. That looming spectre is what drives Zanu PF to the talks. Not even the latest cancellation of zeroes from the currency will make things better and they know it, especially after they returned with ferocious speed and in greater numbers after the first cancellation a few years ago.

But why should the MDC negotiate if Zanu PF is so desperate, some have asked? Why shouldn’t they just let Zanu PF govern until the wheels come off completely? These questions arise from a background of assumptions that there will come a time when the state machinery will finally come to a halt because the wheels will have come off totally. But how likely is it, that Zanu PF would relinquish power simply because the wheels have come off?

I am not sure that the simple logic that economic collapse leads to those who have power to relinquish it applies to politics as some people are wont to believe. You have here, the equivalent of ‘suicide bombers’ who are prepared to take the country down with them. Even if the power of government is weakened, the likelihood is that there will emerge other smaller, more localised centres of power – akin perhaps to what the world has witnessed in countries like Somalia, where local warlords reign supreme in their respective territories.

The ingredients for such little fiefdoms already exist – the militias and militarised youths, political Godfathers who have personal wealth and interests to protect, etc. Government might fail, but power could devolve informally to ‘smaller personalised governments’ which will be even more difficult to contain. Therefore, whilst a Scorched Earth Policy might be a useful tool to the MDC, they are also aware that it could produce unintended consequences.

The MDC now has a ring-side seat from which it is more able to properly witness the problems in the fabric of government and they are probably aware of these risks of disintegration, hence, perhaps their own willingness to negotiate. Besides they know they are not in power not because they lost the election but because they have limited control over the key structures of state power. Getting into government provides an opportunity to plant roots and draw power from such structures, such as the military.

Talks are not the ideal way to pursue democracy but are a circumstance of necessity.

Zanu PF no longer enjoys popular appeal. But, through no fault of its own, the MDC has failed to take power from Zanu PF. The talks, therefore, present an opportunity to negotiate a way out of the political impasse.

Right now, I fear, the negotiators are like people trying to cross a swollen river – they cannot find the safest crossing point by wading straight into the water. They are using long sticks, placing them here and there to test the depths. Eventually, they will wade through.

By throwing around these proposals through ‘leaks’, they are probably testing public reaction. When they feel they have tested enough and frustrated everyone to the point of desperation, they will tell us what they probably know already! Otherwise, how can it be that the issue of the future positions of Mugabe and Tsvangirai have produced a deadlock when that is the very reason why we are where we are and also why President Mbeki found them good lodgings in Pretoria to talk?

Alex Magaisa is based at Kent Law School, The University of Kent, UK and can be contacted at wamagaisa@yahoo.co.uk
JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS