Mutumwa Mawere

The untimely death of Mrs. Susan Tsvangirai followed by the death of former commander of Zimbabwe's military forces, Ret. Lt. General Vitalis Zvinavashe, has demonstrated yet again that death can unite and has the capacity to expose the meaninglessness of a life characterised by greed and hatred.

 It was, therefore, not unexpected that yesterday, 15 March 2008, Prime Minister, Hon. Tsvangirai, and Deputy Prime Minister, Hon. Prof. Mutambara, joined President Mugabe at the burial of the late Zvinavashe. If anyone had any doubt about the commitment of the three to the inclusive government project, the events of the last week have confirmed, albeit superficially, that there is nothing impossible and inevitable in life.

Historians will no doubt have a field day in the future in trying to put meaning to the significance of the inclusive government in advancing the interests of a democratic constitutional order in post-colonial Zimbabwe.

Change is never easy. Change is a process and typically unfolds in a manner that can be recognised and predicted. Whether change in Zimbabwe can be predictable is a question that time will only answer.

Zimbabweans have been yearning for change for a long time and it is evident that expectation and reality are yet to be aligned despite the conciliatory gestures coming from President Mugabe in the aftermath of the death of Tsvangirai's wife.

A month has passed since the formation of the inclusive government and a lot of developments have taken place to give an indication of the nature, driver and direction of change.

President Mugabe remains in control and his worldview continues to inform the policies of the government.

The Attorney General was sworn in on the same day as the Prime Minister and his deputy exposing the fact that no change can be change that people can buy into.

The Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe remains in office despite the known and presumably hollow protestations against the renewal of his term.

Legally and constitutionally, executive power remains vested in President Mugabe and this fact has been reaffirmed by the few key decisions made so far notwithstanding the generally held view that change that is not characterised by power sharing is not change that people can believe in.

President Mugabe through practice since the formation of the inclusive government has shown that all that amendment number 19 did was to create a super minister and his deputies without any executive power.

More importantly, the defence chiefs cannot be expected to salute a super minister as is widely believed. There are many Prime Ministers in the world who have executive power but this is not the case in Zimbabwe although President Mugabe fully knows that without Tsvangirai on board he cannot cure the legitimacy and credibility problem.

President Mugabe has been blamed for all that is wrong in Zimbabwe. However, he is human like most of us and can only see what his two eyes allow him to see and he ears can only hear what people with access feed into the ears. It would not be far from the truth to describe President Mugabe as a dignified prisoner. In a 24-hour day, a President unlike most of us has a defined program and can only see what the system wants him to see.

For 29 years, President Mugabe's life has been under surveillance and it is instructive that he has never been involved in any car accident. When the Prime Minister who has been slow in accepting the limits on personal freedom imposed by his new role, decided with his late wife to drive to Buhera using his private vehicle we now all know what happened.

Some have observed that if the Prime Minister had decided to behave like all other people in high state offices, the tragic accident could have been avoided forgetting that the place and timing of death is unfortunately God's prerogative.

The Prime Minister now has no choice but to join the club of prisoners. His life and worldview will now be under the control of the same state actors that have managed President Mugabe for the past 29 years. It is an accident free life but a dangerous life for anyone who genuinely believes in change.

President Mugabe's knowledge of Zimbabwe is uniquely shaped by the people around him and it may not be surprising that his opinion about the state of the economy has not changed from what it was in 1979.

The fact that even yesterday, he could confidently say: "Our fight with the British is not yet over. Not a week passes without the British parliament discussing Zimbabwe. They forget that we will never be a colony again. What we want is partnership, we don't want to be subjugated, we don't want masters. Those who want to be our friends and partners are welcome," goes a long way towards exposing his state of mind.

President Mugabe has been in power for 29 years and yet he can tell a 29 year old Zimbabwean that there is an unfinished fight against the British and not against hunger, disease and lack of opportunities.

Although one cannot deny the negative impact of the colonial legacy, the stomach of this 29-year old Zimbabwean will not be fed by a crop produced 29 years ago but by a crop produced today. The challenges of today require appropriate responses of today.
President Mugabe may not be aware given the insulated environment that Tsvangirai and Mutambara have now joined that the world is undergoing a fundamental change. Billionaires of yesterday may not be billionaires anymore. Big and once invisible institutions have and are collapsing every day. In the face of these changes, it would be wrong to look at the rear view mirror and hold the view that Zimbabwe's condition is a direct consequence of a conspiracy.

Zimbabwe can only sustainably avoid being a colony again if it can feed itself and change its business model. President Mugabe has accepted that sanctions are primarily the cause of the crisis and their removal ought to be the starting point to moving the country forward. He has not accepted that bad policies can lead to absurd outcomes. He has not accepted that any of the wrong policies should and must be reversed.

Although the President talks of possible partnership with the West, it is significant that such partnership must be on his terms. He wants sanctions to be lifted against Zimbabwe and yet he would be the first one to say to people like Bennett and the other prisoners that the law must take its course even if the laws relied upon are offensive to the democratic constitutional order.

Butau was arrested after the appointment of Hon. Biti, a lawyer, as Minister of Finance, on allegations of externalisation and fraud involving a scheme that was designed and executed by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and yet many of the democratic forces choose to be silent when the new government appears seamlessly to assimilate the bad behaviour of government that was operating on partisan grounds. How are the allegations against Butau reconciled with the new dollarized environment?

We have also learned that Tich Mataz has also fallen victim to the continuation of the absurdity. The difference between a company and its shareholders continues to be the same notwithstanding the fact that new players who should know better are in government.

People who were specified under the old order remain so even after the formation of the unity government. President Mugabe has demonstrated that he has no qualms about imposing targeted sanctions on his fellow citizens some of whom had to go into exile and yet he has a problem when the West adopts the same actions that his government has excelled in.

Naively one would have expected that the inclusive government would make it its agenda to remove the sanctions imposed by the old administration before asking for the removal of targeted sanctions. There are laws that should never exist in a democratic order that still remain on the statutes and more importantly continue to be enforced by the inclusive government.

What is the danger that the inclusive government will eliminate the voice of change and former foes can reconcile to the detriment of nation building? A real risk does exist and if no corrective action is taken, it may not be far fetched to conclude that the difference between the old and new order may be the same.

Bennett, after 27 days on remand, came out calling for forgiveness and reconciliation but President Mugabe has yet to accept that reversal of some of the bad policies and programs should form part of the new social contract.

Bennett now knows that he is at the mercy of the very people he has been fighting against. His recent experience has shown that the inclusive government offers no protection and, if anything, stability, peace and harmony can only obtain if one accepts that no change is change that one can believe and invest in.