•But its aftermath still plagues Zimbabwe
POWER has left Robert Mugabe, the 93-year-old strongman, who led Zimbabwe for 37 years since its 1980 independence. But the mess he left behind remains.
Post-Mugabe Zimbabwe has taught the world how to prise power — peacefully — from a grim, cynical despot, without smashing the system. The factional struggle for power, without the taut rope snapping, was simply surreal, as an awed world looked on.
But it is not quite the democracy the rest of the world was expecting — that Western apogee for periodic, routine and peaceful transfer of power.
Now, how can Mugabe’s ZANU-PF, Zimbabwe’s ruling party, be disciplined and adept at preserving the system it has imposed on the rest of Zimbabwe, yet remains ossified as some 21st century relic of Stalinist Soviet Union, in an era of global democracy?
But flip the coin, and in place of this absurdity, imagine ZANU-PF donning the fad of “democracy” (as the situation in Kenya), yet is very slack at peaceful power transfer, such that any little rocking of the boat ends in chaos and bloodbath?
Can you imagine the rivers of blood in Zimbabwe right now — mostly from innocent citizens, ever the ready canon-fodders in such regime collapse — given the stress the old fox put the system through before resigning to avoid impeachment?
That sums up the Zimbabwe power puzzle: the system Mugabe bequeathed is no deal. Indeed, if democracy is the preferred engine of governance, it has no solid turbines, in democratic institutions, to power and sustain such a system.
Yet, it is all Zimbabwe has now. Any attempt to dislodge it in a hurry could be catastrophe foretold. That is the delicate juncture Zimbabwe is.
Which is why genuine lovers of that troubled country must make haste slowly, lest in a rush to make Zimbabwe another “model of democracy”, cause avoidable chaos. The pragmatic thing to do is, therefore, to engage the Emmerson Mnangagwa new era; and nudge it along the path of greater democracy and broader citizen participation in how Zimbabwe is run. The African Union (AU), and the rest of the world should exert reasonable pressure to ensure that happens, even if gradually.
Mnangagwa, the man the ZANU-PF apparatchiks call “Crocodile”, is no different from the ancien regime; and is probably more of the Mugabe same. So is Constantino Chiwenga, the army chief and chief enforcer, until November 14 for Mugabe, but now against the old man.
Both, at least, are living proof of a robust, self-corrective, even if flawed Mugabe regime. Mnangagwa was wrongly removed by Mugabe to clear the succession hurdle for Grace, the former president’s wife. But that provoked a military backlash that though threw off the old man, still retained the old order.
All through the crisis, the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) showed admirable restraint and discipline, quite unlike the wayward, blood-thirsty and opportunistic military in much of the rest of Africa. The ZANU-PF too displayed rare resilience and cohesiveness, uncharacteristic of African political parties, with the possible exception of South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC).
That institutional strength is admirable and it is a lesson to the rest of Africa. But it is time, if Zimbabwe must levitate above its present troubles, to transit from the protective but self-serving muscle of big party bosses and war veterans, to mass democracy, more inclusive participation and economic equal opportunities.
While these strong institutions — a civil army and a cohesive party — are vital ingredients for a stable democracy, turning both into drivers of Zimbabwe democracy, particularly after the sudden exit of a strongman, could be slow, delicate and testing. But this hard marathon is the direction to go, if post-Mugabe Zimbabwe were to regain its soul and relive its promise at independence in 1980.
Now that Zimbabwe is prised off the steel fingers of Mugabe, the next stage is freeing the state from the fortress of the triumvirate of the ruling party, the Army and the war veterans that drive the two. If these vital organs are infused with genuine democracy powered by the people, and the state is strengthened by rule of law, a robust, fair and fearless judiciary, and a vibrant parliament to checkmate executive abuse, Zimbabwe may well dare to dream — and live — again.
These are the reforms the AU should help to push in a new Zimbabwe, instead of, as it tried to do in the heat of the crisis, making a fetish of Mugabe removal procedures.
As for the West, now in hysteric triumphalism over the Mugabe ouster, it should know it helped to create the Mugabe debacle. If Britain that negotiated the Lancaster House agreement, that ousted Ian Smith and gave Zimbabwe independence, had honoured its financial commitments to it, Mugabe would probably not have snatched the moral right to forcefully seize white farmlands for war veterans.
That pushed the Mugabe tragic messianism that ruined his country and assured his destruction. But Robert Mugabe should be great lessons for other African power relics, who feel that without their breath, the state cannot live. That is nothing but grand and costly delusion.
