AFRICANEWS
ZimbabweElections and emotive land issue spark anarchyPoliticsBy Brian Ligomega
With only a month to go before Zimbabwe's much awaited parliamentary elections President Robert Magabe and his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) judging from the actions of its supporters and pronouncements made by its top leadership, regards unorthodox politics of intimidation and harassment of its opponents as an effective strategy of ensuring that its grip on the reigns of power remains tight. Frequent threats issued by President Mugabe, his Cabinet ministers and senior ZANU-PF executive committee members that there would be war and political instability in Zimbabwe if ZANU-PF loses in the forth-coming parliamentary elections are some of barbaric campaign strategies connived by Mugabe and his party who are regarded as kicks of a dying horse by some political pundits. The invasion of white farms by pro-ZANU-PF former freedom fighters talks volumes of how once Zimbabwe's popular party has lost a sense of direction and touch; and has just become a shadow of its former self. Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF which has been in power since attaining independence in 1980 from Britain is in confusion and fear as it faces stiff political challenge for the first time in its history from the newly formed Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) under the presidency of Morgan Tsvangirai, a charismatic, eloquent and popular trade unionist. MDC poses a big threat to ZANU-PF because of its popularity among Zimbabwe's professional, skilled and unskilled workers, the unemployed and other sectors of the economy. Fear is mounting in ZANU PF that these people who for a long time have been hurt by economic problems and suffered silently will voice their grievances by voting for the MDC candidates. MDC which evolved from Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions has a strong foundation through its large membership composed of people working in both private and public sector. The sound relationship between MDC and workers gives it a big advantage over other opposition parties due to the fact that the trend in Zimbabwe in the past twenty years had been that many people vote for the party they think will win. People never considered the intellectual and political capability of candidates from small fragmented opposition parties. This resulted in ZANU-PF scooping a lion's share of parliamentary seats and majority votes in presidential elections in the past twenty years. The ethnic composition MDC leadership and membership is well balanced in that Zimbabwe's major ethnic groups of Shona and Ndebele are represented proportionally. Unlike the ruling ZANU-PF which because of its rejected land reform proposal and the action of the former freedom fighters has alienated itself with the white community, the MDC is in good books with the white community, Asians and people of other nationalities who are accommodated within the ranks of the party leadership. Although MDC's leadership is a blend of intellectuals, as a new party it still faces an uphill battle in preparing for the forthcoming elections which might see the party winning some parliamentary seats. Some of the thorny problems the party is facing include political intimidation, harassment of its supporters by ZANU-PF members and disruption of its campaign rallies by stooges of the ruling party and at times members of the police force; threats of civil war and hostile actions by former freedom fighters on white farms. Besides these problems, the MDC's campaign facilities are not as adequate as those of ZANU-PF because the latter, as a party in power has many facilities at its disposal. Prominent among the facilities which ZANU-PF uses in its campaign are state-controlled media organs. President Mugabe usually makes use of the state machinery for his activities. He also enjoys favourable coverage from the country's sole television station and state radio stations. Through these facilities Mugabe publicly accuses Tsvangirai of being a cat's paw of foreign imperialists, who wants to bring political confusion in Zimbabwe. Despite these hurdles, Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change continues to capitalises on the emotive land issue, economic malaise and corruption in his campaign message. He also accuses Mugabe's ZANU-PF of deliberately politicising the land acquisition issue with the purpose of gaining political mileae ahead of the elections. Tsvangirai said last week at a mass rally held at Bindura, about 100 kilometres northeast of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, that the action of the former freedom fighters, the majority of whom are ZANU-PF stooges is not only an inconvenience to the white farmers but even to indigenous black Zimbabweans who work on the invaded farmlands. "The worst victims of the invasions are farm workers who earn their living by working on such farms. The invasion also affects industries which depend on farm produce. This in turn affects negatively the already shrinking economy of the whole land," said Tsvangirai, charging that Mugabe was tactfully politicising the land issue to divert people 's attention from the country's economic hardships. He also described Zimbabwe as a country where political vice, lawlessness and anarchy is deliberately fuelled by the highest authority in the land. His statement came a few days after Mugabe told the former freedom fighters that they can still occupy the farms they encroached as long as they remain peaceful. At the same time the police applied to the High Court to be allowed to let the former freedom fighters stay on the farms to avoid sparking bloody clashes between the police, the freedom fighters and farm owners. The police were responding to a High Court ruling ordering them to evict the former freedom farmers from the White-owned farms. Many Harare-based political analysts say that despite all the political gimmick ZANU PF has instituted of late, its performance in the forth-coming elections will be affected by its economic woes. They predict that MDC still stands a chance of winning more than 30 parliamentary seats out of the total parliamentary seats. Analysts say winning such a number of seats would be an achievement on the part of the opposition because the opposition members of parliament would be able to give a tough time to the ruling party in parliament. Meanwhile, many Zimbabweans are bitter with the Mugabe administration's involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo's conflict. Press reports indicate that the country spends between US$1 - US$2 million every month on the conflict in the Congo, where an estimated 11,000 Zimbabwe troops are assisting President Laurent Kabila in fighting the Ugandan and Rwandan - backed rebels. Mugabe critics say it is ironic for Zimbabwe to spend huge amounts of money in the DR Congo war when it is experiencing its worst macro economic stability with worsening inflation now almost 60 per cent. A recent report by the Central Statistics Office entitled Poverty in Zimbabwe says about 75 per cent of all Zimbabweans are poor and 47 per cent are classified as very poor. Sixty-three per cent of all Zimbabwean households have per capita consumption expenditure below the poverty line.
These estimates are close to those of poverty assessment study carried out in 1995 by the same organisation. The report actually suggests that the prevalence of poverty has increased by 43 per cent from 52.8 per cent in 1990/91 to 75.6 per cent by 1995/96. Within this growing category of poor people are the working poor whose incomes have severely been eroded.
The fuel crisis which hit Zimbabwe early this year is another contributing factor forcing people to denounce ZANU-PF and plan to relieve it from power in the forthcoming elections.
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