By Justice Zhou
Robert Mugabe is about to encounter his worst fears. He faces the looming possibility of losing the contest for presidency to his bitter rival Morgan Tsvangirai in the elections billed for July 31, something his backers will unfortunately not be able to prevent.
It’s fairly precise to say that not even a supernatural force will rescue the 89-year-old veteran politician because he couldn’t figure out in time that the reason behind the electorate’s desire to show him the door stems mainly from his poor handling of the economy.
The omens are not encouraging for the wily geriatric. The bottom line is that Mugabe hasn’t a clue about how to fix the country it took him and his party colleagues more than a decade to bring to its knees.
Whereas job creation, the fight against corruption and stuff like that have formed the heart of Tsvangirai’s election campaign, on the other hand Mugabe focused on cheap politics, digging into the annals of history for the same anti-Western propaganda that has for donkey’s years diverted him from the real bread and butter issues ordinary Zimbabweans are grappling with.
Given Mugabe’s track record, a scenario where Zanu PF eventually returns to power is not a promising one. The party already has an irreparable sour relationship with international donors and investors, just when estimates of the cost of rebuilding Zimbabwe’s economy run into tens of US billion dollars.
Those who fancy Mugabe's chances have thrown Tsvangirai’s private love life blunders into the mix, arguing that this has dealt a blow to the former trade unionist’s approval ratings. They are missing the point; love life issues have never had any electoral bearing at all in the history of Zimbabwean politics. Instead, the economy had and it still has even today.
Yes, his indigenisation crusade is also fine-sounding. It’s a remarkable policy on paper, but the moment one begins to see the politically-connected elite being the only recipients, the whole objective of the idea becomes irrelevant and subject of suspicion.
The immediate tasks of a new government will be to revive the productive capacity of industry, rebuild the rundown infrastructure, create jobs and reduce the country’s stock of external debt among others. Zimbabwe’s total external debt has soared to US$10.7 billion, accounting for 113 percent of GDP. Zanu PF doesn’t have the capability to solve these problems.
Nevertheless, Mugabe’s willpower to extend his rule is very clear, judging from his latest outbursts against the regional SADC bloc and others. If he had any surprise that would help him avoid falling by the wayside, he had about four years of the unity government’s tenure to pull it out of the hat, but alas.
For someone whose calibre is a sheer throwback to the bygone era, it wouldn’t be simplistic to imply that he isn't only completely out of touch with how modern economics operates, but the larger voting public as well.
In the true sense of the word, Zimbabwe is in this mess because the government which ruled prior to the coalition administration had completely lost its moral compass. Mugabe should have been aware of this and corrected it rather than spend most of his energy trying to set up his MDC opponents for failure.
The coalition was formed in 2009. This was after Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in the first round of the disputed 2008 elections and later withdrew from contesting the second round amid violence by Mugabe's supporters and some security forces.
Once MDC entered into a power-sharing agreement with ZANU-PF, the uneasy coalition left Prime Minister Tsvangirai holding the baby, when it came to cleaning up the economic mess created during the course of the previous government's term.
Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s intentions were apparent when he named Tendai Biti as finance minister in February 2009. His was to revive the economy and Biti proved to be the ideal picking for the MDC leader from the onset.
Obviously, Biti inherited an economy that was literally in paralysis, given that inflation was at 500 billion percent, without any jobs to even talk of. After he scrapped the worthless local currency and adopted the greenback and other foreign currencies to fend off hyperinflation, the move resulted in the immediate revival of economic activity and food and other basic necessities reappeared on supermarket shelves.
Four years down the line the economic growth momentum that had come along in response to Biti’s reformist approach has begun to fade away.
Mugabe actually began preparing his own political obituary in the late 1990s, when he responded to disgruntled independence war veterans by instructing the reserve bank in 1997 to parcel out hefty compensation benefits to them as a means of preventing a revolt against him.
As a result, interest rates spiralled out of control and the Zimdollar fell by almost 50 percent at a time when foreign currency reserves were already taking a slump due to depressed exports, thereby presenting an acute balance of payments problem.
His fortunes turned for the worst following his 2000 chaotic land reforms, the source of the Agriculture sector’s destruction and ensuing economic collapse.
Mugabe’s strategy of keeping the international community at arm’s length has been successful but he still will find himself out of power come July 31.His anti-Western rhetorical stance has been of little comfort to millions who have had to put up with 33 years of corruption, autocracy, broken promises and survival on a bare minimum or less. Rather than solve these problems, he has helped deepen them.
We can fast-forward to August 2013, by which time a new government would have been voted into office. If countervailing forces would have had their way, Zimbabweans who languish in record 80 percent unemployment, with no hope whatsoever for a brighter future could see off these challenges courtesy of pragmatic supply-side economic policies adopted and implemented in due course.
The next government hence should focus on rebuilding the economy to its full potential, as well as accord the masses the democracy and living standards that have eluded them over the decades; it’s as simple as that.
Conspiracy theories and the tendency to play the victim will not prevent Mugabe from bowing out anymore. This blogger certainly hasn’t a crystal ball, but would self-assuredly put his neck on the block and forecast a new beginning and prosperity in the times ahead once Mugabe’s fairy-tale end has come to pass.
