MugabeHarold Hoyte, Contributor
ALL signs point to a decline in the popularity of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe here. An examination of the history of this deterioration should provide lessons for emerging Third World Governments. Opposition to him in the capital, Harare, suggests that he will not do well in this region, but the rural community is a different story altogether. What has happened to lead to reduction in his popularity? In the countryside Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front is holding at least three times the meetings being sponsored by Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, an amalgamation of labour, business, civic and other interest groups.
Harare is where the poorest sector lives and where food shortages and joblessness are most evident.
There is no doubt that these city folk are about to make a bold statement come March 9 and 10.
But their statement is going to be answered with just as much force by the country folk living in hope of taking over farm lands and achieving new prosperity. Expectation is very high among these people as is seen at Mugabe's rallies.
CHAMPION
But there were times prior to 1998 when Mugabe was the undisputed champion of all Zimbabweans and election results were a foregone conclusion. The emergence of the MDV and its near success in the space of less than two years at the 2000 general elections shook the country. MDC won 57 seats to Mugabe's 62.
Then the MDC went on to win a referendum on constitutional changes less than a year later.
Mugabe's comfortable position in Parliament is as a result of the fact that the President gets to name 30 people. With the Presidential elections this week, Mugabe needs to win this poll to keep those 30 places. Should Tsvangirai win the presidential poll, the 30 new seats will be his, giving him an absolute majority in Parliament. Ten years ago, even five, no such mathematical projection would have been necessary. And no observers, and no international journalists would be roaming the hills and plains of this place. What has emerged is that there has been a gradual erosion of Mugabe's base and his popularity has declined to the point where he has recently used the law very heavily to stay in power. It is with the benefit of hindsight that his opponents say that he began digging himself a grave very early. The Labour Relations Act, curbing workers rights cost him labour's full support, and when on February 16 this year the president of the Zimbabwe Civil Service Employees Association, Ephraim Tapa and his wife Faith Mukmakina, went missing and unaccounted for, the last vestige of respect from the unions evaporated.
And from the passage of anti-media legislation that brought reporters on to the streets of Harare to new laws disenfranchising permanent residents, amendments to the Public Order Act, Mugabe has driven fear in all sectors of civil society.
A clear picture emerges of the alienation of sector by sector by Mugabe. Readers do not have to be reminded of the history of struggle which brought Mugabe to power. He himself spent 11 years in jail, imprisoned by Ian Smith after the latter created Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain. Blacks engaged in a long and bloody warfare that eventually led to the toppling of Smith and the emergence of the new Zimbabwe in 1980.
The man who in the seventies spouted Marxist-Leninist theories, Comrade Leader Robert Gilbert Mugabe was popularly swept to power in a show of unprecedented solidarity that was the envy of all Africa. He quickly transformed into a liberal democrat and was inclusive of all, including the whites whom he felt could assist the newly emerging black business class to understand farming, commerce and industry.
Mugabe quickly lost white support. They resisted his early attempts at reform and used every means to hold on to economic power and the privileged social life they enjoyed. Their numbers were small and it was an amputation that was not costly.
But then came the first crack at the labour coalition. The two major parties were Mugabe's ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union) and ZAPU (Zimbabwe African People's Union) led by Dr. Joshua Nkomo of blessed memory. The latter was the party of the workers.
Mugabe was not able to improve the lot of workers and slowly an estrangement began. Eventually he moved against the workers and Nkomo himself was exiled for a long time. The workers engaged in strike after strike, as wages remained low.
In the midst of one of the strikes Mugabe made some famous last words: We have come to show that we have teeth. We can bite and we shall surely bite.
His language and his attitude showed intolerance for workers. He intimidated the union leaders and some of them lost their lives as a result. Others went underground.
Once this crisis subsided and conditions improved for workers, there was reconciliation with ZAPU and Mugabe again rose to great popularity as the true nationalist leader, with Dr. Nkomo by his side as a result of a unitary agreement that would eventually lead to the disappearance of ZAPU.
The labour crack temporarily healed, Mugabe's next confrontation was with students.
With the state versus the workers over, he went to a new fight, the state versus the students.
This was no ordinary fight. He closed the university, sent home students and teachers alike and tertiary education came to a sudden halt.
ENEMIES
The man who had taken the literacy rate from 32 per cent in 1980 to 76 per cent was now seen as the enemy of thinking young people. Time passed, several months meant that this issue had to be resolved. It was, Mugabe not losing any face, but a cadre of young men and women were now his sworn enemies.
By early '90s with recession hitting at prices; and incomes being frozen, he faced a new challenge. In the end the IMF stepped in and a structural adjustment programme was put in place with devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar that was at one time worth two US dollars.
Workers again rebelled and new legislation was introduced which restricted the right for any one to engage in strike action. Anyone found guilty of encouraging another to strike could be jailed for life.
Workers renewed their resolve because their only weapon had been taken from them.
When the 1995 elections came around there was no organised opposition to Mugabe and he won with a record small turnout. Opposition forces were scattered and scared by this time. What then emerged were civic, church and other organisations and the rise of civil society. The last resistance. Residents in several areas created, in the absence of any mass political party, Residents Associations to look after their interests at the municipal level.
Mugabe went to Parliament and passed the Private Voluntary Organisation Act which gave him the authority to remove the autonomy of these Residents Associations and this allowed the arms of his party women's league and youth divisions to take over the leadership of the associations.
Then came further structural adjustment and the emergence of the AIDS pandemic. Droves left the country. As estimated 2.5 million have left in the last five years. They are still leaving. I met a Jesuit priest here who leaves on March 9 with his family for Canada, afraid of what is going to follow the elections. Ignoring laws prohibiting strikes, the country was shut down in 1999 as the population found the IMF stringencies too hard to bear; an alliance between labour and capital emerged, saying that they had had enough.
Meetings were held throughout the country by this coalition calling itself the National Constitutional Assembly, calling for a change in the constitution to reduce the powers of the President who, by this time, was having an absolutely free hand.
Eventually Mugabe called a referendum on the constitutional matter and he lost. With this the moral authority to govern was in question and the 2000 elections were a year away.
FIGHTING FORCE
The MDC emerged out of the coalition as a fighting force to challenge Mugabe in that election. It was this election that saw Mugabe with a slim majority.
Pundits and the MDC are extrapolating from the referendum and the general elections and feel that a victory is imminent in the presidential race.
Mugabe disputes this. He is pulling out all the stops and whipping up charges of a return to colonial rule under the MDC which not only has white support, but has the tacit blessing of Tony Blair in the United Kingdom.
The contest is a classic and fascinating one. If Mugabe loses, he has himself to blame. But what do they say about power? Absolutely!
Harold Hoyte, president and Editor-in-Chief of the Nation newspaper in Barbados, is a member of the Commonwealth Press Union group monitoring the March 9 and 10 elections in Zimbabwe.
