Hopewell Chin’ono: Mnangagwa’s new cabinet will either kill or awaken Zimbabwe’s economic prospects

By Hopewell Chin’ono

The real threat to ZANUPF’s survival does not come from Nelson Chamisa’s election petition court challenge. It comes from within ZANU PF itself and how its leader will decide to confront the political and economic challenges before him.

I have to say that as drafted, Chamisa’s petition is rather a loose legal document comparatively to what many expected.

Perhaps a different legal standard prevails here in our local courts as opposed to the Kenyan courts where Raila Odinga managed to win his election case against Uhuru Kenyatta and Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

As someone who doesn’t shy away from making predictions, I think that the court will damn the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) but the election result will remain substantive.

No new election will be ordered in my view, no change of result too in my view except for electoral reformation recommendations by the court.

Leaving aside the extraneous and gratuitous remarks in Chamisa’s petition regarding ZEC and Emmerson Mnangagwa, the petition has made a wide range of claims, each of which Chamisa will need to prove in detail before the court.

Chamisa’s line of argument suggests that it is the cumulative effect of the various issues, as well as the individual irregularities, which renders the presidential result null and void.

We will see whether his evidence and legal arguments on the day will be as compelling as his claims.

The court has a wide range of discretional powers in terms of what directions it may give which include ordering reformation of ZEC prospectively.

The court will be trying one of its own judges in Justice Priscilla Chigumba, that fact should not be lost on all concerned. The realpolitik of Zimbabwe’s judiciary!

However this court case to me seems to be a political exercise by Nelson Chamisa to de-escalate the high expectations of his supporters. The election petition is also a cleansing political purgatory on his part that is meant to leave him looking as the victim in the eye of his social base.

He will characterize his court petition failure as an act of a captured judiciary.

It is however a misplaced blanket assertion to say that the courts are captured. It is an assertion that needs to be more closely interrogated because many legal practitioners do not necessarily share that view.

There is a much more layered picture as those who study these issues closely would know.

This will however give Chamisa time to rebuild his party and also reimage it in his own likeliness if he can manage to keep it together since it is a coalition of seven political formations.

So this court case is not a threat to ZANUPF’s continued rule, at least for the next five years.

ZANUPF supporters should instead worry about the most important issue that will either kill or energize their party, the choices made by their party President when selecting his new cabinet.

That to me will be the most important pillar to sustain ZANUPF’s survival if Emmerson Mnangagwa gets it right. If the President gets it wrong, there won’t be a ZANUPF to talk of post 2023.

The ministerial cabinet issue is not a new one for President Emmerson Mnangagwa. See: https://nehandaradio.com/2018/03/19/hopewell-chinono-mnangagwa-doesnt-have-a-team-fit-for-purpose-yet/

This election has shown that the shifting demographics are hurting ZANUPF and if the President does not respond to that challenge with skill and political dexterity, we will be seeing the end of this liberation mammoth and indeed its rule.

Nelson Chamisa nearly got as much as Emmerson Mnangagwa’s votes with only six months as the MDCA leader. That is a sharp reflection of the youth discontent with the ruling party and in 2023, there will be an extra 1million more young people on the voters roll.

These prospective voters are currently between the ages of 13 and 17 and they are more likely to vote for MDCA if there is NO ZANUPF point of departure from the Robert Mugabe ways.

That point of departure can only take place if Emmerson Mnangagwa selects a rock star cabinet. That is the only signal the world is waiting for to show that he means business and that he intends to fulfil his political and economic promises.

Zimbabwe cannot be open for business if the same old political dinosaurs, crooks, fraudsters and incompetent political baggage from the Robert Mugabe cabinets, are recycled back into the new cabinet.

Neither could it be open for business if the President appoints to his cabinet, new and yet tainted faces that have wormed their way into parliament and yet they are part of the old corrupt networks run by the likes of Supa Mandiwanzira, Joram Gumbo, Petronella Kagonye and their ilk.

What is at stake is not only the survival of ZANUPF as a political party, but the survival of the country too. This is not the time for the President and his deputies to reward their cronies or business and political associates.

Zimbabwe stands on the cusp of the world looking into the economic abyss and only a strong, skilled and internationally exposed cabinet will redeem this beautiful and yet battered country.

Whoever is selected to sit on the cabinet table should be imagined being in the same league as the best brains that are today running economies around the world. Robert Mugabe never bothered about this all important reality when selecting his horribly incompetent ministers.

Emmerson Mnangagwa should care about this key element that will either help the country reemerge from decades of isolation or if he gets it wrong, it will seal the pariah status that Zimbabwe currently carries.

The president currently has five non-constituency parliamentary seats that he can use to bring in competent and skilled Zimbabweans.

Mugabe used to give those non-constituency parliamentary seats to his political cronies who would have lost their parliamentary seats to the opposition parties.

If Emmerson Mnangagwa makes the same mistake, then the country will be doomed and that will be the beginning of Armageddon for ZANU PF as a party.

There is very little talent in the new crop of ZANU PF’s incoming members of parliament that can be able to strategically turn around the country’s fortunes.

That dismal reality will require the President to look elsewhere for skills especially for the all-important Finance ministry.

If he appoints a political animal with little economic understanding of the challenges that lie ahead, then he will end up facing the same problems that bedeviled Robert Mugabe.

The country’s State Enterprises are in a mess, rotting after decades of looting by generations of ZANUPF cabinet ministers and their cronies.

The President should put all these ministries under a commission or one ministry and not allow every minister access to do whatever they want through appointing their cronies to state enterprise bodies.

This was quite reflective at the Information Communication Technology and Cyber Security ministry where Supa Mandiwanzia appointed his cronies on all the State Enterprise bodies that fell under his ministry.

Read: https://nehandaradio.com/2018/04/19/mandiwanziras-supa-corruption-exposed/

Such ministers managed to worm their way into previous cabinets because they sought protection through “political Godfathers” who lobbied for their ministerial appointments.

These powerful politicians have a choice, to push away these political parasites seeking to use them or become part of the collateral political damage which comes with such tainted associations.

The world seeks to see whether men and women of integrity or the same old incompetent crooks who were part of Mugabe’s governments will run Zimbabwe.

This past election was about the youth and their prospects, unless ZANUPF chooses to accentuate the reengagement and Open for Business doctrines, the ever growing youthful electorate will punish them on the polls in 2023.

If the government fails to deliver on its promises, it will only win an election in 2023 through violence, intimidation and rigging.

That will seal its place in the rogue nations gallery and see the economy get its official burial permit.

The President is surrounded by many MPs who de-campaigned him in the recent elections.

Many of them got a high vote threshold than him and some of them like Webster Shamu openly told their supporters to vote for a presidential candidate of their own choice.

So with a terrible cabinet he will be facing many warfronts, as he will be working with dishonest members of parliament who might be subliminally sabotaging his agenda.

The Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Amendment Act of 2018 (ZIDERA) has made the economic recovery prospects tenuous.

In order for the government to proceed with some kind of economic success, they will need the International Monetary Fund and World Bank endorsements.

Without these important International Finance Institutional endorsements, Zimbabwe’s credit rating will remain in junk status and that will mean the country remaining beholden to rogue investors who are not long-term business people.

All these international finance institutions are also waiting to see the calibre of Emmerson Mnangagwa’s cabinet.

As many of them are privately saying, that will either resuscitate Zimbabwe’s future economic prospects or kill them for good until a new government emerges through a clean election.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has a golden opportunity to cleanse himself of his past commissions and omissions by choosing the right cabinet.

He can either be remembered as the man who took over from Robert Mugabe and turned things around and go down in history books, as Zimbabwe’s own Mikhail Gorbachev.

Alternatively he will be remembered as the man who failed to make a difference when the whole world was willing to assist him and eventually go down as an inconsequential President.

Vice President Constantino also has an opportunity to make sure that his presidential ambitions are sustained and remain alive by assisting his principal in making the right decisions, decisions that will make his own dream come to fruition.

The choice is now theirs to make, to sink or swim, their choices will give us an idea whether Zimbabwe has a chance to remove the heavy load that it was groaning under or whether the economic suffering will continue.

Nelson Chamisa will also be waiting to see whether he has better prospects for 2023, prospects that will be enhanced by a weaker Emmerson Mnangagwa cabinet.

We don’t have long to wait.

Hopewell Chin’ono is an award winning Zimbabwean international Journalist and Documentary Filmmaker. He is a Harvard University Nieman Fellow and a CNN African Journalist of the year.
He is also a Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Africa leadership Institute. Hopewell has a new documentary film coming out which is looking at mental illness in Zimbabwe called State of Mind.
Hopewell can be contacted at [email protected] or on twitter @daddyhope