By Allen Hungwe
There is a common adage in Zimbabwe that says that ZANU-PF will never resolve to become reform-minded but will keep along its traditional inflexible and radical methodology in dealing with the socio-economic and political challenges facing the country.
Against that background though, ZANU-PF leaders have of late been exhibiting some actions indicative of a tone-down, although many have written this off as incompatible with what the revolutionary party is about and how the party is constructed.
The last few weeks have, however, seen some interesting developments.
Firstly, it was the urgent Politburo meeting that was called on May 19 and chaired by President Robert Mugabe that reversed the “free for all” invasion of the Save Conservancy, which many top party and security sector officials had unduly benefited from.
The eviction order that was served on these senior members was seen more as a business decision than a political one. Government had faced a lot of local and international criticism and pressure on how one of the world’s leading conservancies had been allowed to fall prey to the greed of politicians.
Many had raised concerns on how the invasions were deflating the efforts that Walter Mzembi was putting at the Tourism Ministry to try and paint Zimbabwe as a viable tourist destination as well as a tourism investment option. ZANU-PF had to sacrifice the unquenchable expropriation appetite of some of its senior people in order to be seen to be accenting to some level of business order and political restraint.
The second event was the arrest of about 169 war veterans who had invaded sugar cane plots in Chiredzi and Triangle. Police were swift in their action and arrested the war veterans, and this drew some criticism from quarters within the war veterans association, but top ZANU-PF officials seemed supportive of the police action.
It is also interesting to note that this is one of the first large scale incidents where police have stood to protect private property from invasion, since the commencement of the broader land reform programme in 2000.
A few weeks ago we also realised that after police had clamped down on civil society organisations that had planned to march in commemoration of Media Freedom Day, Information Minister Jonathan Moyo castigated that clamp down. He even went further to write an accusative letter to the police, denouncing their action as being retrogressive to the rebuilding of media freedom and restoration of rule of law.
The other issue of interest was the announcement by Vice President Joice Mujuru, at the burial of Brigadier-General John Zingoni at the National Heroes Acre, that government was looking at revisiting some of its policies, as they had not worked in kick-starting the economy.
This was followed by an announcement by government, through Moyo, that the economic empowerment policy has now been revised to be sector-specific and less radical and more tolerant to foreign direct investment.
All these developments would not have been imaginable a few months ago, given what we have all known ZANU-PF to be and just how much the party has previously dug-in on issues related to indigenisation and economic empowerment as well as land reform and media freedom.
It seems obvious that the state of the economy could have been one of the major compulsions in undertaking the outlined climb down and level of sobriety. The economic challenges that the country is facing are mounting and ZANU-PF realises that it needs to reconsider its previously intransigent positions.
However, this climb-down also has some influence and effect on the current succession tussles in the party. We cannot read into these developments and turnabout without understanding it from the lens of the succession battle in the party, in both influence and effect.
Although ZANU-PF factions have traditionally been considered to be hardliners versus reformers, this seems to have changed. We cannot allot those two denotations to each of the factions, as their identity and thinking now seems to be more identical. There is a general acceptance by both factions that whoever of them succeeds President Mugabe, their mammoth task will simply be about resuscitating the economy.
Both factions are fearful that, should they succeed President Mugabe and fail to get the economy running again then their reign may be short-lived and unsustainable. The factions are also aware that the mammoth task of getting the economy running, is not a task that must commence only in the post President Mugabe era but must be initiated immediately.
By instituting economic recovery foundations now that sets in motion a good platform for whoever then succeeds President Mugabe.
Because of the need to begin the economic recovery trail soonest, there is now some convergence by both factions on the need to climb down from hard-line policy positions to begin to accommodate previously distasteful agendas as; foreign direct investment, improving investment climate, protecting the rights and concerns of capital holders, and reworking the country’s international image.
That convergence means we cannot now talk of hard-line and reform-minded factions in ZANU-PF, there is some like-minded thinking around the criticality of prioritising anything that rebuilds the economy while sacrificing the political grandstanding of the past.
This therefore means that, even those that have previously been written off as likely to maintain their hard-line stance, at the detriment of national progress, should they succeed President Mugabe, are now being viewed from a new perspective. The factions are therefore gravitating towards the same policy fundamentals.
What will only likely remain as their major point of difference will be personalities rather than outright policy perspectives. Although these personalities will dispense different temperaments and behaviours, the current “push and pull factors” are drawing them into a common policy standing. This is why ZANU-PF has in the last few weeks exhibited some harmony in climbing down on radical policy strokes.
There are questions that, however, remain. Will this harmonisation exhibited in the “climb down” also translate to some lessening of the tension between the factions? On the contrary, will the harmonisation of policy standing be the fuel that increases the stakes in the attempt to succeed President Mugabe, given that a more policy coherent ZANU-PF provides more prospects of leadership success for whoever succeeds President Mugabe?
It is unclear whether the unity of purpose shown by ZANU-PF in revising some of its radical policies will positively or negatively impact the tense succession race.
What is, however, clear is: ZANU-PF is somehow mutating. That mutation is about the fading away of clear divisions between hard-liners and reformists, as has been the basis of how the two main factions have all along been viewed and analysed. Financial Gazette
