Imagining Zimbabwe’s future without Mugabe (Part 1)
By Alex T. Magaisa
For nearly 40 years, Zanu PF has not known any other leader apart from Robert Mugabe, who has also led Zimbabwe for 35 of those years. He is 91 and no doubt, in the twilight of his career.
Last week, by some monumental bungling in his closely-guarded office, he ended up reading the wrong speech on the formal occasion of the opening of a parliamentary session. He repeated a speech that he had delivered just a few weeks before.
At the weekend, he delivered a 17-minute speech at the burial of Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, a former Minister who was declared national hero after his death last week. A 17-minute speech is uncharacteristic of a man who is known to normally go for an hour or more on such occasions, often ranting at the West and the opposition.
The wrong speech may have been an error beyond his immediate control and there might be a good reason for the uncharacteristically short speech, but critics and observers are pointing to these as signs of advanced age, which has taken its toll on both body and mind.
Even though it’s almost regarded as treasonous to talk of a future without and therefore, beyond Mugabe in Zanu PF circles, it is also becoming increasingly clear that there is a particular inevitability to the laws of nature whose commands cannot be defied forever. At some point, the long-serving President is going to have to respond to the call of time and as the days go by, and as duties mount, the burden on both body and mind can only become heavier and harder to carry.
And the longer it carries on, it may reach a point where it will surely become an act of collective cruelty on the part of Zimbabweans in general and Zanu PF supporters in particular, to continue to demand of a man what is plainly above the call of body and mind.
It is against this background that it becomes necessary to imagine a future of Zimbabwe and indeed, Zanu PF without President Mugabe. This is an urgent national task that even his most ardent admirers must embrace because sooner or later it will have to be confronted. Can the old party survive the inevitable departure of this omnipresent figure? Does it have the institutional durability to outlive a character that has been central to its affairs for nearly 40 years as leader? What has been the effect of his long reign on Zanu PF as an institution? Can it remain united without him?
These are important enquiries, which warrant attention because as the ruling party what happens in there has significant national implications. There is a perspective that Mugabe’s long and, largely unchallenged, reign may have rendered Zanu PF and by extension, Zimbabwe, too dependent upon him, to the point that for some, a future without him is almost hard to imagine. The mere contemplation of a post-Mugabe era in Zanu PF is prohibited, with members who venture into that sensitive territory risking accusations of plotting to topple Mugabe.
He is the patriarch of a vast political family who answers to no-one and commands complete obedience among the faithful. No-one dares to question his word, let alone criticise him. Those who do, or come under the slightest of suspicions, often find themselves on the margins, cast away as if they were lepers. When the late Edgar Tekere, a former Secretary-General of Zanu PF and close ally of Mugabe of many years gave a public speech in October 1988, during which he criticised corruption in Mugabe’s government and also said democracy was “in intensive care”, within a week he had been fired from Zanu PF.
More recently, in December 2014, when former Vice President of Zanu PF, Joice Mujuru was accused of presiding over a scheme to topple Mugabe, she and her band of allies were humiliated and unceremoniously expelled from the party. Probably the nastiest accusation in Zanu PF that one has to throw at an enemy and likewise, the one must be avoided, is that of plotting to remove Mugabe from his position.
It is so bad that not a single person in Zanu PF can be heard expressing the ambition to become President, let alone to succeed him, without being seen as an enemy. Such ambitions, if they exist, are to be kept buried in the mind, never to be openly expressed. Those who exhibit signs of such dreams often find themselves cast away in the political wilderness.
Eddison Zvobgo, the witty and eloquent politician credited with crafting Constitutional Amendment No. 7, the infamous amendment of 1987, whose unpleasant gift to the country was the Executive Presidency, some say, in anticipation of one day succeeding Mugabe, did not hide his ambition. But he too became frustrated, spawning a memorable metaphor of the mad man of Ngomahuru, a mental hospital. When there is a relay race, Zvobgo is reported to have said, the expectation is that one runner hands over the baton to the next runner and so on until the race is finished. The problem however, he went on, comes when the baton is given to the mad man of Ngomahuru who, instead of handing it over to the next man in the race, had continues to run all the way into the forests and mountains.
The metaphorical reference left little to the imagination. But by the time he died in 2004, the big dream unrealised, Zvobgo was no longer in Cabinet, dropped in 2000, having previously been relegated to Minister without portfolio in 1996. A disciplinary committee was set up to try him for refusing to campaign for Mugabe in the 2002 Presidential election, but that was eventually dropped. Few have dared to be more open, but it only brought him frustration.
The common rhetoric is that no-one is above the party, but it is fair to say, in some ways, Mugabe looms large over his own party. The party bears an almost indelible imprint of his own personality. Although he has avoided the path of Africa’s strong men who were vain enough to have their portraits stamped on the national currency or huge statues built in their honour, his face is printed on the garments adorned by women, singing and dancing in his praise.
When he travels Government Ministers and senior members of the military establishment converge at the airport, whatever the hour of day, to see him off or to welcome him home, standing in a long queue to shake his hand. The party women and youths, clad in colourful party regalia bearing his image, will be singing, dancing, and ululating in another corner of the airport.
They would call him Father Zimbabwe, if they could, except that the title had long been accorded to the late Joshua Nkomo, a former bitter rival who, after capitulation in 1987, became his Vice President. But not even that act of subordination could take away the title of Father Zimbabwe from Nkomo and when he died, it became part of his estate.
Nonetheless, so powerful is the man that even when Joice Mujuru and her allies were being harassed and humiliated, they still felt compelled to express their undying loyalty to Mugabe, whom she described as her “father”.
And there is a large band of praise-singers, too. Tony Gara, a former ceremonial mayor of Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital city, infamously described him as the “second son of God, after Jesus Christ”. Political satirists had a field day and people laughed at the man who would forever be the symbol of the Mugabe praise and worship choir.
The Christian faithful protested quietly, raising the charge of blasphemy. But this would not deter future members of the choir, who, time and again would deploy similar religious imagery. Simon Khaya Moyo, speaking in 2011, said, “His Excellency you are a liberator of unparalleled audacity. You are a useful and amazing leader and we pray to God to make you stronger and continue to lead us from the front”.
The Early Years
For younger generations, the only Zanu PF leader they have ever known is Mugabe. It does not occur to most of them that Zanu had other leaders before him. The narratives they read about the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole are about the wrong things that he allegedly did and the fact that he was the founding Zanu President is almost air-brushed out of history. They don’t hear a great deal about Herbert Chitepo, Zimbabwe’s first black law barrister who drove the nationalist ship when other leaders were detained before his assassination in March 1975. Mugabe himself held the title of Secretary General of the party from 1964. But he, along with other Zanu leaders were detained by the Smith regime in 1964 and he would spent time in jail for the next 10 years.
But how did the school-teacher who had witnessed the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa gain independence from colonial rule when he was plying his trade in Ghana become the most powerful man in Zanu and subsequently in Zimbabwean politics? How did he become, in the eyes of the likes of Tony Gara, the “second son of God”?
These enquiries cannot be accommodated in a single piece. This part will look at how Mugabe became the central figure until 1980. The next article will look at his consolidation of power in Zanu and Zimbabwe after 1980.
Mugabe’s rise to leadership
Mugabe’s rise to the top of the political food chain in Zanu came after his release from detention in 1974, the result of a combination of circumstances that conspired in his favour. In March 1975, the Zanu chairman, Herbert Chitepo was assassinated in Lusaka leading to the imprisonment of Zanu’s top military and political leadership. At the same time, guerrilla commanders were getting disillusioned by the leadership of Reverend Sithole. It was during that period that Mugabe made the famous trek to Mozambique, in the company of Edgar Tekere and Chief Rekayi Tangwena, who helped them cross the border. A vacuum had emerged and Mugabe accepted the call of duty and filled it.
When a group of Zanu military commanders in Tanzania issued the famous Mgagao Declaration in November 1975, it was Mugabe who got special mention and endorsement, impressed by his decision to endure the rigours of the armed struggle in Mozambique, which was in stark contrast to the opinion they had of Reverend Sithole. Of Mugabe they wrote in the Mgagao Declaration,
“An Executive Member who has been outstanding is Robert Mugabe. He has demonstrated this by defying the rigours of guerrilla life in the jungles of Mozambique. Since we respect him most, in all our dealings with the ANC leaders, he is the only person who can act as a middleman”.
They were referring to the Zimbabwean ANC, an umbrella organisation which, at the time, was led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa.
Between 1975 and 1977, Mugabe went on to establish and consolidate his leadership in Zanu PF. The Mgagao Declaration was endorsed by the Dare reChimurenga (War Council) in 1976. It was backed by the leaders who, at the time, were imprisoned by the Zambian authorities in the aftermath of Chitepo’s assassination. “The burden and responsibility of leading our party now rests with you. Should we be released by our captors, we shall be glad to join you in the field,” they wrote from prison. Among the authors were Josiah Tongogara, Kumbirai Kangai and Rugare Gumbo.
The constitutional formality of his leadership endorsement was completed at a special meeting of the Zanu Central Committee held in August 1977, when became the second President of the party – second because the first was Reverend Sithole. At that meeting, he became the President of the party and its armed wing, Zanla – giving him control of and placing him at the centre of both the political and military wings of the party – an important feat which becomes even more significant when one appreciates the dynamics of party and military relations in present-day politics.
Writing in her autobiography, liberation war veteran and former Education Minister, Fay Chung says,
“the choice of Mugabe was made because of the desire of all to avoid a potentially damaging leadership struggle. Mugabe was the next person in the leadership hierarchy and he was unanimously accepted at the replacement for Sithole”.
It is important to note that his choice is described as having been unanimous, a phenomenon that has endured over time.
Mugabe went on to consolidate control of the military wing by the political wing, with the two dominant figures working in alliance being himself and Tongogara, the Zanla commander. The journey towards consolidation of control was not without challenges. There were two key rebellions in this period, the first in 1977, the so-called Vashandi Rebellion, and another, in 1978, with the likes of Rugare Gumbo being implicated in the latter. The other rebellion, the Nhari Rebellion, had happened earlier in 1974, before Mugabe had taken control of the party. In thwarting these rebellions, Mugabe benefited from the support of Rex Nhongo, the late husband of Joice Mujuru, who is now a political enemy after her brutal ouster.
Having thwarted these challenges, Mugabe went on to establish unrivaled control of the party. The military was firmly under the control of the political leadership. The death in a car accident of Tongogara in December 1979, on the eve of independence, meant Mugabe remained the lone and unrivaled contender to lead Zanu into the elections.
But there was one more potential hurdle to avoid. When the elections came in February 1980, he very deftly managed to avoid the Patriotic Front, the umbrella label under which Zanu and Zapu, the two liberation parties, would have contested as a single unit had an agreement materialised. Writing in his very candid autobiography, The Story of My Life, Nkomo expressed his surprise and dismay at discovering that Mugabe had already left London just after the Lancaster House talks when he thought they had agreed to agree a plan to contest elections together under the Patriotic Front, under which they had negotiated at the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference in 1979.
Writing about the Patriotic Front in the Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1982, Mugabe says the idea of the Patriotic Front had come from Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania, who played an immense role supporting the nationalist forces in Zimbabwe’s war of independence. “It was this idea that led to the formation of the Patriotic Front, which was to adopt a common position for all future constitutional conferences”, wrote Mugabe.
Having formed a successful tag-team at the Lancaster House talks, there was an expectation, that the nationalist forces would fight it together as one unit at the elections. But unknown to Nkomo and Zapu, Mugabe and Zanu had other ideas. Hence they ditched the Patriotic Front idea and walked into the election alone, where, to the surprise of their rivals, they won by an overwhelming majority. Zanu won 57 out of the 80 contested seats, Zapu took 20 seats and Muzorewa’s UANC managed a miserly 3.
Various reasons are given as to why Mugabe discarded the idea of the Patriotic Front. Some say, Mugabe believed they had made ground by their own efforts as a party and were confident they would be victorious without Zapu’s help. Others believe Mugabe feared he would have had to take a subordinate role to Nkomo, who was older and more senior in the family tree of the nationalist forces. Indeed, Nkomo was widely regarded as Father Zimbabwe, but Mugabe and others had left him in 1963, when they went on to form Zanu, essentially a splinter group of Zapu. Having worked so hard to establish himself as the unrivaled leader of Zanu, Mugabe was not going to give way to Nkomo, something that would have been a real possibility if they had contested as the Patriotic Front.
In the end, if Mugabe’s move was a gamble, then it paid off very handsomely. With 63% of the vote to Nkomo’s 24%, Mugabe became Zimbabwe’s first Prime Minister when he took office on 4th March 1980.
The school-teacher had completed a remarkable journey, from humble beginnings to become the first leader of independent Zimbabwe. His eloquence, intellect and charisma were useful assets. He dazzled on the stage and people sang his praises. Even former enemies and multitudes of the doubtful were pleasantly surprised and gave him the benefit of the doubt when they finally saw and heard him speak the language of reconciliation.
This is a brief account of how Mugabe came to establish his place at the centre-piece of Zanu in the early years and laid the foundations for an utterly dominant role in the party and country after independence. In 1980, few, if any, could have imagined that he would still be at the helm for another 35 years.
Now, into his fourth decade in power, the current Zanu PF political commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere is quoted as warning against expression of ambition while Mugabe is still alive. “We should defend the founder of the country,” he implored people at a recent by-election rally. “President Mugabe is founder of the party and you can’t talk of ambition for a post that is not reachable”, he added.
But how did it get to this stage where expression of ambition is tantamount to betrayal and rebellion? How did Mugabe cement his place at the centre of Zanu PF and the state after independence in 1980? This will be the subject of the second part of this article. Have I discussed the future? No. But a future without Mugabe is best understood by understanding his ubiquitous role, and that is impossible without understanding the history. To imagine the future, we must understand the history.
This article was first published on www.alexmagaisa.com Follow on Twitter @wamagaisa Contact at [email protected]
