Curious parallels as Zimbabweans go to polls

Updated Saturday, July 27th 2013 at 18:26 GMT +3

By Oscar Obonyo

The spotlight has now turned to Zimbabwe as the country holds elections on Wednesday after Kenyaheld largely peaceful elections in March this year. Like Kenya, the Southern Africa country experienced bloody post elections violence in 2008, which claimed over 200 lives, injured over 10,000 and displaced about 28,000 people. The numbers may have been lesser than the killings in Kenya but observers fear a repeat of the mayhem could have far reaching repercussions.

Unlike in Kenya, many of those targeted in the 2008 violence in Zimbabwe were human rights defenders, who play a crucial role in exposing abuses and supporting victims of violations. That is more worrying unless members of the Southern Africa Development Community take greater responsibility in ensuring that the elections are not only violence free but also free and fair.

Clear divides

The African Union also hopes the elections will not replicate the painful script of five years ago just asKenya managed on March 4th.

As in Kenya, the Zimbabwe script is the same as it was in 2008 because the tribal card will still be high on the agenda.  The only difference is that in Kenya, one of the sides acquired a new captain – Uhuru Kenyatta, who was a key pillar in the Kibaki presidential bid against Raila Odinga in 2007.  In Zimbabwe, it is the same faces of Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai and the same political outfits.  The divides are also clear because Raila and Tsvangirai, who argued they won the previous polls, were forced to share the spoils with incumbents as Prime Ministers.

They also ideologically belong to the same camp, as do former President Kibaki and his successor Uhuru, with President Mugabe. In April, for instance, as Mugabe hurriedly left for Nairobi for President-elect Kenyatta’s inauguration, Tsvangirai flew to London for holiday where he gave BBC an interview, castigating among other things, Kenya’s “sham elections”.

So, in the same way Zimbabweans closely monitored the Kenyan polls, observers and political operatives will be following developments in Zimbabwe in the race pitting the Uhuru Government-friendly Mugabe and Tsvangirai, who is regarded at home as Zimbabwe’s Raila.

But unlike the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy leader, who came up against Jubilee’s Uhuru under a new constitutional order and a fairly level playing field, Tsvangirai has entered the race grudgingly.

To begin with, he was opposed to the election date of July 31 that was curiously declared by his competitor Mugabe – a player and pseudo referee in the game.  Although a new Constitution came into force in Zimbabwe in March after protracted negotiations between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, the President still enjoys massive powers.

And restrictions on the presidential two-term limit does not apply to terms served before the implementation of the new Constitution, the reason why Mugabe, 89, who has ruled Zimbabwe for a record 33 years is eligible to run for office once again! Tsvangirai wanted elections to be held at a later date so that electoral rolls could be checked and important reforms enacted – without which his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) argued a free and fair election would not be possible. “Under the present conditions, which are neither free nor fair, I don’t believe that the upcoming elections will be lawful – irrespective who wins them,” Tsvangirai told supporters, while reacting to the election date announced by Mugabe. President Mugabe has further refuted rigging allegations by his challenger, claiming that he has never rigged in his life and will not be doing so for the first time in his old age.

The elections, he maintains, will be free from State interference. As in 2008, the same campaign issues dominate the Zimbabwe race, with Mugabe’s handlers marketing him as an independence hero and Pan-Africanist, with the interests of the country at heart.  Tsvangirai’s strategists, on the other hand paint their man as a reform minded leader who is a break from the past poor economic leadership. 

When Mugabe spearheaded a two-decade long freedom struggle in the then Rhodesia State, getting imprisoned in the process, he was celebrated as one of the continent’s greatest heroes.  The first years of Mugabe on taking the leadership mantle from Ian Smith as Prime Minister were fairly successful.    But by the end of the first decade the country’s economy was on a serious downward spiral.  The year 2007 recorded the highest rate of inflation in the world at 100,000 per cent as well the highest rate of unemployment. Mugabe lost the presidential election the following year with the official announcement indicating the Zimbabwean strongman had garnered 43.2 per cent of the vote, while Tsvangirai amassed 47.9 per cent. But Tsvangirai declined to participate in the runoff after failing to hit at the 50 per cent mark to win in first round as per constitutional dictates. He claimed the figures had been manipulated in favour of the incumbent.

The electoral impasse led to an outbreak of violence that left 200 people dead and thousands maimed.  This was not as bad as Kenya’s instance that claimed over 1,000 lives and hundreds of thousands maimed and displaced. Later in September, the same year, Mugabe and Tsvangirai agreed to a power-sharing deal, Kenyan-style, with the incumbent retaining the presidency and the “loser” being sworn in as Premier.

In both instances, the Kibaki and Mugabe handlers sought to make one point very clear – that contrary to the power-sharing deals, the two principals were separately not equal partners in Government.

Forced marriage

In Kenya’s case, the forced marriage between Kibaki and Raila was poisoned and doomed to fail.   But for international pressure and a tightly knitted National Accord and Reconciliation Act 2008, that compelled Kibaki and Raila into political marriage, the two leaders reluctantly opted to stay together.

Either because of a shared history or ideology, Raila and Tsvangirai have enjoyed very close ties, with theZimbabwean leader gracing the Orange Democratic Movement’s national delegate’s conference that endorsed Raila as presidential candidate early this year. Similarly Raila was chief guest at MDC’s even in Bulawayo in April 2011.  Tsvangirai and his supporters must be praying that this time around he does not suffer similar fate at the ballot as his Kenyan political buddy. Similarly, Mugabe must be hopping that like Uhuru – an inherited political friend from Kibaki – he will ride on the incumbency to remain in power.