Zimbabwe’s faltering recovery confirms that democratization is a sine qua non for genuine economic development, the country’s finance minister said today.
South African premier Jakob Zuma should convene a summit of the Southern African Development Community to end the current impasse, Tendai Biti told a Washington meeting sponsored by Freedom House and the National Democratic Institute.
The man with what Freedom House’s Tom Melia called “the worst job in the world” has made impressive progress in eliminating “insane” levels of inflation and stabilizing the economy.
The country’s growth is outpacing all of its Southern African neighbors, according to the World Bank’s 2010 Global Economic Prospects report.
But further progress was being stymied by a set of “toxic political issues”, including farm seizures and the prosecution of democratic parliamentarians and civil society activists, said Biti.
The country continued to face a shortage of foreign direct investment, not least in infrastructure, and unacceptably high levels of poverty and unemployment. But more serious than these acute economic challenges were the underlying structural problems of ZANU-PF’s refusal to implement the key provisions of the power-sharing agreement with the Movement for Democratic Change.
He had vehemently opposed the pact, but conceded that he had been wrong as it had delivered hope and given beleaguered activists a “time-out” from harassment and persecution.
President Robert Mugabe’s failure to honor the power-sharing provisions of the pact, the prosecution of MDC MP Roy Bennett, and disputes over the appointments of provincial governors, the Attorney-General and the Reserve Bank Governor were “landmines” that confirmed ZANU-PF’s lack of good faith.
The country provides the only case in history of a state registering negative growth rates for more than five consecutive years, outside of a state of war, said Biti.
Shari Bryan, NDI’s former Southern Africa regional director, recalled how for ten years her annual reports on Zimbabwe would always prompt the thought that it couldn’t get any worse. But it did.
NDI’s work with civil society groups like the Zimbabwe Election Support Network and parallel vote tabulations that exposed ZANU-PF’s electoral fraud had played a part in sustaining the democratic opposition. Similarly, Tom Melia noted, labor movement support for Zimbabwe’s unions was a significant factor in the founding of the MDC.
The unresolved succession crisis within ZANU-PF was the principal source of the continuing political paralysis, said Biti. As in too many other African states, the struggle for power was at root a contest for control over resources that guaranteed political patronage.
Western governments that still failed to re-engage with Zimbabwe on the grounds that hard-liners would benefit were in fact acting as accomplices to such “catfish” while failing to help reformers deliver services to Zimbabwe’s citizens.
South African President Jacob Zuma is reportedly backing the idea of a fresh election next year, but the MDC is insisting on prior constitutional changes that would diminish ZANU-PF’s capacity to steal the election and intimidate opponents.
“[Zanu-PF's] structures of violence are still intact,” says Eldred Masunungure, professor of political science at the University of Zimbabwe. “A free and fair election is not a reality.
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