Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic: The Formative Project by Emmerson Mnangagwa 3031301285, 9783031301285

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Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development

Gorden Moyo Kirk Helliker   Editors

Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic The Formative Project by Emmerson Mnangagwa

Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development Series Editors Diery Seck, CREPOL–Center for Research on Political Economy, Dakar, Senegal Juliet U. Elu, Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA, USA Yaw Nyarko, New York University, New York, NY, USA

Africa is emerging as a rapidly growing region, still facing major challenges, but with a potential for significant progress – a transformation that necessitates vigorous efforts in research and policy thinking. This book series focuses on three intricately related key aspects of modern-day Africa: economic, social and political development. Making use of recent theoretical and empirical advances, the series aims to provide fresh answers to Africa’s development challenges. All the socio-political dimensions of today’s Africa are incorporated as they unfold and new policy options are presented. The series aims to provide a broad and interactive forum of science at work for policymaking and to bring together African and international researchers and experts. The series welcomes monographs and contributed volumes for an academic and professional audience, as well as tightly edited conference proceedings. Relevant topics include, but are not limited to, economic policy and trade, regional integration, labor market policies, demographic development, social issues, political economy and political systems, and environmental and energy issues. All titles in the series are peer-reviewed. The book series is indexed in SCOPUS.

Gorden Moyo · Kirk Helliker Editors

Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic The Formative Project by Emmerson Mnangagwa

Editors Gorden Moyo Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities Lupane State University Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

Kirk Helliker Department of Sociology Rhodes University Makhanda, South Africa

ISSN 2198-7262 ISSN 2198-7270 (electronic) Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development ISBN 978-3-031-30128-5 ISBN 978-3-031-30129-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30129-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

In memory of my father, Samuel Mazwemzini Moyo affectionately called “Dlodlo”—his liberation struggle name. He passed on in the middle of writing of this book, on 30 June 2022. He lived 93 long years of pain and grief. In 1978, his whole homestead was torched down by the Rhodesian Front for his liberation struggle activities. In 1985, his whole homestead was torched down again, this time by the Fifth Brigade for reasons he did not understand until he bade us farewell. For all his life, my father worked and dreamed for a better Zimbabwe. His baritone voice, love and teachings are forever etched in my heart. Thank you to my co-editor, Kirk Helliker, for accepting that we dedicate our collective work to my father—be blessed. Gorden Moyo

Acknowledgements

The idea of this book was born out of the Public Policy Dialogue Series organised by the Public Policy and Research Institute of Zimbabwe (PPRIZ) which was convened to make sense of the meaning of the change of government in Zimbabwe in November 2017. Many thanks are due to the members of the PPRIZ team who coordinated civil society, church, academic, business and media members who contributed to the initial conceptualisation of the book. Typical of any intellectual endeavour, this volume is a product of the collective efforts of many colleagues. Special thanks to all the chapter contributors and peer reviewers of the manuscript for their intellectual capital which made this book a reality. A final word of appreciation goes to Yogesh Padmannaban and the team at Springer for assisting in the editorial processes for this volume. Gorden Moyo Kirk Helliker

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Praise for Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic

“Is Zimbabwe’s ‘Second Republic’ a departure from Mugabeism or is it like the Mbulumakhasana, a mythical Ndebele creature that appears to be human but on close examination is revealed as a beast with a tail? Has President Mnangagwa failed to cross the Rubicon of Mugabeism in the same way the other ‘crocodile’ PW Botha failed to cross the Rubicon of apartheid in 1985? These questions are interrogated in the brilliantly edited Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic—The Formative Project by Emmerson Mnangagwa. This compilation of chapters provides scholarly interrogation of every aspect of the Mnangagwa regime, written in a way that is accessible to a wider readership. Gorden Moyo, Kirk Helliker and all the contributors must be congratulated on this seminal work. It is a must-read for all who have an interest in Zimbabwe.” —Elinor Sisulu, Author of ‘Walter and Albertina Sisulu: In Our Lifetime’ “This volume, Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic—The Formative Project by Emmerson Mnangagwa, edited by Gorden Moyo and Kirk Helliker is a great work aptly describing the transition from Mugabeism to Mnangagwa’s second republic. After reading the book one is left without a doubt as to whether the transition was a change or continuity. It’s an interesting and informative book that shouldn’t be missed.” —Professor Reinford Khumalo, Senior Researcher, Public Policy and Research Institute of Zimbabwe (PPRIZ) “Repetition without change and rhetorical transition mediated by continuities in discontinuities is where Zimbabwe finds itself. There is no first or second republic to talk of, what there is, is failed botched liberation and dashed hopes. Our experiences and expectations are out of sync. This is how I read and interpret Gorden Moyo and Kirk Helliker’s important book and the stellar contributors they gathered. Its diagnosis is as profound as its prognoses. Read it and illusions will disappear. We

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should continue to demand the best from our leaders and to expose fake liberation and fake promises.” —Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Professor and Chair of Epistemologies of the Global South, University of Bayreuth, Germany “Dr. Gorden Moyo and Prof. Kirk Helliker in providing this intellectually stimulating critique of the Second Republic have contributed invaluable literature to a unique event. The coup d’etat broke a familiar pattern of prolonged rule by Africa’s many despots. Why did citizens take to the streets to celebrate an occurrence that elsewhere in Africa has always turned out to be a betrayal of the citizen’s hopes for a better life? They went into streets to celebrate even in the hope that Mugabe’s nightmarish rule would give way to a more people centred regime. It didn’t happen, the nightmare continues. This volume is an informed contribution to various attempts to understand why the so called Second Republic is such a disaster for the country. This is also a scholarly piece of work that does justice to academia. I recommend it to those who seek to understand why Zimbabwe finds it near-impossible to turn its back on its horrible past.” —Paul Themba, Director of Masakhane Trust

Contents

Mnangagwa’s Formative Project: Risks and Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kirk Helliker and Gorden Moyo

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Activating Civil and Political Liberties The Quest for Transitional Justice in the Post-Mugabe Era . . . . . . . . . . . . Tobias Guzura

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Mnangagwa’s Missed Opportunities for Reconciliation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mandlenkosi Ndlovu and Christopher Ndlovu

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The Second Republic’s Stance on Corruption and the Battle for Public Confidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rodney Ruwende Media Policies and Practices in Zimbabwe’s ‘New Dispensation’ . . . . . . . Mandlenkosi Mpofu

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Reconfiguring Governance Exploring the Politics of Jecharism in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic . . . 107 Divane Nzima and Geogina Charity Gumindega Change and Continuity—Traditional Leadership’s Political and Developmental Footprint in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic . . . . . . . . . 125 Rodrick Fayayo, McDonald Lewanika, and Bheki R Mngomezulu Devolution in Zimbabwe’s ‘Second Republic’: A Myth or Reality? . . . . . 143 Mbuso Moyo and Ray Motsi Prospects of Implementing Devolution in the Post-Mugabe Era . . . . . . . . 169 Didmus Dewa

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Stimulating Socio-Economic Development The Right to Development in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Kucaca Ivumile Phulu and Serges Djoyou Kamga China’s Expanding Footprint and Deepening Debt Crisis in Zimbabwe—From Robert Mugabe to Emmerson Mnangagwa . . . . . . 207 Gorden Moyo Financing the Social Sector in Zimbabwe’s Post-Mugabe Era—Obstacles and Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Smart Manda and Admire Tarisirayi Chirume Exploring Innovative and Sustainable Financing of Agriculture in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 Peter Nkala Concluding Reflections on Change and Continuity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 Gorden Moyo and Kirk Helliker

Editors and Contributors

About the Editors Gorden Moyo is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Lupane State University (LSU), Zimbabwe. He is also the Founder of an independent think tank—the Public Policy and Research Institute of Zimbabwe (PPRIZ). He received his Ph.D. in African Leadership Development from the National University of Science and Technology, Zimbabwe. His research interests are in development finance, developmental states, emerging economies and African agencies. His most recent book is African Agency, Finance, and Developmental States published in 2021 by Palgrave Macmillan. Previously, Moyo served as a Minister of State Enterprises and Parastatals in the Inclusive Government of Zimbabwe (2009–2013). Kirk Helliker is a Research Professor in the Department of Sociology at Rhodes University in South Africa, where he heads the Unit of Zimbabwean Studies, which he founded. The Unit was formed in 2015 and seeks to contribute to the development of emerging, early-career and mid-career Zimbabwean (and other) scholars. Professor Helliker publishes widely on Zimbabwean history, politics and society and has supervised a significant number of Ph.D. and M.A. students. His most recent co-edited books are Capital Penetration and the Peasantry in Southern and Eastern Africa: Neoliberal Restructuring and Livelihoods of Ethnic Minorities in Rural Zimbabwe (both published in 2022) as well as Tonga Livelihoods in Rural Zimbabwe (2023).

Contributors Admire Tarisirayi Chirume Economic Research Division, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe Didmus Dewa Zimbabwe Open University, Harare, Zimbabwe

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Editors and Contributors

Rodrick Fayayo Public Policy and Research Institute of Zimbabwe, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe Geogina Charity Gumindega University of Greifswad, Greifswald, Germany Tobias Guzura Zimbabwe Open University, Harare, Zimbabwe Kirk Helliker Department of Sociology, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa Serges Djoyou Kamga Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa McDonald Lewanika Accountability Lab Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe Smart Manda Economic Research Division, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe Bheki R Mngomezulu Political Science, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa Ray Motsi Theological College of Zimbabwe, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe Gorden Moyo Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Lupane State University, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe Mbuso Moyo Centre for Sociological Research and Practice, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa Mandlenkosi Mpofu Journalism, University of Eswatini, Kwaluseni, Eswatini Christopher Ndlovu Department of Educational Foundations, Lupane State University, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe Mandlenkosi Ndlovu Department of Development Studies, Lupane State University, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe Peter Nkala Faculty of Commerce, National University of Science and Technology, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe Divane Nzima University of the Free State, Phuthaditjhaba, South Africa Kucaca Ivumile Phulu University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa Rodney Ruwende Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, Harare, Zimbabwe

Mnangagwa’s Formative Project: Risks and Limits Kirk Helliker and Gorden Moyo

Abstract This book is about the continuities and discontinuities in the transition from the Mugabe to the Mnangagwa regime in contemporary Zimbabwe. This introductory chapter offers a short narrative around key events and themes that are pertinent to understanding the transition and, most importantly, it sets out an analytical framework for examining the character, content and contingencies of the transition. This framing draws heavily upon the thoughts of Antonio Gramsci. So far, the emerging scholarly literature on the transition in large part highlights the continuities across the two regimes, thereby downplaying the existence and relevance of any changes, at least changes of a reformist or progressive character. While not necessarily denying this overall conclusion, we argue that it is reached in a linear and un-dialectical manner. In recognising the importance of contradictory trends in any transition, we identify the presence of a formative project embedded in many of Mnangagwa’s initiatives. This project exists as a counter-tendency to the likely dominant logic of continuity. Because of the potential risks entailed in this project, mainly moving farther along the road of reform than intended and thereby jeopardising the grip on power, it remains circumscribed to date. The various chapters in this book, focusing on a range of issues around civil and political rights, governance, and socio-economic development, highlight the many shortcomings of this formative project. Nevertheless, it is important to remain analytically cognisant of this project if the scholarly inquiry is to comprehend the contradictory forces animating the Mnangagwa regime.

K. Helliker (B) Department of Sociology, Rhodes University, 26 Seymour Street, Makhanda, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] G. Moyo Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Lupane State University, No. 412 Fidelity Life Centre, Fife St/11 Ave, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Moyo and K. Helliker (eds.), Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic, Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30129-2_1

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K. Helliker and G. Moyo

1 Introduction This book tells the story of the post-Mugabe ‘Second Republic’ in Zimbabwe under the rulership of Emmerson Mnangagwa and how the hopes and dreams surrounding it remain unfulfilled and elusive, if not amounting to a full-scale illusion. The postMugabe story reminds us of the Mbulumakhasana (a human-like creature) in Ndebele folklore. The Mbulumakhasana is a mystic being with all the features of a human except that it also has a tail. As the legend goes, one day the Mbulumakhasana dressed well for his bride and marriage ceremony. The whole clan came out for festivities to welcome the groom oblivious to the fact that he was a Mbulumakhasana. The Mbulumakhasana’s tail is naturally disposed towards milk. In the midst of the ceremony, milk was accidentally spilt near the groom. The tail came out irresistibly for the milk to the utter disgust of everybody around. The groom was not what those gathered had thought he was. He was a Mbulumakhasana. In an important way, the Mbulumakhasana story describes the ‘Second Republic’ of Zimbabwe. However, unlike the definitive and conclusive identification of the Mbulumakhasana, Mnangagwa’s Second Republic is still unfolding and the story about it is yet to be fully written. Undoubtedly, there are identifiable storylines about the Second Republic, in particular regarding the many marked continuities between the Mugabe and Mnangagwa regimes, as the scholarly literature clearly points out. But it is still a work in progress marked by dynamic and fluid contradictory tendencies, and hence there are counter tendencies to the main storyline. These counter tendencies, involving discontinuities of a reformist character, though so far subordinate to the dominant trajectory of continuity, complicate the storyline and ensure that the story or ‘tale’ of the Second Republic is more convoluted and open-ended than is generally acknowledged. In contextualising the book, this introductory chapter offers a short narrative around key events and themes pertinent to understanding the transition and, most importantly, it sets out an analytical framework for examining the character, content and contingencies of the transition. This framing draws heavily upon the thoughts of Antonio Gramsci. The emerging scholarly literature on the transition in large part highlights the continuities across the two regimes (including militarisation), thereby downplaying the existence and relevance of any changes, at least changes of a reformist or progressive character. While not necessarily denying this overall conclusion, we argue that it is reached in a linear and un-dialectical manner. In recognising the importance of contradictory tendencies in any transition, we identify the presence of a formative project embedded in many of Mnangagwa’s initiatives which act as a counter-trend to the likely dominant logic of continuity. Because of the potential risks entailed in this project, which ultimately seeks to reconfigure and stabilise the hegemony of the ruling party, it remains circumscribed to date. The various chapters in this book, focusing on a range of issues around civil and political rights, governance, and socio-economic development, highlight the many shortcomings of this formative project. Nevertheless, it is important to remain analytically

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cognisant of this project if the scholarly inquiry is to comprehend the contradictory forces animating the Mnangagwa regime.

2 Gramsci and the Second Republic In 1981, John Saul and Stephen Gelb published The Crisis in South Africa in which, in drawing upon the work of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, they identified an organic crisis in South Africa (including its conditions of existence) and examined the Apartheid state’s emerging project to address, or to at least manage and contain, this systemic crisis during the 1970s and beyond (Saul and Gelb 1981). Three years earlier, in Policing the Crisis, and in also returning to Gramsci for their contemporary insights, Stuart Hall and his colleagues (Hall et al. 1978) examined the machinations of the Thatcherite state in Great Britain as it sought to reconfigure the economy and society in a right-wing neoliberal direction in the face of a deepening Keynesian (welfare state) crisis. For some years now, particularly since the year 2000, Zimbabwean scholars have spoken almost ad nauseum about the existence of a systemic national crisis known as ‘the Zimbabwean Crisis’, with its causes, characteristics and consequences open to significant controversies within the ‘crisis literature’. Oftentimes, discussions about the chronic crisis in Zimbabwe appear as purely or mainly descriptive. However, important analytical interventions arose particularly in the early years of the ‘crisis debate’ (Hammar et al. 2003; Moyo and Yeros 2007a, b); and, subsequently, many scholars highlighted the national and local complexities and contingencies of Zimbabwe’s crisis or crises (Chiumbu and Musemwa 2012). Noteworthy, some scholars sought to understand the crisis in Zimbabwe with a partial or pronounced Gramscian imprint (Moore 2001, 2003, 2007; Saul and Saunders 2005; Raftopoulos 2010). The ‘crisis literature’ emerged and developed during the rulership of Robert Mugabe. Since the decline and death of Mugabe, and the military-assisted formation of the self-defined Second Republic under Mnangagwa, there has been a fury of efforts, notably via an array of journal articles, to make sense of the Mnangagwa regime and, in particular, to identify and unpack the continuities and changes in Zimbabwe with the shift from Mugabe to Mnangagwa (Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Ruhanya 2020). In the main, this literature claims that the Mugabe-Mnangagwa transition is marked primarily by continuities, and even a deepening of some of the more troubling elements of Mugabe’s rule, notably the further militarisation of politics. This book seeks to contribute to this literature. In doing so, in this introductory chapter, we revisit certain thoughts of Gramsci and in particular the formulations of Stuart Hall, one of the foremost interpreters of Gramsci’s oeuvre, in order to offer one possible analytical framing for the ensuing chapters. This is important because, as with the ‘crisis literature’, the ‘transition literature’ about the shift from Mugabe to Mnangagwa typically lacks solid analytical input. In Prison Notebooks, Gramsci argued as follows:

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K. Helliker and G. Moyo A crisis occurs, sometimes lasting for decades. This exceptional duration means that uncurable structural contradictions have revealed themselves … and that, despite this, the political forces which are struggling to conserve and defend the existing structure itself are making efforts to cure them within certain limits, and to overcome them. These incessant and persistent efforts … form the terrain of the conjunctural and it is upon this terrain that the forces of opposition organise (Gramsci 1971: 178–179, our emphasis).

In an article detailing the Thatcherite move to the neoliberal right, Hall articulated Gramsci’s views in the following way: Gramsci insisted that we get the “organic” and “conjunctural” aspects of the crisis into a proper relationship. What defines the “conjunctural” – the immediate terrains of struggle – is not simply the given economic conditions, but precisely the “incessant and persistent” efforts which are being made to defend and conserve the position. If the crisis is deep – “organic” –these efforts cannot be merely defensive. They will be formative: a new balance of forces, the emergence of new elements, the attempt to put together a new “historical bloc”, new political configurations and “philosophies”, a profound restructuring of the state and the ideological discourses which construct the crisis and represent it as it is “lived” as a practical reality; new programmes and policies, pointing to a new result, a new sort of “settlement” – “within certain limits”. These do not “emerge”: they have to be constructed. Political and ideological work is required to disarticulate old formations, and to rework their elements into new configurations. The “swing to the Right” [under Thatcherism] is not a reflection of the crisis: it is itself a response to the crisis (Hall 1979:15, our emphasis).

Hall’s specific interpretation of Gramsci, including how he conceptualises ‘conjuncture’ and ‘crisis’ and their analytical entanglements, is the subject of considerable criticism (Shalbak 2018). Additionally, he was focusing on a very different kind of social formation decades ago, namely, the transition from Keynesian welfare to a neoliberal workfare state in advanced capitalist conditions, albeit one marked by authoritarian populism. Nevertheless, the argument about the construction of a formative project which seeks somehow to address a crisis but only within certain limits (i.e. not going beyond the essential elements of the prevailing system) seems of particular relevance to today’s Zimbabwe under Mnangagwa. Hopefully, in the following brief comments, we are able to bring to the fore, tantalisingly, the likely significance of Gramsci’s crisis formulation for at least asking some of the key questions about the Mugabe-Mnangagwa transition, thereby offering a crucial bridge between the old ‘crisis literature’ and the new ‘transition literature’. In seeking to come to terms with the form of the Mugabe-Mnangagwa transition, the prevailing literature incorporates into its analyses the kinds of issues and events set out by Hall. Hence, the Zimbabwean ‘transition literature’ examines the ‘new sort of settlement’ of the so-called Second Republic involving ‘new philosophies’ (for instance, the ‘open for business’ discourse) and ‘new programmes and policies’ (such as the Political Actors Dialogue and the supposed reconciliation around the Gukurahundi). Some of these initiatives (for example, revising the indigenisation programme and the former white commercial farmers’ new found favour) are ‘new’ only in the sense of harking back to the ‘pre-2000 Mugabe’ period (Raftopoulos 2019). The overall conclusion of this literature is that the transition is first and foremost, if not entirely, marked by continuity. Though we do not necessarily dispute this conclusion, it is reached by way of a flattened and linear path involving

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broad brushstrokes. In the end, the literature tends to rule out the possibility of any discontinuity. We see dimensions of this in the important work of Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni. In his book on Mugabeism in 2015, Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2015) highlights quite rightly the conservative character of Mugabeism saying, for instance, that it ‘falls short of being a genuine decolonial project’ (2015:2) and that it ‘masquerades as a revolutionary phenomenon’ (2015:16). At the same time, and importantly, Ndlovu-Gatsheni highlights ‘the ambiguities, contradictions, and ambivalences displayed by Mugabe’ (2015:7), going on to argue that Mugabeism is ‘eclectic’, ‘does not exist as a coherent ideology’ and is ‘ensnared in a nest of contradictions’ (2015:16). These contradictions seem to be understood dialectically, as a set of social and political forces pulling in opposite directions. This tends to imply the possibility of progressive impulses existing within Mugabeism, if only imposed from outside. Five years later, in his work on the Mugabe-Mnangagwa transition (Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Ruhanya 2020), contradictory tendencies seem to disappear from the overarching analysis, or at least only minor contradictions exist. Under the sweeping notion of ‘repetition without change’, the Mnangagwa regime is depicted as ‘a direct child of Mugabeism; indeed, Mugabeism is its recurrent theme’ (Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Ruhanya 2020:4). Hence, Mnangagwa ‘has not committed himself to any reform agenda’ and ‘genuine democratic reforms are not on the horizon for the Mnangagwa regime’ (Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Ruhanya (2020:12, 19). There is no evidence of a transition beyond Mugabeism (i.e. a transition from a semi-authoritarian illiberal state to a decolonised liberal democracy) and no progressive change at all even within Mugabeism. Again, these conclusions may be true. However, they are reached un-dialectically, without proper weight given to the multiple contradictions constituting the conjunctural crisis in Zimbabwe today. In the past, transitions in Zimbabwe have been uneven, ambivalent and internally differentiated (Sylvester 1990; Mkandawire 2020), and this needs to be brought to the fore regarding the Mugabe-Mnangagwa transition. We propose that this requires taking seriously, in an analytical sense, the formative project under Mnangagwa alongside the limits within which it exists. The existing literature tends to emphasise the latter (the limits) and downplays the former (the formative). The existence and indeed pervasiveness of formative projects in Africa abound, including with regard to the so-called third wave of democracy and the more recent Arab Spring in northern Africa, and there is a wealth of scholarly literature on these processes of liberalisation. Hence, taking seriously, in an analytical sense, the formative project under the Second Republic should not be seen as out of place. Of course, many of these projects have been stalled, truncated, incomplete and even reversed, and because of the contradictory trajectories embedded within them. Seeking to understand the repeated failures of formative projects in Africa is a conundrum, though the question of risk becomes central to any analysis. In reflecting upon the Apartheid state’s reformist initiatives in South Africa in the 1980s and early 1990s, journalist Allister Sparks (1992) spoke about President F.W. de Klerk as ‘a figure seemingly caught up in a whirlwind of forces he himself has unleashed’ since becoming state president in early 1989. Sparks then asked

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the question: ‘Can anyone ride the tiger of reform on this scale and survive?’ By the late 1980s in South Africa, the scale of reform was growing significantly—in contrast to Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe—but this was the culmination of a long and convoluted process dating back to the 1970s. Indeed, the previous president (P.W. Botha), known as the ‘Die Groot Krokodil’ (The Great Crocodile), put a break on the reform initiative. In his famous speech in 1985, which became known as the Rubicon speech, he articulated the ambiguous position that—under his leadership— South Africa would not cross the Rubicon, though claiming that it already had. Even by 1985, less than a decade before the collapse of Apartheid and only five years before the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, there was a ‘reluctance on the part of [president] P.W. Botha and his ministers [even his more liberal verligte ministers] to consider in principle legislative power for black South African citizens at higher governmental levels’, as this was a ‘“risky” idea’ (Cloete 2019:142, 139) which could potentially end white rule. By 1985, Botha had in fact ‘reached the ceiling of his transformative potential’ (Cloete 2019:144). However, and this is the important point, ‘the troubled process of political transformation in South Africa … had unintended consequences and could not be fully controlled as the NP [National Party] government had envisaged’ (Cloete 2019: 154). It may be that Mnangagwa (Zimbabwe’s ‘Great Crocodile’) does not want to venture too closely to the Rubicon (let alone cross it), to avoid the ‘whirlwind of forces’. Saul and Gelb (1981) examined the possibility of a transition from the racist authoritarian Apartheid state to a non-racial liberal democracy in South Africa, at a time when white rule seemed lodged firmly in place. In doing so, they brought to the fore the analytical and political importance of the South African state’s reform initiatives (despite any limitations), which they equate with a formative project. Reform or formative efforts may entail opening Pandora’s box and is potentially a two-edged sword in facilitating the coming into existence of ‘uncontrollable forces’ (Saul and Gelb 1981:40, 41, 57). The formative measures may be minimalistic and without risk to the prevailing regime, as they were during the—at times—stalled transition away from Apartheid. In this regard, Saul and Gelb (1981:57) go on to argue: ‘Ironically, in the game of reform, the … [dominant classes] stand to win most when they put themselves most at risk—precisely at the point, that is, where the attempt at cooptation could most easily collapse into significant concession’. A meaningful formative strategy occurs when the dominant classes or state move forward towards the limits (or boundaries) of change through reaching a ‘threshold of meaningful risk’ (Saul and Gelb 1981:75), close to the swirling forces, which eventually appeared in the late 1980s in South Africa. Opposition movements, for Saul and Gelb (1981), must carefully unpack the character of each and every dimension of a formative project, in terms of formulating appropriate strategies and tactics. Using ‘a more technocratic economistic message’ (Raftopoulos 2019:18), the Mnangagwa regime presents itself as pursuing significant reform-based change in moving beyond Mugabeism—from the illiberal democracy and economic mismanagement under Mugabe to a more neoliberal democracy dispensation. As Mnangagwa said in 2018: ‘We look forward to playing a positive and constructive role as a free,

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democratic, transparent and responsible member of the family of nations’ (Mnangagwa 2018: 9). There is a formative project under Mnangagwa which contains a number of reforms, many of which are examined in the ensuing chapters. The critical point relates to the extent to which this project involves meaningful changes which somehow disrupt the blatant continuities of Mugabeism across the transition and lead to a fundamentally new political settlement. Though the reforms may appear insignificant and unworthy of serious attention, the formative elements might be crucial elements for conserving the overall system, whether designated as Mugabeism or not. Their significance should not be downplayed because a formative project, as it develops over time, is typically a project for recalibrating and reconstituting hegemonic rule (Colpani 2021), no matter how insincere, incoherent and unstable the formative project in Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe so far, and no matter the failures built into the hegemonic project. In this context, the prevailing ‘transition literature’ tends, partly in knee-jerk fashion, to be dismissive of the project by prioritising continuity over discontinuity at all costs, as if the formative project is completely irrelevant given the ongoing repressive project of Mnangagwa’s state. This leads to the failure of examining the contradictory tendencies embedded in the state and any progressive moments in it. We agree that the project, to date, does not entail any significant overall risk to the Mnangagwa regime, as the regime is constructing the project so that it remains within ‘certain limits’ beyond which it simply refuses to travel. However, in riding the tiger of formative projects, there may emerge a gathering of steam and momentum which make braking difficult— this is the risk that Mnangagwa is taking, that is, reaching if only unknowingly and unwillingly a point of no return. Risk is a central concern for the Second Republic, and it must be understood in relation to the history of civil–military relations in Zimbabwe. Ultimately, since 1980, the ruling ZANU-PF party has always relied quite extensively upon the military and other security agencies to remain in power. The military overthrew the Mugabe regime and installed the Mnangagwa regime. Further, as an increasingly militarised form of state, Mnangagwa’s Second Republic is marked by significant militarycum-political interests. In a statement two days before the coup in November 2017, General Chiwenga highlighted that ‘[i]t is pertinent to restate that the Zimbabwe Defence Forces remain the major stockholder in respect to the gains of the liberation struggle and when these are threatened, we are obliged to take corrective measures’ (quoted in Chidza 2017). While referring specifically to the ensuing coup events, the notion of the military as ‘stockholders’ also has implications for any post-coup formative project, as the military elite have their own conceptions of risk, and of limits beyond which the Second Republic must not travel. Nevertheless, the argument about continuity and remaining within the confines of Mugabeism seems too final, at least as a definitive conclusion. As Hall astutely argues: ‘Crises are moments of potential change, but the nature of their resolution is not given. It may be that society moves on to another version of the same thing…, or to a somewhat transformed version ….; or relations can be radically transformed’ (Hall and Massey 2010:55). While there is no evidence of the new being born under

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Mnangagwa, this does not mean that there is nothing emerging which is of significance (Spielman 2018) and which forms the basis for some kind of renewal (Grayson and Little 2017). By focusing on the authoritarian streak of Mnangagwa’s rule, the ‘transition literature’ tends to focus on ‘the dominant’ and not ‘the emergent’ yet it is the latter which depicts ‘uncertainty and possibility’ (Clarke 2010: 340). After all, repression and consensual rule should not be understood dualistically. Rather, the field of hegemonic work is ‘constantly traversed by shifting [including formative] strategies seeking to produce consent, contain dissent and, last but not least, use force to produce consent’ (Clarke 2010: 342). Any failure to consider seriously the formative project of Mnangagwa is bound to provide an incomplete analysis of the Mugabe-Mnangagwa transition. In this light, we provide a narrative of events under Mnangagwa, incorporating some analytical thoughts in the process.

3 Events Under Mnangagwa The emergence of the Second Republic in November 2017 was received with enormous joy by enthusiastic crowds from all walks of life as representing the end of a dark era and the beginning of a new dawn of democratic governance in Zimbabwe— as if it were to become an unbridled formative project. Many Zimbabweans in fact seemed to believe that almost magically overnight all the deep social, political, and economic ills inherited from Robert Mugabe’s long years of semi-dictatorship would be resolved and a modern, progressive and democratic developmental state created (Noyes 2020). Yet, four years later, the story is very different and the mood is quite sombre. Certainly, the Mnangagwa administration is now showing clear evidence of a relapse into or continuity with Mugabe’s autocratic past, thereby demonstrating that the events of November 2017 do not represent a rupture or watershed in Zimbabwean history. The focus of this book lies in the continuities and discontinuities between Mugabe’s reign and that of the Mnangagwa administration, including their implications for democracy and development in Zimbabwe. The book examines the ‘frenetic birth’ and apparent current moribund condition of the ‘Second Republic’, though this introductory chapter is hesitant about pronouncing the hopes and dreams centred on the Second Republic as completely dead. In the immediate months after Mugabe’s forced departure in November 2017, there remained cautious optimism that the new administration was intending to delink itself from the horrendous past signified by Mugabe’s autocratic rule. Broadly speaking, Mugabe left behind a divided nation, a dislocated national economy, a decayed social and physical infrastructure, a demoralised civil service, and a political elite tainted by crass opportunism and corruption. The question which many observers posed regarding Mnangagwa’s emerging administration was centred on the extent to which it was ready to transform the form of state rulership in Zimbabwe and bring in a democratic dispensation. At first, it appeared that Mnangagwa was primarily about

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a formative—transformative—project, aspects of which we detail below, though not in a coherent and strident sense. Upon assuming power, Mnangagwa promised Zimbabweans and the world a new era of economic and political reconstruction for Zimbabwe and a vision of an Upper Middle-Class Economy. He committed his government to build confidence and legitimacy by restoring property rights, ensuring macro-economic stability and growth, achieving fiscal consolidation, clearing external debt arrears, and improving governance and the business environment to generate broad-based growth and jobs. Thus, the new President described his government as the ‘New Dispensation’ and a government that is ‘Open for Business’. This was further buttressed by his declaration of the Vox Populi, Vox Dei mantra which means ‘the Voice of the People is the Voice of God’. These slogans announced the frenetic birth of the ‘Second Republic’, the end and the apparent reversal of Mugabe’s dictatorial era, and the configuration of a new political order. In his rhetoric, Mnangagwa promised investors, financiers, creditors, and donors a shift from Mugabe’s Afro-radical rhetoric, Nativist practices, and economic nationalism, all of which were particularly prevalent from the year 2000. He spoke about an efficiently run and vibrant economy alongside a political reform agenda founded on the principles of democratic governance, rule of law, constitutionalism, and constitutionality. Not surprisingly, some Euro-American powers, investors, corporations, financiers, creditors, donors and diplomats saw the emerging ‘Second Republic’ as offering an opportunity to recover the geo-political and geo-economic space that was lost to Beijing and the Kremlin during the past two decades of their tenuous relationship with the Mugabe regime (Moyo 2020). In direct contrast to the ‘old order’, the new national authorities promised civil liberties to Zimbabweans such that all citizens were free to speak their mind and express themselves however they choose, including politically. At the same time, Mnangagwa spoke about ending impunity and creating a conducive environment for domestic and foreign direct investment. This meta-narrative was viewed as a major departure from Mugabe’s acerbic rhetoric and heteronormative stance on Euro-American designs. For example, internally, the Mnangagwa administration made changes to the Indigenisation and Empowerment Act decreeing initially that, in the mining sector, the 51% local ownership requirement would now only apply to diamonds and platinum (Raftopoulos 2019; African Development Bank 2019; Rupiya 2018). The Government has now gone further and removed the requirements for the diamond and platinum subsectors. It has also sought to reconcile with the former white commercial farmers, at least via a compensation package. These, and other changes, were sweet music to the global capitalists who were eager to have their foothold back in Zimbabwe, especially when Harare expressed its intentions to re-join the Commonwealth as well as re-engage the rest of the international community following long years of international isolation and targeted measures and sanctions (African Development Bank 2019; Dore 2018). To Mnangagwa’s credit, foreign direct investment improved following the ousting of Mugabe, with US$1 billion in investment projects approved by the Zimbabwe Investment Authority in the first quarter of 2018, compared to just US$150 million

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for the same period in 2017 (Moyo 2020; European Union Parliamentary Research Service 2018). Overall, Mnangagwa was purportedly ready to embrace the neoliberal policy orthodox as stipulated by the global juridico-economic programmes of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the World Economic Forum (WEF). Meanwhile, the ‘Second Republic’ embraced the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) which represents a unique collaborative effort by African countries to bolster regional and economic integration in a world where the former President of the United States, Donald Trump, was increasingly canvassing for protectionism, economic nationalism, unilateralism, the building of walls, waging of trade and tariff wars against competitors (Moyo 2021; Lunenborg 2019). As part of its strategic goal if not public relations stint, the Mnangagwa administration also spoke of its commitment to settling its arrears and debt to its creditors. This was because Mugabe left Zimbabwe badly indebted to multilateral lenders including the World Bank, the African Development Bank, and the European Investment Bank. He also left the country heavily indebted to most of the countries of the trans-Atlantic community as well as to Japan, India, the Republic of Korea, Kuwait, the Russian Federation and South Africa, among other bilateral Paris Club and nonParis Club creditors. The new government promised to re-open dialogue with all its creditors as a responsible member of the international community. However, contrary to this, Zimbabwe’s sovereign debt has continued to spiral unabated under Mnangagwa, thereby contributing to the growing questioning of the new government’s commitment to reverse the ills of the First Republic of Robert Mugabe. Additionally, on the civil and political front, the Mnangagwa administration has made changes to certain oppressive laws such as the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), though some observers argue that this was meant merely to placate the international community, civil society, and the opposition parties—all of which have been incessantly calling for the repeal of these draconian laws. POSA was repealed, but replaced with the almost identical Maintenance of Peace and Order Act (MOPA), while AIPPA was repealed but in effect resurrected through the Freedom of Information Act and the New Media Accreditation and Registration Fees. Mnangagwa also set out to curb corruption. Under his predecessor’s rule, Zimbabwe ranked number 157 of 180 countries in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index in 2017 (Transparency International 2018). At that time, Transparency International estimated that Zimbabwe was losing approximately US$1 billion annually from corruption, making it one of the most important threats to the country’s social and economic development. The early indications of the ‘Second Republic’, at least at the level of executive rhetoric, was that (for the sake of the well-being of the economy and the viability of government) corruption would be frontally tackled. This is witnessed through the work of the constitutionally mandated National Anti-Corruption Commission. To demonstrate its commitment to combating corruption, the Mnangagwa government made a number of notable arrests for corruption or for the alternate charge of abuse of office. For example, the former Finance Minister Ignatius Chombo was

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arrested on charges of criminal abuse of office over the way he handled the housing scheme code named Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle programme in Whitecliff farm in Harare, and former Mines and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa and his former Permanent Secretary Professor Francis Gudyanga were arrested on charges of abuse of office. In addition, two Cabinet Ministers appointed by President Mnangagwa, that is, Jorum Gumbo (the Minister of State in the President’s Office) and Prisca Mupfumira (the Minister of Tourism and Hospitality Industries) were both arrested and jailed for corruption. More recently, Obadiah Moyo (the former Minister of Health and Child Care) was arrested for crimes associated with the procurement of Covid-19 pandemic material. Despite this impressive list of arrests, corruption continues to fester in state institutions and some of the arrested ministers and officials have been released without returning their ill-gotten gains to the state. Hence, scholars have tended to be quite dismissive of the government’s stance on corruption, labelling it (along with other liberalising measures under the so-called New Dispensation) as insignificant at best and as a façade at worst. On the electoral front, Mnangagwa has spoken publicly and repeatedly about his government’s commitment to democratic elections, including holding free, fair and credible elections in 2018. In order to concretise this democratic discourse, Mnangagwa signed the African Union (AU) Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance which Mugabe had refused to sign for many years. To further enhance his reformist agenda or formative project, Mnangagwa ended the ban on the EuroWestern observation of Zimbabwean elections introduced by Mugabe in 2002. The 2018 elections were therefore the most internationally monitored and observed elections in Africa with 46 countries and 15 regional and continental bodies involved, plus a legion of international and regional media houses including the CNN, the SABC, the BBC and the Al Jazeera (Moyo 2020; Raftopoulos 2019; Rupiya 2018; Zimbabwe Election Support Network 2018). By the same token, a battery of electoral reforms was implemented, including creating a fresh voters’ roll based on the Biometric Voter Registration process; enhancing citizen access to the Voters Roll Inspection process; instituting Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) Outreach and Communications mechanisms; barring traditional leaders from partisan politics; and enacting a Political Party Code of Conduct as well as improving the integrity of assisted voting (Solidarity Peace Trust 2018; Raftopoulos 2019; European Union Parliamentary Research Service 2018; Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network 2018). On paper at least, these represent important departures from Mugabe’s past. Nevertheless, the 2018 elections left six protestors dead at the hands of the military, the kind of incident that had never openly happened in an election period under Mugabe. This particular episode appeared to announce the ‘sudden death’ of the ‘Second Republic’ for many Zimbabweans and to some key global geo-economic actors, less than a year after its celebrated ‘birth’ in 2017 (Moyo 2020). Indeed, the 2018 elections remain contested to this day. All of the measures, policies, strategies, and practices, as outlined above, fall broadly within the scope of a formative project which, at least rhetorically, seeks to bring about economic and political liberalisation and thereby transition away from a semi-authoritarian state. They all purportedly aim at combating and correcting

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the deficiencies of the Mugabe regime which had combined to produce ongoing economic decline, poverty and social dislocation. To many people, the ‘Second Republic’ was initially viewed, if only erroneously, as a new beginning and an end to Mugabeism and its anachronistic descriptors—including intimidation, personalisation of power, egoism, Nativism, chauvinism, debauchery, sycophancy, and Afroradical narrow nationalism. However, it soon became tempting to conclude that this project was merely a smoke-screen (a crude project of legitimation), and that it must be first and foremost analysed within the ontological realm of political ideas and not—more meaningful—political practices. This tended to entail dismissing the formative project altogether as stillborn and focusing rather on continuities. In this context, the continuities in the transition from Mugabe to Mnangagwa are now seen as the fundamental marker of the transition, as we discuss below. Nevertheless, we suggest that a formative project did and does exist, but it remains stalled. The move from the realm of ideas to the realm of practices is highly tentative and circumscribed because of the significant risks involved in the project for the Mnangagwa regime and due to the powerful countervailing forces prevailing, notably, the military elite. The Government of National Unity, out of which the new constitution arose, is a warning to ZANU-PF and Mnangagwa about the risks of even partial reform, as the constitution tends to underpin the formative project. Thus, as the scholarly literature highlights, the ‘Second Republic’ is clearly reproducing many of the economic, social and political ills of the previous regime. The debt crisis, poverty, malnutrition, corruption, electoral machinations and violence are some of the most glaring signs of this continuity. Because of this, it is now generally argued that the change of guard from Mugabe to Mnangagwa involved changing the content of the conversation without changing the terms of the conversation, as Mugabeism and the legacies of Mugabe continue to structure Zimbabwe’s political economy. The godly metaphor and divine message of the Vox Populi, Vox Dei has come crashing down to earth so to speak, with the human rights situation deteriorating, post-electoral violence taking a centre stage, political space shrinking, corruption at high levels expanding, and reckless government borrowing rising (Moyo 2020). Under these conditions, the uneven pursuance of neoliberal austerity measures has hastened de-industrialisation and brought back cash shortages, power outages and a cash crisis. Not surprisingly, on 14 January 2019, many Zimbabweans responded to the haphazard austerity measures by pouring out onto the streets and engaging in civil disobedience and direct action against the ‘Second Republic’, which once again led to military violence on the streets. The tell-tale signs of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe are all around under Mnangagwa. Thus, over seven million people were in dire need of food assistance due to the poor 2019/2020 farming season and the government was simply unable to ensure food security for vulnerable communities. Other trends include: private debt is strangling many households; unemployment is affecting many layers of society; social delivery services are being wound back to the point where living standards have dropped to heart-wrenching levels; significant decays in the health sector and education sectors abound; and the remnants of a once-vibrant manufacturing sector continue to crumble. The Covid-19 pandemic has brought all this to the fore in a very stark

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manner and exacerbated it at the same time. In addition, there is inflationary pressure and currency depreciation through government profligacy. Mnangagwa administration’s stop-gap measures have proven futile in the absence of a sound attempt to boost the economy. Short-term policy responses reminiscent of the Mugabe era such as subsidised urban transport, free agricultural input scheme, subsidised prices of meal-mealie, and garrison shops for the security sector focus only on the gains that can be won today and ignore the costs and consequences borne tomorrow. Thus, in undercutting the initial hope experienced at the expiry of Mugabe’s regime, Zimbabwe’s new government has adopted a much more ruthless campaign to shrink civic, political, and epistemic spaces. The renewed crackdown is characterised by the criminalisation of public dissent in the name of national security; tightening of the security sector control over civil society; and targeted harassment and defamation of Zimbabwe’s leading human rights activists and journalists. It has also sought to divide and conquer the opposition political parties, through co-option via the Political Actors Dialogue and judicial action. With these actions, the Mnangagwa administration does not seem to be designing a new institutional future for Zimbabwe. The problems of the post-Mugabe era appear to have been compounded by the military element which was instrumental in ousting Mugabe in November 2017. Apparently, the military sector gained some clout by dismantling Mugabe’s authoritarian regime. Subsequently, the military establishment has further expanded its footprints in most of the sectors of the economy including mining, agriculture, hunting, and manufacturing during the post-Mugabe era. This intensified military incursion into the various spheres of the economy has been motivated by its desire to protect its commercial and business interests, as well as safeguard and consolidate power which it assumed as a result of its pivotal role in dethroning Mugabe. More recently, the Mnangagwa government gazetted the Proposed Constitutional Amendment (No.2) Bill of 2019 which seeks to amend 27 provisions of the current constitution. The passage of these amendments is likely to open the door for greater polarisation in the country as well as undermine the democratic gains achieved through the adoption of the Constitution in 2013. Through some of the proposed amendments, the President and his associates desire to re-centralise power and return to the one centre of power principle which characterised Mugabe’s reign. Among the other motives for amending the constitution is Mnangagwa’s strategy of managing the factional fights within the ruling party. For example, the proposal to amend the procedures regulating the appointment and removal of the Vice Presidents will weaken the position of one of the current vice presidents (Chiwenga) who has ambitions to succeed the incumbent President. If this proposal is enacted into law, the current two Vice Presidents will be vulnerable to dismissal from office by the President at any time, thereby allowing him to anoint his successor from his own faction. As the criticisms against Mnangagwa are now increasing, he has exhibited increasing signs of insecurity and repressive tendencies that are not dissimilar to those of his predecessor—hence the attempt to use the constitution as a defensive shield. Not only is the hope for democracy threatened in the country. As well, Zimbabwe’s corporate existence is endangered by the activities of many influential public officials, and business and political elite. Key sectors of the corporate elite seek government

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contracts, state-backed loans, bailouts, pegged currencies and controlled interest rates in times of crisis. While Zimbabwean citizens were expecting democratic change after Mugabe, they remain beholden to the corporate class and its state functionaries. The net result is that ordinary citizens seem to have gradually lost hope in the system that replaced the Mugabe regime. Zimbabwean scholars have likewise lost hope if their conclusions are anything to go by: namely, that any formative project was a non-starter and that Mnangagwa is now coming out of the shadows and showing his true colours, that is, the authoritarian hue of Mugabeism. While this is a valid analytical conclusion, we argue that it remains insensitive to the systemic contradictions (including the progressive impulses of a formative project, no matter how circumscribed) which characterise Mnangagwa’s rulership. These contradictions continue to unfold in an open-ended and contingent way, such that an analytical awareness of the formative project and its risks and limitations is central to any study of Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe. The volume adds to the growing scholarly literature on the transition from Mugabe to Mnangagwa and contributes to a fuller understanding of the form and character of the Second Republic. In doing so, it seeks to question the now standard and seemingly hegemonic analysis of the Second Republic by adopting a more dialectical and less teleological account of the Mnangagwa regime, in large part by recognising—via Gramsci and Hall—the presence of a formative project, no matter how partial and limited this project might be. Overall, the ensuing chapters do not explicitly refer to Gramsci, and the authors of these chapters may not be in agreement with the analytical framing set out in this chapter. Combined, though the authors provide stimulating insights into a diverse array of issues pertinent to a consideration of Mnangagwa’s formative project, and they do so in insightful and critical ways. All of the chapters, in their own way, examine the political economy of transition under Mnangagwa’s rulership, as well as the complicated and contingent challenges his rulership faces in reconfiguring and stabilising the hegemonic project of ZANU-PF.

4 Volume Outline The chapters in this volume are divided thematically into three sections: civil and political liberties; governance; and development. To reiterate, all of the chapters examine critically one or more aspects of the formative project under Mnangagwa, with many shortcomings and challenges highlighted in the process. Hence, they identify the limits beyond which the Mnangagwa government is seemingly unwilling to travel, because of the deep risks involved in doing so. The titles of the sections speak to the claims and intentions of Mnangagwa’s government, which each of the chapters interrogate. Part I covers the first theme, namely, ‘Activating Civil and Political Liberties’, which contains four chapters. In Chap. 2, Tobias Guzura focuses on the quest for transitional justice and the failures of the Mnangagwa government in this regard. He notes that Mnangagwa enunciated a policy of openness that many Zimbabweans

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believed would lay a foundation for pursuing transitional justice. In his inaugural speech, Mnangagwa provided pointers to his stance on transitional justice when he said that ‘I thus humbly appeal to all of us that we let bygones be bygones, readily embracing each other in defining a new destiny’. To the discerning, this clearly showed his unwillingness to accept culpability for past injustices. Against this background, the chapter provides a critique regarding the prospects of attaining transitional justice under Mnangagwa’s watch. The chapter posits that the lack of a genuine transition post-Mugabe has dented all prospects of transitional justice and the agency entrusted with this task, the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission, lacks the necessary teeth and autonomy to execute its mandate. This leads to serious doubts about the genuineness of Mnangagwa’s formative project, with the risks entailed in pursuing meaningful transitional justice posing serious limitations. Chapter 3, by Mandlenkosi Ndlovu and Christopher Ndlovu, consider more specifically the question of reconciliation and Mnangagwa’s missed opportunities in pursuing this. They argue that what emerges poignantly from the first few years of the ‘Second Republic’ is that Zimbabweans’ expectations for political transformation and, in particular, political inclusivity and national reconciliation, remain a mirage. It appears that the ‘Second Republic’ is failing to harness the political unity, hope and enthusiasm that was prevalent during the build-up and actual ouster of Mugabe to foster meaningful national reconciliation and political unity. The ‘Second Republic’ appears to be robust in political rhetoric, but deficient in practice. The main argument advanced in this chapter is that the hopes that Zimbabweans had in the ‘Second Republic’ at the beginning (around 2017–2018) are fast fading when it comes to reconciliation. The risks for the Mnangagwa regime, if it were to enact genuine reconciliation as part of his formative project, are quite high as this would bring about serious questions about the very legitimacy of the regime and of Mnangagwa’s leadership of it. Following closely on from this, in Chap. 4, Rodney Ruwende examines the issue of systemic corruption in Zimbabwe and the Second Republic’s stance on this. Mnangagwa has declared war on corruption and scored some levels of success through enhanced legislation and a renewed vigour to fight the scourge. However, this effort has become somewhat problematic given the continued blatant abuse of state resources by politically connected individuals. This chapter seeks to show that corruption is reducing the chances of the country attaining an upper-middle-class economic status and inhibiting progress towards effective functioning democratic institutions. Zimbabweans generally have no confidence in the ability of the government to fight corruption and there is a general lack of political will to address the problem of corruption. In this regard, Mnangagwa’s formative project with specific reference to corruption is taking place within strict limits, as a pronounced anticorruption crusade would likely undermine the very political hegemony of the ruling party. The last chapter in this section, Chap. 5, is about media policies and practices. In this chapter, Mandlenkosi Mpofu examines Mnangagwa’s approach to democratic principles and the rule of law, and he argues that the Second Republic’s declared intentions have not been matched by its actions with specific reference to the media.

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Since the general elections in July 2018, Zimbabweans have experienced various forms of repression that have included violent disruption of demonstrations and the brutal and public killing of civilian protestors by the army. This assault on civic spaces and basic liberties has been accompanied by similar efforts targeting opposition political parties and spaces. In this context, the chapter shows that the new regime has used different tactics, including co-optation, to control the media and emasculate communicative spaces. Far from delivering on promises of a more open dispensation with respect for basic human rights, the pursuit of any of the new ZANU-PF government’s assurances around media are conditional on the security of their rule—this means that the formative project becomes stalled whenever risks to the Mnangagwa regime arise. The second section (Part II) is titled ‘Reconfiguring Governance’ and also has four chapters. In Chap. 6, Divane Nzima and Geogina Charity Gumindega speak about the politics of Jecharism with regard to the Second Republic. The politics of deliberate systematic sabotage in contemporary Zimbabwe (‘kudirajecha’ or Jecharism) is conceptualised and argued to be a key barrier to progress. While this is often associated with opposition party politics throughout Zimbabwe’s history, this strategy in fact has been employed by both ruling and opposition parties. It is a politics that negates the interests of the people of Zimbabwe in favour of politicians’ own selfinterests of consolidating their hold on power or their ambition to gain power. To move forward, politicians must exercise political tolerance and compromise. However, as in the past, this does not seem to be the case with reference to the Second Republic under Mnangagwa. Indeed, any ongoing Jecharism on the part of Mnangagwa’s government is bound to increase the possibility of the development of a formative project which does not take democratic transition and consolidation seriously. In Chap. 7, Rodrick Fayayo, McDonald Lewanika and Bheki Mngomezulu examine the role of traditional leaders in the Second Dispensation under Mnangagwa. The chapter seeks to understand whether there are continuities or discontinuities in the relationship between the traditional leadership and the Mnangagwa presidency in comparison to the previous Mugabe regime. It concludes that the Mnangagwa regime has adopted the same forms of bargains and compromises that were part of the Mugabe regime’s political strategy vis-à-vis traditional leaders. In particular, though the Mnangagwa-led government has ‘changed’ the strategy of fetishising traditional leaders, it has ensured that this leadership institution in rural spaces has remained constant and captive to political interests, with development strategies pertinent to the areas of jurisdiction of traditional leaders administered as part of the ruling party’s clientelist politics. At the same time, Mnangagwa’s ‘open for business mantra’—as part of his formative project—implies the possibility of a strengthened state–corporate alliance which lessens the dependence of his regime and its legitimacy on traditional leaders and the interests of the rural populace, leading to possible tensions which the Mnangagwa administration will need to balance. The following two chapters (8 and 9) examine devolution in Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe. Mbuso Moyo and Ray Motsi, in Chap. 8, identify and discuss the actual actions and interventions by the state for the realisation of a devolved political system in Zimbabwe, with devolution forming part of Mnangagwa’s formative project. While

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the new constitution of Zimbabwe was adopted under his tutelage in 2013, Mugabe had taken an unambiguous aversion to devolution. Instead of giving effect to constitutional provisions on devolution, Mugabe continued to implement the old clauses of Zimbabwe’s 1979 Lancaster House Constitution. Mnangagwa’s ascension to power hinted at a departure from Mugabe’s dictatorial and centralist system to a more open, accountable and devolved system of government. The transition has been elusive and progress disappointing. Mnangagwa has not only continued the actions that are ultra vires in Zimbabwe’s new constitution but has exhibited reticence to supporting meaningful actions that give effect to a devolved political system in Zimbabwe. The state’s anti-devolutionist stance is bolstered by ZANU-PF’s attachment to a centralised system. This system is the primary lever by which ZANU-PF continues to cling to power. For Mnangagwa, it appears that the risks entailed in pursuing devolution vigorously are too many. In Chap. 9, Didmus Dewa looks at the constraints and prospects of devolution implementation in Zimbabwe in the Mnangagwa era. The chapter offers a critical analysis of the devolution initiative since 2013 when it became a constitutional obligation. It traces devolution throughout Zimbabwe’s history and looks at the strides made, before discussing the current steps that have been taken in the post-Mugabe era. In this regard, Dewa considers a number of conceptual issues around devolution before dwelling more fully on policy and legislative issues around devolution in Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe. In focusing on variations in the scope, form and political dynamics of devolution, the chapter concludes that there are significant stumbling blocks to implementing devolution under Mnangagwa’s rule. In this light, like other dimensions of Mnangagwa’s formative project, there seems to be a hesitancy to pursue devolution with maximum vigour. Part III concentrates on the third and last theme, that of ‘Stimulating SocioEconomic Development’. Kucaca Ivumile Phulu and Serges Djoyou Kamga, in Chap. 10, consider this theme in terms of the right to development. Against the ‘open for business’ slogan and positive language around rights implementation, the chapter assesses if the new administration genuinely understands and is committed to implement Zimbabwe’s right to development. The Zimbabwean Constitution recognises a distinct right to development. It is therefore more than just a social or political demand; it is a legal right with enforceable legal responsibilities on governments to promote, defend and fulfil the right to development. The Second Republic’s shortcoming has been in failing to deliver on its promises, including during the time of the Covid-19 pandemic. While it sought to establish a suitable legislative framework for dealing with the pandemic, it failed in putting its policies into action. This entails a failure to live up to the constitutional obligation of ensuring the right to development. In this respect, even on what would seem like a safe and risk-free policy initiative (after all, who would argue against the right to development), the Mnangagwa’s government’s formative project falls short. Gorden Moyo, in Chap. 11, turns to the question of development finance, and particularly the controversies around Chinese development finance, in the postMugabe era. He argues that Mnangagwa has continued to depend on opaque Chinese financing models, despite promising the nation a new chapter of transparency,

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accountability and openness in his inauguration speech. The chapter further shows that, while the Mnangagwa presidency has been celebrating Chinese funding, the country has remained engrossed in a morass of a debilitating debt trap and has been struggling to extricate itself from debt peonage. Instead of contributing towards social and economic development, the Chinese loans to Zimbabwe under Mnangagwa are implicated in the deepening of debt sustainability problems in the country. His chapter therefore sets out to unpack the notion of ‘continuity and change’ by examining China’s expanding geo-economic footprint and the implications of this for debt sustainability in Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe. In this sense, the formative project of Mnangagwa’s, even in relation to foreign policy and investment, is not a risk-taking venture because it takes place within confined limits. In Chap. 12, Smart Manda and Admire Tarisirayi Chirume examine trends in social sector outcomes and assess the financing challenges in the post-Mugabe era. The economic crisis from 1998 to 2008 reversed some of the gains that Zimbabwe had achieved originally in social sector funding. From 2009, when the country adopted a multiple currency system, social sector outcomes improved. In 2016, however, the country’s economic fortunes reversed as the economy began to experience renewed challenges, including falling revenues and declining fiscal space, and shortage of foreign currency to import critical drugs, among other factors. These developments underline the need for additional financing requirements to close the widening financing gap in the social sectors in Zimbabwe. As this chapter shows, some of the possible financing options include broadening the tax base to unlock additional resources, particularly from the informal economy, exploring contributory schemes, tapping into international financial assistance, and strengthening public–private partnerships. Overall, it would seem that financing social sectors such as health and education would be less risky for Mnangagwa’s government in terms of pursuing a formative project, at least in comparison to reconciliation and transitional justice. However, pursuing health and education reforms has its own set of constraints. In Chap. 13, the last chapter in Part III, Peter Nkala analyses agricultural financing. The Fast Track Land Reform Programme of 2000 marks a watershed in the development of Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector and it continues to have far-reaching implications in relation to the possibilities of innovative and sustainable financing of agriculture. In this context, this chapter explores effective, innovative and sustainable agriculture financing approaches that address the financial needs of new farmers in post-Mugabe Zimbabwe. This includes innovations in traditional financing options such as conventional agricultural financing, bank loans, contract farming, joint venture financing, ICT-based mobile payment platforms, and financing of agricultural research and extension. The chapter shows that, to date, there is no clearly marked shift in agricultural financing in the transition from Mugabe to Mnangagwa as most financial institutions are still stuck in their traditional financing models with only cosmetic and superficial innovations in some instances. The willingness to move towards innovative approaches exists but the usual fear of the unknown hampers and slows down the desire to innovate, particularly among senior management of financial institutions.

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Finally, as editors, we offer our final thoughts in Chap. 14. This final, brief, chapter revisits the central issue of this book in the context of the preceding thematic-based chapters, namely, change and continuity in relation to the Mugabe and Mnangagwa governments, with a particular focus on what we label as Mnangagwa’s formative project. There is general agreement across the chapters that Zimbabwean scholars must not rush to conclusions about the fundamental character of the Mnangagwa regime, and that unpacking the various dimensions of the Second Republic’s formative project is a worthy analytical endeavour. However, despite the wide-ranging formal articulations of this project, the chapters demonstrate that the project has not taken off in any serious manner. Hence, as the chapters show in their own unique way, the project’s limitations are clearly evident. These limitations exist because, currently, the risks of change to power retention far exceed any risks arising from simply retaining the current political settlement. This raises deep concerns about the space for dissent and mobilisation leading up to the upcoming national elections in 2023. We conclude by arguing that until such time as ordinary Zimbabweans can openly dissent and mobilise against the Zimbabwean government without fear of repression, Mnangagwa’s formative project will remain stalled.

References African Development Bank (2019) Building a New Zimbabwe: targeted policies for growth and job creation, Zimbabwe Economic Report. African Development Bank Group. ISBN: 978-9938882-85-8 Chidza R (2017) Chiwenga calls Mugabe to order. Newsday. Available at: https://www.newsday. co.zw/2017/11/chiwenga-calls-mugabe-order/ Chiumbu S, Musemwa M (eds) (2012). HSRC Press, Cape Town Clarke J (2010) Of crises and conjunctures: the problem of the present. J Commun Inq 34(4):337–354 Cloete F (2019) Resolving P. W. Botha’s 1985 Rubicon riddle. Historia 64(2):132–155 Colpani G (2021) Two theories of hegemony: Stuart hall and Ernesto Laclau in conversation. Political Theory. https://doi.org/10.1177/2F00905917211019392 Dore D (2018) The art of creating money: an appraisal of Zimbabwe’s economy. Southern Africa Report 18 (November), ISS: Pretoria European Union parliamentary research service (2018) Zimbabwe’s post-electoral challenges. EUPRS, Brussels Gramsci A (1971) Selections from the prison notebooks. Lawrence and Wishart, London Grayson D, Little B (2017) Conjunctural analysis and the crisis of ideas. Soundings 65:59–75 Hall S (1979) The great moving right show. Marxism Today 14–20 Hall S, Massey D (2010) Interpreting the crisis. Soundings 44:57–71 Hall S, Critcher C, Jefferson T, Clarke J, Roberts B (1978) Policing the crisis: mugging, the state, and law and order. MacMillan, London Hammar A, Raftopoulos B, Jensen S (eds) (2003). Weaver Press, Harare Lunenborg P (2019) ‘Phase 1B’ of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) negotiations, Policy Brief, N0.63, (June), South Centre Mkandawire T (2020) Zimbabwe’s transition overload: an interpretation. J Contemp Afr Stud 38(1):18–38

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Mnangagwa E (2018) Inauguration speech by the incoming president of the Republic of Zimbabwe. Comrade Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa. National Sports Stadium, 26 Aug. https://irp-cdn. multiscreensite.com/ff7b7050/files/uploaded/HE%20INAUGURATION%20SPEECH.pdf Moore D (2001) Is the land the economy and the economy the land? Primitive accumulation in Zimbabwe. J Contemp Afr Stud 19(2):253–266 Moore D (2003) The ideological formation of the Zimbabwean ruling class. J South Afr Stud 17(3):472–495 Moore D (2007) ‘Intellectuals’ interpreting Zimbabwe’s primitive accumulation: progress to market civilisation? Safundi 8(2):199–222 Moyo G (2020) The fetishised role of external actors in Zimbabwe’s 2018 elections: implications for future plebiscites. Afri Stadia 141–157 Moyo G (2021) African agency, finance and developmental states. Palgrave Macmillan, New York Moyo S, Yeros P (2007a) The radicalised state: Zimbabwe’s interrupted revolution. Rev Afri Polit Econ 34(111):103–121 Moyo S, Yeros P (2007b) The Zimbabwe question and the two lefts. Hist Mater 15(3):171–204 Ndlovu-Gatsheni SJ (2015) Introduction: mugabeism and entanglements of history, politics, and power in the making of Zimbabwe. In: Ndlovu-Gatsheni SJ (ed) Mugabeism? History, politics, and power in Zimbabwe. Palgrave MacMillan, London Ndlovu-Gatsheni SJ, Ruhanya P (2020) Introduction: transition in Zimbabwe: from Gabriel Mugabe to Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa: a repetition without change. In: Ndlovu-Gatsheni SJ, Ruhanya P (eds) The history and political transition of Zimbabwe: from Mugabe to Mnangagwa. Palgrave MacMillan, Cham Noyes AH (2020) A new Zimbabwe? Assessing continuity and change after Mugabe, library of congress cataloguing-in- publication data. ISBN: 978-1-9774-0434-3 Raftopoulos B (2010) The global political agreement as a ‘passive revolution’: notes on contemporary politics in Zimbabwe. Round Table 99(411):705–718 Raftopoulos B (2019) Zimbabwe: regional politics and dynamics. Oxford Research Encyclopedia (Politics). Oxford University Press, Oxford. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637. 013.873 Rupiya M (2018) Zimbabwe: a former liberation movement in government and radical public policy transition since November 2017? Research Brief 12/2018, Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa (SIGLA): University of Stellenbosch Saul J, Gelb S (1981) The crisis in South Africa: class defense, class revolution. Monthly Review Press, London Saul J, Saunders R (2005) Mugabe, Gramsci and Zimbabwe at 25. Int J 60(4):953–975 Shalbak I (2018) Hegemony thinking: a detour through Gramsci. Thesis Eleven 147(1):45–61 Solidarity Peace Trust (2018) ‘Zimbabwe: the 2018 elections and their aftermath’ (1 November). Solidarity Peace Trust: Cape Town Sparks A (1992) Riding the tiger of reform in South Africa. The Washington Post Spielman D (2018) Marxism, cultural studies, and the “principle of historical specification”: on the form of historical time in conjunctural analysis. Lateral 7(1). https://doi.org/10.25158/L7.1.5 Sylvester C (1990) Simultaneous revolutions: the Zimbabwean case. J South Afr Stud 16(3):452– 475 Transparency International Zimbabwe (TIZ) (2018) Global perception index, Harare, TIZ. https:// www.transparency.org/country/ZWE. Accessed 9-Oct-2019 Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) (2018) Final ZESN 2018 harmonised election report. www.zesn.org.zw/2018/12/final-report. Accessed on 12 Oct 2019

Kirk Helliker is a Research Professor in the Department of Sociology at Rhodes University in South Africa, where he heads the Unit of Zimbabwean Studies, which he founded. The Unit was formed in 2015 and seeks to contribute to the development of emerging, early-career and midcareer Zimbabwean (and other) scholars. Professor Helliker publishes widely on Zimbabwean

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history, politics and society and has supervised a significant number of Ph.D. and MA students. His most recent co-edited books are: Capital Penetration and the Peasantry in Southern and Eastern Africa: Neoliberal Restructuring and Livelihoods of Ethnic Minorities in Rural Zimbabwe (both published in 2022) as well as Tonga Livelihoods in Rural Zimbabwe (2023). Gorden Moyo is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Lupane State University (LSU), Zimbabwe. He is also the Founder of an independent think tank – the Public Policy and Research Institute of Zimbabwe (PPRIZ). He received his PhD in African Leadership Development from the National University of Science and Technology, Zimbabwe. His research interests are in development finance, developmental states, emerging economies and African agency. His most recent book is African Agency Finance and Developmental States published in 2021 by Palgrave Macmillan. Previously, Moyo served as a Minister of State Enterprises and Parastatals in the Inclusive Government of Zimbabwe (2009–2013).

Activating Civil and Political Liberties

The Quest for Transitional Justice in the Post-Mugabe Era Tobias Guzura

Abstract The 15th of November 2017 was a watershed moment in Zimbabwean history, marking a new era in Zimbabwean politics, as the military executed a coup deposing long-ruling Robert Mugabe, ultimately replacing him with his recently fired deputy Emmerson Mnangagwa. His fall ushered in great hope as incoming President Mnangagwa articulated a policy of openness that many Zimbabweans believed would lay a foundation for pursuing transitional justice. Mnangagwa vowed a break from Mugabe’s authoritarian rule and economic mismanagement, declaring a “new Zimbabwe” that is “open for business”. In his inaugural speech, Mnangagwa provided pointers to his stance on reconciliation and transitional justice when he said that “I thus humbly appeal to all of us that we let bygones be bygones, readily embracing each other in defining a new destiny”. To the discerning, this clearly showed his unwillingness to accept culpability for past injustices. Against this background, this chapter provides a critique regarding the prospects of attaining transitional justice under Mnangagwa’s watch. The chapter posits that the lack of a genuine transition post-Mugabe has dented the prospects of transitional justice and the agency entrusted with this task, the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission, lacks the necessary teeth and autonomy to execute its mandate.

1 Introduction After 37 years in power, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe was toppled via a military coup in November 2017. His fall was accompanied by great hope as incoming President Emmerson Mnangagwa enunciated a policy of openness that many Zimbabweans believed would lay a foundation towards transitional justice (Mnangagwa 2017). Mnangagwa promised a break from Mugabe’s authoritarian rule and economic mismanagement, declaring a “new Zimbabwe” that is “open for business” (Quest and McKenzie 2018). Zimbabwe, in its current state and given T. Guzura (B) Zimbabwe Open University, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Moyo and K. Helliker (eds.), Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic, Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30129-2_2

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its troubled history, is in need of transitional justice. This necessity results from the colonial and post-colonial experiences of dehumanisation and brutalisation of segments of the populace in Zimbabwe. However, since coming to power in late 2017, Zimbabweans and foreigners alike have posed many searching questions about Mnangagwa’s rule to date. To what extent has Mnangagwa honoured his promises? Where is the country headed? Is Zimbabwe transitioning to becoming a complete democracy or it will remain a semi authoritarian state? Will its economy stabilise or decline further? What are the prospects and challenges for transitional justice? These questions need addressing and this chapter contends that, as long as the transitional justice question is not addressed, Zimbabwe’s democratic transition and consolidation will remain incomplete. It is the intention of this chapter to interrogate the importance of transitional justice processes for Zimbabwe as well as the challenges and prospects ingrained in such processes. The chapter contends that opportunities for effective peacebuilding and post-conflict restoration in any society, including Zimbabwe, hinge on the growth of an explicit skills-set to attend to the various challenges and opportunities offered by conflict and violence. In Zimbabwe, the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC), whose enabling act was promulgated in January 2018 by Mnangagwa, represents a first major attempt in this regard. The NPRC is an attempt to acknowledge and address past violent conflicts while building local capacities to guarantee a peaceful and harmonious future for all Zimbabweans. However, since its appointment, the commission has shown a lethargic approach to its work, clearly showing that not only is it toothless, but that it is also not independent as envisaged by the drafters of the 2013 constitution. Resultantly, it has not executed its mandate fully. For reasons such as the absence of a political will, inadequate resources, political interference and general ineptitude, the Commission has been bedevilled and constrained from accomplishing its Constitutional duties. This leads to serious doubts about the genuineness of Mnangagwa’s formative project, with the risks entailed in pursuing meaningful transitional justice posing serious limitations.

2 Background Zimbabwe’s history has a complex pre-colonial genealogy and complex experiences and memories of abusive, brutal, and violent settler colonialism. This repressive colonial system came to an end after a protracted armed liberation struggle that spanned over 15 years. A bloody liberation war fought against Rhodesia was ended by the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979 and followed by Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980. Mugabe won the country’s founding elections and stayed in power until he was overthrown in November 2017. Under Mugabe, Zimbabwe became a semi-authoritarian country, with power concentrated in the state executive. Since gaining independence, the country has regularly held flawed and violence-prone elections, with the playing field skewed in favour of the incumbent Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party. Despite (if not because of) its

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authoritarianism, ZANU-PF has tended to allow for the presence of a political-party system alongside the holding of regular elections and the convening of legislatures, as these institutions convey an aura of legitimacy to the Zimbabwean government, both domestically and to the outside world (Levitsky and Way 2002). It is often desirable to make changes under the cover of formal legislative institutions with ruling parties constituting a parliamentary majority. In fact, in many despotic regimes, there is surprising attention paid to issues of procedural integrity, even when passing the most draconian and unconstitutional of laws. Zimbabwe has, since independence, drifted from a hegemonic electoral authoritarian regime “which hold(s) elections, but they are so dominated by one political force or party that the electoral process and results are hegemonic” (Schedler 2002: 47), to the current situation which qualifies the country as a competitive electoral authoritarian regime which “hold(s) competitive elections that do not necessarily translate the preferences of voters” (Schedler 2002: 47). The former was the position in the period from 1980 to 1999 when ZANU-PF had unimpeded hegemonic control over the country, while the latter can be traced from 1999 to present, after the rise of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as a vibrant opposition. According to Schedler, some dictatorial regimes adopt competitive electoral institutions, but the electoral process is manipulated to such a degree that these regimes cannot be considered democratic in any substantive sense. Zimbabwe clearly fits the bill of “countries that hold elections, but do not live up to the minimum criteria for either electoral or liberal democracies” (Schedler 2002: 46). In addition to this, Zimbabwe has a strong ruling party-military alliance dating back to the liberation struggle. The two are bound together by a shared liberation philosophy, extensive corruption and patronage networks. Conflict and violence are central to the history of colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe. The colonial conquest of Zimbabwe and the subsequent establishment of the colonial state was extremely violent. The nationalist struggle dating from the late 1950s was also a theatre of violence against white settlers’ colonial obstinacy, with ruthlessness and violence provoking African nationalist counter-violence (i.e. the guerrilla struggle) with extensive repercussions for human dignity and rights. In the post-colonial era, it is estimated that more than 20,000 people were killed by the 5th Brigade in Matabeleland and Midlands Provinces between 1982 and 1987 in a violent campaign called the Gukurahundi. The Gukurahundi arose in the context of initial clashes in 1980 at Entumbane demobilisation camp in Bulawayo (and elsewhere) between ex-combatants of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), the military wing of Mugabe’s ZANU, and ex-combatants of Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) linked to Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) (Catholic Commission for Justice, Peace in Zimbabwe, and Legal Resources Foundation 1997). The Zimbabwe army’s violence was directed against Ndebele-speaking people supportive of Nkomo’s ZAPU, and was designed to facilitate the emergence of a de jure one-party state. Despite this mass violence, Mugabe’s first decade and a half in office was held up by international actors as a post-conflict success story and a shining example of racial reconciliation (Tendi 2011). The economy flourished, and Zimbabwe was

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frequently denoted as the “breadbasket” of the region. However, this honeymoon ended in the late 1990s with the advent of a new opposition party (the MDC) led by the late Morgan Tsvangirai who rose from the ranks of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. The opposition MDC party emerged in 1999 as a reaction to, among other issues, increasing disgruntlement with party and state corruption and economic malaise. In 2000, the MDC and its civil society partners won a surprise victory against ZANU-PF when it defeated a constitutional referendum aimed at further entrenching Mugabe’s hold on power. Faced with his first real political threat since independence, Mugabe and his partymilitary alliance went into their default mode. The alliance cracked down on dissent, condoned the violent expropriation of land without compensation (which led to a massive contraction in the national and agrarian economies), orchestrated a series of violent election campaigns (from the year 2000), engaged in large-scale corruption and resorted to neo-patrimonialistic tendencies. The military leadership’s corrupt tendencies had come to the fore during the late 1990s sojourn in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) when the Zimbabwean military embarked on a campaign to assist the Congolese government to contain a Banyamulenge rebellion in the eastern part of the country. A United Nations report details the convoluted character of the Zimbabwean military’s involvement in extra-legal corrupt activities in the exploitation of natural resources in the DRC (United Nations Organisation 2002). Through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the party-military alliance also printed money to pay off war veterans (ex-combatants) of the liberation war and to distribute patronage to other key bases of support such as the rural peasantry and the youth. These actions soon led to a political and economic crisis and earned Zimbabwe pariah status on the international stage, with the United States and the European Union imposing targeted sanctions on a number of party and government officials, including Mugabe and Mnangagwa, accused of being responsible for human rights abuses. The crisis came to a head in 2008 when the country set records for hyperinflation and the economy neared total collapse. Morgan Tsvangirai won a first-round victory in the 29 March 2008 presidential elections. But, after a 45-day delay, characterised by the recount and verification of the results, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) announced on 2 May that Tsvangirai won 47.87% of the vote and Mugabe 43.24%, while Simba Makoni (an independent candidate) got 8.31%. This necessitated a run-off, which was to be held on 27 June 2008. Mugabe and ZANU-PF, with a prominent role played by Mnangagwa, then unleashed a campaign of violence against the MDC that left more than 200 dead and thousands injured (Human Rights Watch 2011). Tsvangirai withdrew amidst the violence, handing Mugabe a victory widely seen as illegitimate, leading to a power-sharing agreement between Mugabe and Tsvangirai—brokered by the Southern African Development Community in which South Africa played a leading role. The power-sharing government, which kept Mugabe as President and installed Tsvangirai in the reintroduced post of Prime Minister, lasted from 2009 to 2013. Under this Government of National Unity (GNU), Zimbabwe dollarised the currency and the economy stabilised, with double-digit growth superintended by

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MDC’s Finance Minister Tendai Biti. Zimbabwe also temporarily enjoyed a period of entente with the (Western) international community. Yet, with the exception of a new constitution in 2013, Mugabe and ZANU-PF ferociously resisted reform efforts during the power-sharing period, winning elections in 2013 that the opposition claimed were rigged (Noyes 2020b). Confidently back in exclusive control of the country, ZANU-PF in the subsequent years became consumed by a leadership succession struggle that would ultimately lead to Mugabe’s deposition. In 2014, Mugabe dismissed his Vice President, Joice Mujuru, widow to the first black General of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces Solomon Mujuru, and supplanted her with long-time confidante Mnangagwa, who had a well-known history as one of Mugabe’s staunchest followers. Mnangagwa worked as Mugabe’s assistant before independence and occupied numerous senior government roles afterwards, most prominently as Minister of State for National Security during the Gukurahundi massacres in the 1980s and later as Minister of Defence and Minister of Justice and leader of government business in parliament. Mnangagwa has always been a vital actor in Zimbabwe’s enduring party-military alliance that has kept ZANU-PF in authority for four decades. He is also considered to be one of the richest people in the country, with wide-ranging commercial interests—including in diamonds, gold mining, and fuel—and links to controversial local and foreign business figures (Rutherford 2018). He was fingered by a United Nations panel as a strategic player in the Zimbabwe army’s deployment in the DRC conflict in 1998, where Zimbabwean military and political officials were suspected of pillaging natural resources, earning them the title of “conflict entrepreneurs” (Jackson 2011). In other circles, Mnangagwa has been described as “Mugabe’s brains all these years, a master of duplicity and intrigue” (Noyes 2020a: 5). Shortly after becoming Vice President, a conflict developed between Mnangagwa and Mugabe’s wife, Grace Mugabe, who had contributed to Mujuru’s dismissal. The clique allied with Mnangagwa, which had patronage from senior members of the military (including the then Zimbabwe Defence Forces Commander General Constantino Chiwenga), came to be identified as Lacoste. The bloc headed by Grace Mugabe, which contained several younger officials lacking liberation war credentials, took on the moniker Generation 40 (G40). Meanwhile, after double-digit growth during the power-sharing period, the economy again began to decline after Mugabe and ZANU-PF regained full control and appointed party stalwart Patrick Chinamasa as Minister of Finance. While tensions between Lacoste and G40 deepened, Mugabe’s historical ties with liberation war veterans began to break apart, with the latter claiming that Mugabe was increasingly acting contrary to the philosophy and values of the anti-colonial liberation struggle. Given that leading war veterans held high ranks in the Zimbabwean military, it was not surprising that significant rumblings within the military about Mugabe’s leadership also existed by 2017 (Tendi 2019). Mugabe’s dismissal of Mnangagwa in early November 2017 was seen by war veterans as a step towards Grace Mugabe and the G40 taking control of the ruling party’s succession fight. The last spark for the coup came on 13 November 2017, when Mugabe rejected talks with the military to settle their political differences (Noyes 2020a). This led to Chiwenga

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and other senior military figures launching Operation Restore Legacy the following day. Mugabe was compelled to resign on 21 November and Mnangagwa, who had fled the country in the meantime, returned immediately to be sworn in as Zimbabwe’s president on 24 November. There are two key areas of concern pertaining to the undermining of democratic processes and procedures, thus hindering transitional justice efforts. First, the removal of Mugabe in 2017 was a clear clue of the significant role of Zimbabwe’s military in political processes. Since the 2018 elections, there has been amplified militarisation of the state, with various (former) army generals appointed to cabinet positions. This led to an increased party-military-state conflation. Furthermore, the militarisation of public institutions since the 2018 elections is disturbing and illuminates the further conflation of a military, political and business cartels elite. In this regard, Zimbabwean civil society organisations (CSOs) have voiced unrelenting concern over the centralisation of power under the president and weakened independent oversight mechanisms. Essentially, the military—most prominently represented by Vice President Chiwenga—holds a veto power in Zimbabwean politics. This poses a strong threat to the success of transitional justice seeing that the military has strongly featured in human rights violations over the years. As such, the chances of the military permitting or promoting transitional justice efforts are very slim. Second, the increased concentration of power is viewed as a threat risk against constitutionalism and democratic practices which, in turn, weakens the chances of transitional justice. Zimbabwean human rights organisations have campaigned against the envisaged constitutional amendments by the government. They intensely opposed the Constitutional Amendment Bill (Number 2), which successfully sought to give more power to the president, while at the same time weakening independent oversight institutions.

3 Analysing ZANU-PF’s Rule as Hegemon Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony is useful when it comes to analysing the challenges to, and prospects of, transitional justice in Zimbabwe. Gramsci describes hegemony as the ability of a social group (i.e. the hegemonic group) to direct society both politically and morally. This entails acquiring authority through the intellectual, moral, and cultural inducement or approval of the governed populace, without applying violent, political, or economic means of force. Nonetheless, coercion is always latently used in support of a consensually-grounded hegemony. In order to become a hegemon, the group needs to unite the features of coercion and consent in a balanced manner, i.e. through a “dual perspective” (Iseri 2007: 2). Consistent with a more Weberian focus on the centrality of politics to understanding society, ZANUPF’s polity is not reducible to the prevailing mode or regime of accumulation. Rather, Zimbabwe’s turbulent history is strongly conditioned by particular regimes of domination (including ideology and political representation), with ZANU-PF’s preservation of power relying on both coercion and consent—whether under a hegemonic

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or competitive electoral authoritarian regime. The ZANU-PF regime’s hegemony has always been a continuum between coercion and consent, though the equilibrium between the two shifts at different moments. The party has never depended exclusively on elements of consent or coercion but, instead, a dynamic combination of both. For Gramsci, then, a social group which expects to become and continue as the hegemon can utilise both the means of coercion and the means of consent (by encouraging society to accept and embrace the norms and ideals of its own prevailing worldview). Coercion alone, without any consensual political arrangements, would entail outright dictatorial domination (not hegemony). When used in conjunction with consent, coercion may not undermine the overall (legitimate) acceptance of the hegemon’s leadership. This involves building alliances and incorporating subsidiary groups rather than simply controlling them, through concessions or ideological means to win their consent (Love 2000). Struggles against hegemony, or counter-hegemonic struggles, exist in states like Zimbabwe, as witnessed over the past 20 years in Zimbabwe’s case. Embedded in hegemonic and counter-hegemonic struggles are questions around not only defending or changing the status quo, but around pursuing or not pursuing transitional justice. Gramsci’s work on hegemony makes clear from the start the many difficulties likely to be experienced in achieving transitional justice in Zimbabwe through building counter-hegemonic movements and practices. ZANU-PF has been widely accused of committing most of the atrocities since independence. It is likely that transitional justice processes could swing the struggle for hegemony in Zimbabwe’s political landscape towards adversaries of the ZANU-PF regime. As such, a transitional justice process that embraces restorative or retributive justice accompanied by truth-telling and acknowledgement of wrongdoing would possibly reduce the ruling regime’s likelihood of remaining as the political hegemon in Zimbabwe. For Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe, the risks to maintaining political hegemony arising from far-reaching transitional justice processes are bound to set significant limits to these processes, particularly given the stake that the military has in hegemonic continuity. Further, the very hegemonic/counter-hegemonic struggle for power in Zimbabwe is itself detrimental to the pursuit of transitional justice, precisely because the highly politicised, power-invested environment militates against the compromise and accommodation necessary in transitional justice processes.

4 Transitional Justice Transitional justice is an evolving field within a number of interdisciplinary studies ranging from conflict resolution to international development. Transitional justice denotes a wide array of methodologies that states could use to address past human rights abuses and comprises both judicial and non-judicial mechanisms (Cobban 2007). Mechanisms comprise a series of actions or policies, which may be endorsed as a basis for the political transition from violence and tyranny to societal stability

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(Cobban 2007). In the wake of gross human rights abuses, victims have wellestablished rights to see the offenders penalised, to find out the truth, and to be recompensed for their injuries and suffering (International Centre for Transitional Justice 2009). As a reaction to systematic or pervasive violations of human rights, transitional justice seeks acknowledgement for victims and stimulates possibilities for peace, reconciliation and democracy. It is not a distinctive form of justice, but justice adjusted to societies transforming themselves after a period of ubiquitous human rights abuses. In some cases, these transformations occur abruptly; in others, they may take place over many decades. Thus, transitional justice denotes the ways in which individual states emerging from phases of conflict and authoritarianism address extensive or systematic human rights abuses, so many and so severe, that the normal justice system will not be able to offer an acceptable response. Transitional justice emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s, largely in reaction to political changes in Latin America and Eastern Europe—and to calls for justice in these areas. Human rights advocates at the time sought to redress systemic abuses committed by prior regimes without endangering the ongoing political changes. According to the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) (ICTJ 2009), people started labelling this new multidisciplinary discipline as “transitional justice” because these modifications were seen as entailing “transitions to democracy”. ICTJ (2009) enunciates six initiatives which together make up transitional justice, namely, criminal prosecutions, truth-telling panels, reparations programmes, gender justice, security system reform and memorialisation efforts. Another concept crucial in transitional justice is reconciliation (Asmal et al. 1997). Bloomfield (2003) quite rightly argues that reconciliation is “both a goal—something to achieve,—and a process—a means to achieve that goal” (Bloomfield 2003: 12, emphasis in original). In the case of post-war/post-conflict situations, Bloomfield (2003: 12) defines reconciliation as: … [A]n over-arching process which includes the search for truth, justice, forgiveness, healing and so on. … it means finding a way to live alongside former enemies … to coexist with them, to develop the degree of cooperation necessary to share our society with them, so that we all have better lives together than we have had separately.

In this way, as Bloomfield (2003: 3) notes, reconciliation is “a process through which a society moves from a divided past to a shared future”. Inherent to such genuine processes of reconciliation are concessions, sacrifices and risks, and hence it is a process fraught with dangers, in particular for those holding power (Asmal et al. 1997).

5 Transitional Justice and the NPRC Under Mnangagwa Dating back to Mugabe’s days, the Zimbabwean government has a history of glossing over political violence with political agreements, such as the Unity Accord of 1987 reached between ZANU-PF and ZAPU to end the brutal massacres and torture of

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thousands of civilians during the Gukurahundi. This political settlement enabled ZANU-PF to subsume ZAPU, thereby creating a de facto one-party state. No compensation was offered to those who were wounded or suffered losses during the Matabeleland disturbances. In this context, the potential effectiveness of the NPRC (as a key state agency in contributing to transitional justice) is thrown into doubt. Indeed, there are incidents in Zimbabwean history that lead to this conclusion. The Zimbabwean government appointed the Dumbutshena and Chihambakwe Commissions in the early 1980s to investigate the Entumbane and Gukurahundi Massacres respectively. Both of these judge-led Commissions wrote reports that the government refused to publish. Victims have constantly demanded the publication of these reports and recently approached the courts in this regard. It is not surprising that victims refuse to collaborate with the current NPRC because they feel there is no political will to implement the recommendations of commissions. Even after Mugabe’s fall, these earlier commission reports have not been published showing the complicity of the members of the new dispensation in all the violations. In a similar way, the Global Political Agreement (GPA) of 2008, which was signed between ZANU-PF and two factions of the opposition party (Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai and Movement for Democratic Change-Ncube) failed to offer Zimbabwe a practical means to address its ugly past. Article 7 of the GPA mandated the GNU to set up a mechanism that would advise the government on how to achieve national healing, peace, and reconciliation, thus leading to transitional justice. The GNU initiated a peacebuilding process that involved setting up the Organ for National Healing, Reconciliation, and Integration (ONHRI) to address past injustices. However, the ONHRI failed to settle past injustices, mainly due to a lack of political will from the ruling ZANU-PF party which constantly disrupted its meetings. It was disbanded in 2013 when the GNU was dissolved and replaced by the NPRC, which this chapter argues has been ineffective. Regarding all countries requiring transitional justice, Huyse (2003: 23) contends that four mechanisms need to be put in place if reconciliation, national healing, and integration (and thus transitional justice) are to succeed: healing the wounds of the surviving victims of conflict and violence; restitutive or restorative justice; historical accounting via truth-telling; and reparation of the material and psychological damage inflicted on the victims of conflict or violence. With specific reference to Zimbabwe, Machakanja (2010: 12–15) identifies twelve conditions or factors that need to be in place if reconciliation, national healing, and integration, and thus transitional justice, are to succeed. These are legislative reform, political will, transformative and restorative justice, civil society engagement, consensus building, truth-telling, education for national healing and reconciliation, research on trauma and grief, counselling for trauma and grief, special healing places and community intervention programmes, memorialisation and ritualisation, and funding. Nation-building and peacebuilding attempts faced substantial challenges during the first two decades of Zimbabwe’s independence, and these challenges grew even further with the emergence of the MDC up to and including the GNU and now beyond. However, the GNU was significant because of the finalisation of the new constitution before its dissolution, in which there is a clause requiring the formation

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of a national peace and conciliation commission. It was only after the military coup that the NPRC Bill was signed into law by President Mnangagwa (on 5 January 2018), and this created significant optimism for Zimbabweans. According to the National Transitional Justice Working Group of Zimbabwe (NTJWG) (NTJWG 2020) the NPRC’s functions, as spelt out in Section 525 of the Zimbabwean Constitution, are as follows: ● ensure post-conflict justice, healing, and reconciliation; ● develop and implement programmes to provide natural healing, unity and cohesion and the peaceful restoration and resolution of disputes; ● encourage people to tell the truth about the past and facilitate the making of amends and the provision of justice; ● develop procedures and institutions to facilitate dialogue between political parties, communities, and other groups; and ● take appropriate action on complaints received from the public. One of the key issues is that, unlike its South African counterpart, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the NPRC does not have a mandate to investigate past human rights violations. This approach has its own merits and disadvantages (Tshuma 2018). In 2018, the NPRC conducted community outreach in the country’s 10 provinces and implemented a range of peace campaigns in the period leading to the “harmonised elections” in July 2018. Resultantly, the 2018 election campaign period was ostensibly one of the most peaceful in decades. The NPRC instituted these peacebuilding programmes and campaigns with technical and financial support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In 2018, the NPRC also partnered with local universities to institutionalise its work through a specialised internship programme, specifically designed for students pursuing Peace and Conflict Studies, and availing resources to universities to introduce and teach these courses. The partnership spearheaded by the then Presidential Special Advisor on Peacebuilding (Professor Clever Nyathi) involved universities also seconding their students to the NPRC for a year-long internship to provide students with the needed practical exposure to the reality of peacebuilding practices. This programme was thus designed to strengthen the nexus between policy, practice, and theory. This is crucial, given that prospects for successful peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction in any context hinge on the development of a set of specialised skills to attend to the various challenges and opportunities presented by conflict—in this sense, NPRC provides the opportunity for university students to learn the requisite skills-set so that they could, in the long run, contribute to the transitional justice process in Zimbabwe. Unfortunately, up to 2021 when the term of office for the first set of commissioners expired, the work of the NPRC had not led to any tangible results on the ground. The commission has appointed provincial peace committees but these have been greeted with scepticism by Zimbabweans. This scepticism arises out of the composition of these peace committees with some provincial committees having securocrats sitting as vice chairpersons. One of the problematic issues is the NPRC’s weak gender

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programming, which is curious given that women and girls often bear the brunt of violence and conflict, be it at the household or community level. For example, Shaba (2011) notes that women were excessively affected by the violence in the run-up to the June 2008 presidential run-off. Similarly significant were the traumatic testimonies by a group of women about the Gukurahundi atrocities during one of the NPRC’s outreach meetings in rural Kezi, Matabeleland South (Moyo 2018). The testimonies corroborate the uneven and differentiated impact of the genocide on women and men, and boys and girls. In spite of this, the NPRC has failed to provide a gendered analysis of conflict, violence, and past human rights violations in Zimbabwe. A gendered analysis would spell out how women and men, boys and girls, and sexual minorities experience violence, abuse and conflict. This is crucial because the intersection of these different identities affects each person’s agency and power, with various societal factors augmenting vulnerabilities. It is similarly vital given the role women play as community-builders and protectors—although oftentimes their efforts are simply ignored in mainstream peacebuilding discourses. It is also specifically because of their identity as cultural protectors and community-builders that women and girls are often targeted in ways directly linked to their gender and sexuality. In Zimbabwe, sexual violence has also become a means of undermining the strength of the political opposition, and to tear apart communities opposed to ZANU-PF (Hodzi 2012). Given this context, it is prudent for the NPRC to engage in such issues, taking care to analyse the gendered impact of conflict and violence on both victims and perpetrators. Without revisiting some of its programming flaws, it is difficult to imagine how the NPRC could challenge the patriarchal status quo, which often promotes hyper-masculinities that perpetuate the abuse of women in conflict situations. To Hodzi (2012), the NPRC’s approach demonstrates a deep-seated masculinisation of Zimbabwean politics and justice, which is a continuation of the stance adopted by the ONHRI during the GNU. To improve its programming, the NPRC should create gender-neutral spaces for victims who indicate their willingness to testify about sexual violence, rape, or other forms of violence that they encountered during the conflict, which cannot ordinarily be spoken about in public gatherings. This is important given the Zimbabwean justice system’s history of trivialising sexual violence. The four major defining moments in the country’s history—the Lancaster House Agreement (1979), the Unity Accord (1987) the GPA (2008) and, more recently, Operation Restore Legacy (2017)—were largely shaped by men embedded in patriarchal structures, with males assuming most positions of authority and women’s contributions receiving limited to no attention. Due to their gender-based exclusivity, these moments failed to build lasting peace and reconciliation. Strengthening the role of women in peacebuilding and reducing the impact of violence and conflict on the lives of women and girls requires a nuanced and comprehensive understanding of gender norms, gender identities and the gendered experiences of both conflict and peace. These efforts have been largely taken up by civil society organisations (CSOs) rather than the state. However, the unfortunate part attendant to the CSOs’ role in this regard has been their continued demonisation by the state during and even after

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Mugabe’s rule. To the extent that their operational space is constrained, these CSOs end up failing to improve the potential contribution of women in peacebuilding and transitional justice processes more broadly. The NPRC aims to build a united and cohesive society in which citizens are free to participate in the governance and development of Zimbabwe. If this is the broad aim, how then does the NPRC seek to gauge its accomplishments against its deficiencies so far? Will the NPRC, like the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC) in Rwanda, develop a mechanism to take stock of its work to date? Rwanda’s Reconciliation Barometer (RRB) has helped NURC to identify existing gaps that require urgent attention. For example, the RRB found that genocide ideology and ethnic stereotypes remain a challenge to unity and reconciliation (Alert International 2018). A similar tool may benefit the NPRC’s work, particularly given the high level of mistrust between the state and the general populace in Zimbabwe— trust is an important currency for true transitional justice. Such a mechanism may be used as well to assess the contribution and involvement of women and minority groups in the peacebuilding process. In this context, Zimbabwe faces the challenge of transition without transformation (Chengeta 2018). There has not been any transformation in the governance systems which implies the continuation of authoritarianism by new leaders. For example, Mnangagwa has been portrayed as more dangerous than, or at least equally dictatorial as, Mugabe, his predecessor. Within two years of leadership as President he had authorised the use of live bullets by the military to disperse unarmed civilians protesting against the worsening economic situation in the country. For example, in 2018 and 2019 alone the military used live ammunition killing at least 6 people in 2018 and 17 people in 2019, something Mugabe never did, with the major exception of the Gukurahundi massacres. Of particular concern since Mnangagwa’s rise to power has been the further shrinking of democratic space and the failure to uphold constitutionalism. The January 2019 crackdown by the state security apparatus, which responded with disproportionate force to protests over poor living conditions, has been followed by three years of increased repression against opposition members, activists, journalists and other actors. The most notable cases were the alleged abduction, torture, sexual abuse and subsequent arrest of three female opposition leaders in 2020, the repeated arrest and detention of prominent journalist Hopewell Chin’ono after he had exposed government corruption, and the arrest and repeated denial of bail to legislators Job Sikhala and Godfrey Sithole. The government’s systematic repression has made use of an increasingly partisan judiciary, which led to lengthy pre-trial detentions of opposition members, activists and journalists. These arrests have led to further polarisation of the political sector and a continued stalemate between the ZANU-PF and the MDC Alliance and later the Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC), which also negatively affects the prospects for a much-needed national dialogue process. The fact that the perpetrators of past and present violence are still in power in Zimbabwe presents a colossal challenge for transitional justice. Victims of violence will find it difficult to forgive people enjoying ill-gotten political power and economic wealth acquired via a bloody campaign of electoral violence. Forgiving perpetrators

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of violence in the context of the prevailing status quo would be regarded as rewarding perpetrators of violence with power. Victims of violence are unlikely to be compensated by perpetrators lest they lose political mileage because such action could be construed as an admission of guilt which may have a negative bearing on their political fortunes. Unless the political elite gives up power willingly or are forcibly removed, transitional justice will remain a tall order in Zimbabwe. The largest portion of political violence has been ascribed to ZANU-PF, which to this day controls the government. Therefore, it would not be an understatement to argue that as long as ZANU-PF does not acknowledge wrongdoing and show contrition, and continues to sit on the pedestal of power, victims of violence will find it difficult to be reconciled with their abusers who committed acts of brutality in the party’s name. Victims are also afraid to participate in a justice system that is weak in the face of the powers of the perpetrator. The African proverb “what is said over the dead lion’s body cannot be said to him alive” reveals this important component of transitional justice. Transitional justice presupposes the removal of the perpetrator from power or, at the very minimum, the weakening of their power. For victims, transitional justice entails seeing a once powerful perpetrator who, after a meaningful power transition, is now just an ordinary man. Sachikonye (2011: 92) concurs in highlighting that “the process of acknowledgement and contrition appears remote as long as the impunity of perpetrators remains intact”. This makes some pundits pessimistic about a breakthrough in the absence of regime change. One key blockade to realising transitional justice in Zimbabwe has been the lack of political will by the ruling elites. To demonstrate its absolute lack of will as far as seeing the NPRC succeed, the government of Zimbabwe appealed the decision in the case of Chinanzvana v Ministry of Justice. High Court Judge, Justice Mafusire ruled that the life of the NPRC had only commenced in 2018 at the promulgation of the enabling act. This would have given the Commission life until 2028. The fact that the government found itself contesting a ruling that gave the NPRC more time reflects the unwillingness of the government to let the NPRC achieve its set constitutional prerogatives. In addition, the government has considerably starved the transitional justice body (NPRC) financially to weaken its strategic and operational effectiveness. In 2018, President Mnangagwa convened what he preferred to term the Matabeleland Collective and said it would tackle the emotive Gukurahundi question. This was a clear coup in relation to the official duties of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission. Further to that, while there has been a great expectation that the NPRC would lead in the exhumations and reburials of victims of the Gukurahundi genocide, President Mnangagwa has convened a council of chiefs from Matabeleland to execute that task. In the end, the Commission has done nothing to bring both the victims and the perpetrators of the Gukurahundi atrocities together. The Commission has equally been docile as the alleged perpetrators of the Gukurahundi atrocities have suddenly taken the lead role as conciliators despite their heavy involvement in the atrocities. Further, nothing has been done in finding justice for the victims of the 1 August 2018 shootings even though the Motlanthe Commission (set up to investigate the events) has identified the victims and perpetrators. The NPRC has called itself successful in all other rudimentary matters but never in healing or seeking truth and reconciliation.

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In this regard, the NPRC should not be understood as a mere victim of the machinations of Mnangagwa and the ruling party. For instance, Chiringa (2022) highlights that the NPRC sought to bring about national dialogue and reconciliation soon after the disputed 2018 national elections by way of a consultative outreach programme. However, instead of pursuing this vigorously, it chose to become part of Mnangagwa’s Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD) platform as co-convenors. POLAD incorporates mainly smaller opposition parties which are in large part subservient to the dictates of the ruling party and excludes the main opposition party. In this way, the NPRC places itself in alliance with the ruling party. This depicts a general lack of direction and spine on the part of the NPRC which can be bullied into abandoning its own genuine processes and jumping into a bandwagon of whatever the whims and caprices of the executive shall demand.

6 ZANU-PF: Reforms, Memory and Remorse Since his ascension to power, Mnangagwa’s mantra has been “let bygones be bygones”. Mnangagwa unilaterally granted Mugabe an amnesty, without the participation of victims. He has also extended an amnesty to certain economic crimes without consulting victims. This immunity agreement created grave doubts about the legitimacy of the foundation on which the new Zimbabwe will be built. Such an approach reeks of what is summarised in the following Zimbabwean Shona proverb: “chinokanganwa idemo asi muti haukanganwe”. This can be loosely translated as “it is easier for the axe to forget about the scars than it is for the tree that bears them”. Unlike the Government of Lesotho whose Defence Forces recently apologised for human rights violations, Mugabe refused to apologise for Gukurahundi. Mnangagwa has followed in Mugabe’s footsteps by showing reluctance to apologise for Gukurahundi and denying that there was political violence in the 2008 elections. This has led some commentators to observe that while the President may say that “Zimbabwe is open for business”, it is certainly “closed for remorse” (Anonymous 2018). Due to a highly cartelised and patronage-based economy, politics and economics remain inseparable under Mnangagwa. As well, the military remains heavily involved in the economy, particularly in the mining and fuel sectors. Although the Mnangagwa government has taken some modest steps that could be seen as an indication of progress—particularly on the economic front—there is a wide gap between the government’s reform rhetoric and the reality on the ground. The government’s pledges have fallen short; as genuine reform has been extremely sluggish. His wellrehearsed slogans appear to be largely political theatre targeted at the international diplomatic community and investors. Even where modest progress has been made, such steps appear to be largely cosmetic in many cases, a box-ticking exercise directed mainly at international actors rather than any real commitment to reform. In other words, Mnangagwa is attempting to have his cake and eat it too, paying lip service to reforms in the hope of securing international support, while staunchly refusing

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to implement any measures that might harm his and his closest supporters’ political and economic interests. On the political front, reform promises are severely lagging, with very few tangible steps towards reconfiguring Zimbabwe’s autocratic system. In August 2019, an unnamed senior diplomat reportedly said that none of the ten major legislative reforms that Mnangagwa’s government had promised had been fully implemented (Noyes 2020a). The government has taken steps to repeal and replace two repressive pieces of legislation, the Public Order and Security Act and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. However, the Mnangagwa government continues to prevent and violently suppress political protests, and the media remain heavily biased in favour of the ruling party, as do the justice and electoral systems. With the old guard and the military still firmly in power, genuine reform is unlikely in the leadup to national elections in 2023. Zimbabwe is likely to continue down a path of political polarisation, citizen protests, political violence at the hands of the state, and economic deterioration. In this regard, a serving member of parliament characterised Mnangagwa’s reform efforts as putting “mascara on a frog.” An opening of political space in the run-up to the 2018 elections was rapidly shut in the postelection period when six protestors were killed by security forces and tanks deployed on Harare’s streets for the second time in nine months. Zimbabweans by and large say that Mnangagwa is in many ways governing in a more repressive manner than Mugabe. Security forces have cracked down on several occasions since Mnangagwa came to power, with more than 20 people killed and more than 2,000 arrested. Despite calls to hold perpetrators to account, the government has not prosecuted security forces and has stymied any real discussion of security sector reform. This failure to democratise hampers efforts directed at transitional justice. Zimbabwe suffers from a massive democratic deficit and the transitional justice process, insofar as it exists, is being carried out under undemocratic conditions. If repression persists then prospects for transitional justice become bleak as the population will not be consulted nor will they be able to participate in the transitional justice process and their own development. There are important elements necessary for the success of any true transitional justice process. This includes the development of grassroots-oriented and populardriven transitional justice processes; any proper transitional justice process should involve the grassroots, with victims and survivors of past injustices at the forefront in defining how they envisage the process unfolding (Bartkowski 2018). However, this is difficult to envisage in Zimbabwe particularly given the prevailing situation where discussion of past violations by the state and ruling party is criminalised. In this regard, only a shift in the state and ruling party’s stance towards transitional justice can unlock the gridlock. Without acknowledgement of past injustices by the ruling party and key perpetrators of these injustices, transitional justice in Zimbabwe is impossible. Unfortunately, at the moment, there seems to be no incentive to lure the party and its functionaries into embracing transitional justice. A potential incentive could be promises of an amnesty linked to acknowledgement and truth-telling. However, this could only be possible with the acquiescence of the survivors and

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victims. For now, it is unlikely that transitional justice processes will move forward without first attaining a substantive transition of political power. Overall, the fall of Mugabe did not result in any meaningful transition of power. His counterparts in human rights violations—people like Mnangagwa—remain in power. Those accused of corruption and of being responsible for the suffering of Zimbabwe’s economic refugees are still in power. In international human rights law, victims have a right to truth, and truth is one of the core elements of transitional justice processes (Dupuis 2018). Yet, when those accused of human rights violations are still in power and interested in retaining that power, they cannot allow the truth to become public. Human rights violators in power have a tendency of arrogating to themselves the right to be forgiven. Yet, it is the prerogative of victims to decide whether or not they want to forgive. After all, not only forgiveness and reconciliation form part of transitional justice. As correctly noted by Mihai, the prosecution of perpetrators is an important part of national healing and reconciliation, thus of transitional justice (Mihai 2010). If institutional reforms are not carried out in Zimbabwe, then prospects for transitional justice will remain dim. Institutional reform of state security services is important to brighten possibilities of reconciliation. This is because state security institutions have constantly been fingered for being complicit in post-colonial violence. Various CSOs and opposition political parties claim that the army, Central Intelligence Organisation and Criminal Investigation Department have constantly operated in alliance with ZANU-PF youths and militia in the harassment, abduction and beating of opposition supporters. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is alleged to have rigged results in favour of ZANU-PF and its presidential candidates. If these institutions are not reformed and are allowed to interfere with the electoral process and also directly participate in violence or facilitate its occurrence, then transitional justice may not be realised in Zimbabwe. Institutional reform also relates to the media. A polarised media environment likewise places obstacles in the path of attaining transitional justice. The state media refers to Mnangagwa not only as the President as it has given him a string of other titles: Head of State, Head of Government and Commander in Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces. While these labels are appropriate, the language is in no way reconciliatory. The employment of violent discourse (including propaganda and hate speech) by the media presents enormous challenges for transitional justice. Hate speech has been used to injure the dignity, feelings, and self-respect of those of a different political persuasion, especially CSOs trying their best to push for the realisation of transitional justice. Hate speech has been used to also incite violence or prejudicial action against perceived opponents. The use and abuse of the state media by the Mnangagwa regime tend to steer any debates and narratives on the past towards a zone of safety which does not uncover ZANU’s role and thus its culpability. To this end, it is easy to discern deliberate attempts by the regime to not only undermine attempts towards transitional justice but to also stifle any debates on past injustices by victims, survivors and any other interested stakeholders. Propaganda has also been effectively used by the ruling party’s political rivals to influence the attitude of Zimbabweans. This has involved the selective presentation

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of facts to produce an emotional rather than rational response to further a political agenda. Like the ruling party, its opposition has excited hostility and propagated hateful motives and thoughts that have come to be expressed through actions. The different political encampments have been guilty of deliberately trying to hoodwink Zimbabweans through the use of half-truths, lies, suppression of truth, concealment, and distortion of facts. Propaganda has thus been employed as an instrument of controversy and conflict, serving to exacerbate violence in a politically polarised and charged Zimbabwe (Saidi and Munemo 2012). Possibly, the persistence of violence in the new dispensation can be explained in part by the use of propaganda that has precipitated assaults, abductions, torture, murder and other acts of unbridled aggression, therefore, presenting enormous challenges for transitional justice. Connected to the detrimental effects of propaganda is the national history curriculum, which has been heavily turned into a glorified ruling party ideology manual. Zimbabwe is locked into orthodox nationalism, and its curriculum is driven by so-called “patriotic values” and the aim of forming patriotic citizens (Ranger 2004). The national history curriculum has to a large extent served to give a distorted view of the liberation struggle, giving undue weight to the significance of ZANU and ZANLA to the struggle at the expense of the contributions of ZAPU and ZIPRA. In its current format, the history curriculum is problematic, particularly where multiculturalism, diversity and autonomy are concerned. If transitional justice is to be successful, it would have to involve a curriculum review as part of the wider institutional reform processes. However, every cloud has a silver lining, and the future is not altogether dark for reconciliation and development in Zimbabwe. For a number of years now, as Machakanja notes, in “certain rural communities, victims and perpetrators have been coming together—sometimes at the behest of perpetrators feeling the need to confess and pay their dues—through the rebuilding of destroyed homes, returning of stolen goods and conduction of healing ceremonies” (Machakanja 2010: 7). This has continued in the new dispensation and, if such overtures could be shown at the grassroots level and spread countrywide, then reconciliation might be possible thus creating a solid foundation for transitional justice.

7 Conclusion The New Dispensation in Zimbabwe has failed to disentangle itself from the predecessor regime’s mistakes, norms and values. After professing a departure from the past era of violence and seemingly setting out a formative project of reform, the Second Republic has instead found itself enmeshed in more violence than its predecessor. The continued deployment of coercion-based hegemonic tendencies and practices in the pursuance of power consolidation has clearly precluded the quest for transitional justice—a quest which would be central to an authentic formative project.

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After four decades of state-sponsored violence, there is an acute need to break the culture of impunity that has become entrenched in Zimbabwe. The steady erosion of human and political rights has further led to a lack of faith in the rule of law. It is clear that transitional justice is not just about the past, but about how the past can affect both the present and the future. To this end, the failure to break clean with the past has prevented a transition which would have enabled efforts towards transitional justice. In reality, the “transition in Zimbabwe” is imperfect. This is because it lacks democratic legitimacy. Unlike the wave of transitions from socialism to democracy in Central and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which ushered in transitional justice, the Zimbabwean transition has already shown that it has no potential to truly liberate Zimbabwean citizens and move them into a state in which human rights are supreme. There is a serious challenge in establishing transitional justice in a non-liberal context. There are other reasons to doubt whether Zimbabwe’s new leadership is interested in pursuing transitional justice. For example, would they be prepared to look back at post-independence crimes such as the Gukurahundi massacres in Matabeleland and Midlands that claimed the lives of 20 000 people? Given Mnangagwa’s prominent role in this massacre, it is highly unlikely that official attempts will be undertaken to uncover the truth of this massacre. In addition, mechanisms used historically as vehicles for justice and reconciliation—such as amnesties and pardons, clemencies, and commissions of inquiry—have failed to resolve Zimbabwe’s complex history of conflict and violence. What is needed are practical healing programmes based on trust, and a genuine desire to resolve past transgressions as a society. The issues raised in this chapter are not an attempt to discredit the new dispensation, but to help broaden its focus and sharpen its attention towards issues of transitional justice. Finally, and most importantly, healing and reconciliation cannot be left to the government alone— everyone has to play their part, dutifully and with sincerity. All Zimbabweans must resolve to bequeath to future generations a peaceful, violent-free and prosperous society. A multi-stakeholder transitional justice process that includes major actors such as traditional leaders and civil societies is recommended if transitional justice is to be attained in Zimbabwe. However, the lack of a shared national narrative and shared national vision makes it difficult to facilitate a transitional justice process that heals past wounds, unites people in their diversity and contributes towards sustainable peace.

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Noyes AH (2020b) Plus ça change? the dynamics of security sector reform in Zimbabwe, 2009– 2013. In: Blessing-Miles Tendi, The Oxford Handbook of Zimbabwean Politics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK Quest R, McKenzie S (2018) President Mnangagwa: ‘Zimbabwe is open for business’. https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/24/africa/zimbabwe-president-emmerson-mnangagwadavos-intl/index.html. Accessed 3 July 2020 Ranger T (2004) Nationalist historiography, patriotic history and the history of the nation: the struggle over the past in Zimbabwe. J South Afr Stud 30(2):215–234 Rutherford B (2018) Mugabe’s shadow: limning the penumbrae of post-coup Zimbabwe. Can J Afr Stud 52(1):53–68 Sachikonye LM (2011) When a state turns on its citizens. 60 years of institutionalised violence in Zimbabwe. Jacana Media, Sunnyside, Auckland Park Saidi U, Munemo D (2012) Violence in the discourses of violence—the case of Zimbabwean political crisis. Int J Asian Soc Sci 2(8):1359–1369 Schedler A (2002) Elections without democracy, the menu of manipulation. J Democr 13(2):36–50 Shaba L (2011) Dreaming of equality: time to fulfil the GPA promises to women. Open Space 1:154–155 Tendi BM (2011) Robert Mugabe and toxicity: history and context matter. Representation 47(3):307–318 Tendi BM (2019) The motivations and dynamics of Zimbabwe’s 2017 military coup. Afr Aff 119(474):39–67 Tshuma D (2018) Reconciliation, integration and healing efforts in Zimbabwe. Conflict Trends 2018(2):19–27 United Nations Organisation (2002) Final report of the panel of experts on the illegal exploitation of natural resources and other forms of wealth of the democratic Republic of the Congo. United Nations Organisation, New York

Tobias Guzura is a Senior Lecturer with the Zimbabwe Open University. He is a member and Trustee of the Zimbabwe Peace and Security Education and Training Network, and a Governing Council member of the Development Studies Association of Zimbabwe. His research interests are in post conflict recovery and reconstruction with a key interest in transitional justice. His research has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as the OSSREA Bulletin, The African Journal of History and Culture, African Journal of Political Science and International Relations, The Journal of African Foreign Affairs and Peace Studies Journal. He has also published several book chapters.

Mnangagwa’s Missed Opportunities for Reconciliation Mandlenkosi Ndlovu and Christopher Ndlovu

Abstract This chapter examines the seemingly static ‘transition’ from the First Republic under former president, Robert Mugabe, to the so-called ‘Second Republic’ led by Emmerson Mnangagwa, with specific reference to reconciliation. The ‘Second Republic’ has left many Zimbabweans disillusioned and wondering whether the current levels of intolerance, political exclusion and polarisation in the country are worth the sacrifices they made in facilitating the ‘transition’. What emerges poignantly from the first few years of the ‘Second Republic’ in the office is that Zimbabweans’ expectations for political transformation, as well as for political inclusivity and national reconciliation, remain unfulfilled. It appears that the ‘Second Republic’ is failing to harness the political unity, hope and enthusiasm that was prevalent during the build-up and actual ouster of Mugabe in November 2017 to foster meaningful national reconciliation and political unity. Well into its first five-year term, the ‘Second Republic’ appears to be robust in political rhetoric, but deficient in practice when it comes to pursuing reconciliation, as argued in this chapter. The risks for the Mnangagwa regime, if it were to enact genuine reconciliation as part of his formative project, are quite high as this would bring about serious questions about the very legitimacy of the regime and of Mnangagwa’s leadership of it.

1 Introduction The ‘Second Republic’ led by Mnangagwa was welcomed with open arms by multitudes of people of various political, social and economic persuasions. Indeed, in the eyes of many, the vanquishing of the founding President, Mugabe, and his group of supporters that had coalesced into what became known as Generation 40 (G40), spelt a new era in their lives. The heightened hope for a better future saw churches, M. Ndlovu (B) Department of Development Studies, Lupane State University, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] C. Ndlovu Department of Educational Foundations, Lupane State University, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Moyo and K. Helliker (eds.), Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic, Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30129-2_3

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students, pressure groups, trade unions, war veterans, civil society and opposition supporters (and some of their leaders) thronging the historic Zimbabwe Grounds to bid farewell to the dictatorial and lengthy reign of Mugabe. In parliament, opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) jubilantly worked with their counterparts from the ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) in preparation to impeach the then President. During the first few months of the ‘Second Republic’, there was a widespread belief across the political divide that Mnangagwa and his political allies had indeed brought in a ‘new dispensation’ that was emancipatory and worth celebrating (Noyes 2020). With some fair level of accuracy, the unity that was exhibited among different groups of people in pushing out Mugabe in November 2017 had never been seen before in the political history of Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. However, it is argued in this chapter that with such a vast array of support, the ‘Second Republic’ has seemingly squandered the golden opportunity at its disposal to usher in a new political dispensation characterised by reconciliation, including love, trust, tolerance, transparency, accountability and justice for crimes and other omissions and commissions of the ‘past regime’. The fundamental questions that this chapter attempts to answer include: Can Zimbabweans achieve anything new, that would help to heal, transform and develop the country when Mnangagwa’s government just talks about reconciliation and promises to make right the wrongs of the past without seriously and practically engaging the victims and perpetrators to seek redress and closure to the issues? Is authentic reconciliation simply a road too problematic and dangerous for the Mnangagwa regime to travel? This chapter does not focus on the chain of events and processes that eventually led to the military-assisted takeover of state power by the Mnangagwa-led Lacoste faction of ZANU-PF in November 2017, as that has been detailed elsewhere (for example, Rogers 2019). Rather, the chapter grapples with the period thereafter. Put differently, it attempts to evaluate and measure the achievements so far made around reconciliation by the ‘Second Republic’ in line with a plethora of promises it made during its early months in office. It assesses how the ‘Second Republic’ has fared in the specific arena of fostering national reconciliation and in doing politics differently from the ‘previous regime’, which restricted political space for the opposition, created and manipulated political and party factions, thrived on a polarised political environment and paid a deaf ear to human rights abuses among other political transgressions. As shall be noted throughout this discussion, Mugabe left behind a fragmented and grieving nation that was longing for unity, tolerance, justice, progress, reconciliation and transformation. There are many political ills facilitated and left behind by the Mugabe regime like intolerance, factionalism, scant observance of human rights and politically motivated violence during elections. All these political challenges cannot be exhaustively covered in a single chapter, and hence we focus on key ones, especially the Gukurahundi atrocities. There are three basic reasons for this choice. First and foremost, the conclusion and resolution of the Gukurahundi issue would have a significant bearing on the achievement of national reconciliation along ethnic lines and a shared future for all Zimbabweans, including victims and perpetrators

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of Gukurahundi violence. Secondly, the magnitude and severity of Gukurahundi atrocities far eclipsed other human rights abuses that took place later. Thirdly, it was the first human rights abuse perpetrated by blacks against blacks in post-independence Zimbabwe. Focusing on the Gukurahundi is not to say that other cases of injustice are insignificant and not worth interrogating. Nearly two decades ago, Masunungure (2004) interrogated the travails of opposition politics since independence in Zimbabwe and argued that opposition parties and their supporters were treated as enemies and not as legitimate competitors by the Mugabe regime. This was true of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), which was targeted during Gukurahundi, and of the more recent Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). This trend in fact continued until the end of Mugabe’s reign. Further, a culture of impunity arose under Mugabe in relation to the glaring human rights abuses embedded in Gukurahundi and other acts of post-1980 violence. Since the early 2000s, the military also has been increasingly meddling in civilian and political affairs through the Joint Operations Command (JOC). In its short period of time in power, the ‘Second Republic’ has shown similar tendencies, without any clear signs of tackling the seriously and meaningfully the Gukurahundi past. Indeed, the military is now more overtly involved in key political decisions and processes at the national level.

2 A Dark Era Post-2000, the administration of the long-serving President of Zimbabwe (Mugabe) was characterised by gross human rights violations, economic mismanagement, dilapidated infrastructure, poor service delivery, investor-unfriendly policies, a demoralised and inefficient civil service, political repression, polarisation, brazen corruption, patronage, and international isolation, among a multiplicity of other challenges. Zimbabwe during the last two decades of Mugabe’s leadership had become a pariah state and its formal economy was in almost perpetual decline. In the first decade of independence, Mugabe unleashed an orgy of violence against Patriotic Front-ZAPU (PF-ZAPU) officials and supporters, ex-combatants of the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) and the IsiNdebele-speaking people of Matabeleland and Midlands in general, in an operation that was known in ChiShona as Gukurahundi (Alexander et al. 2000; Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2003; Sibanda 2005; Ngwenya 2014; Msipa 2015). In the ChiShona language, Gukurahundi refers to the rain that washes away the chaff from the last harvest before the onset of the spring rains (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2003). It seems that the ‘chaff’ was PF-ZAPU supporters and IsiNdebele-speaking people, who were simultaneously a stumbling block in ZANU-PF’s envisaged one-party state. The state-orchestrated violence led to the death of reportedly about 20,000 people, mainly civilians, and left the nation bitterly divided along ethnic lines, especially between Ndebele and Shona speakers (Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace and Legal Resources Foundation 1997; Muchemwa 2015). Accompanying this

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massive human carnage were retributive strategies against ZIPRA ex-combatants that included their persecution in the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) and civilian life, politically motivated and adverse meddling in their reintegration programmes and confiscation of all the properties they had bought while at Assembly Points (APs) immediately after liberation war (Kriger 2003; Alao 2012; Ndlovu 2019). After years of verbal and physical battering, PF-ZAPU capitulated and agreed to enter into a Unity Accord, with ZANU-PF using a template that was crafted and presented by it alone. This was done without delivering justice to the victims of Gukurahundi, with PF-ZAPU agreeing to it in part to save the lives of Ndebele people being killed on a daily basis. Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2003) has aptly described the Unity Accord of 22 December 1987 as a ‘surrender pact’ which facilitated the swallowing of PF-ZAPU by ZANU-PF. Years later, Mugabe simply described the Gukurahundi-linked atrocities as a ‘moment of madness’. Whatever this meant was only known to him, as it was never explained to the people of Zimbabwe, particularly the victims of Gukurahundi. No apology nor any compensation was ever extended to the victims to heal their physical and emotional scars. The Gukurahundi issue remained an open and unaddressed chapter up until his ouster from power in November 2017. In this context, victims of Gukurahundi are still calling for redress. The net effects of all these ills were multi-faceted. First, the Zimbabwean nation was left divided and fearful, there was general mistrust and lack of confidence in each other, and the marginalisation of the victims of violence took place. Secondly, and in response to the ruling party’s mismanagement of the economy, there was massive skills flight, especially after 2000, as thousands of energetic and welleducated Zimbabweans migrated to other parts of the world in search of greener pastures. Thirdly, political violence by the state escalated as a means of cowing dissenting voices that were increasingly complaining about the ever-diminishing political space, violation of property rights, electoral fraud and outright manipulation into submission (Feltoe 2004; Reeler 2004). Fourthly, there were concerted vitriolic outbursts by Mugabe against the West, especially Great Britain and the United States of America (USA), which he blamed for all of Zimbabwe’s economic woes. The response of Western nations of the global North to these transgressions, especially the post-2000 ones, was predictable. This was due to the simple reason that, for the first time since 1980, Mugabe had added Whites to his basket of enemies and victims. He did this by coercively dispossessing about 4,000 White commercial farmers of their farms and letting loose war veterans and ZANU-PF militia on those who dared resist forced displacements. Although it had largely ignored the blatant human rights abuses of the 1980s, the global North, led by Great Britain and the USA, moved swiftly and chided the Mugabe regime for gross human rights violations, including alleged electoral fraud and politically motivated violence during national elections in 2000 and 2002. Led by Great Britain, some countries in the global North then imposed targeted sanctions which they thought would bring his regime into line with ‘international

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norms and standards of doing business and politics’. However, the targeted sanctions did little to turn the Mugabe regime into a tolerant government that embraced dissenting voices (Chingono 2010). Sanctions also had a knock-on effect on the national economy which was already on a downward spiral due to corruption and general mismanagement. Instead, sanctions gave ZANU-PF government a scapegoat to further restrict political space for the opposition, namely, the pretext that it was fighting against Western-sponsored agents of neo-colonialism and imperialism. What was also infuriating ZANU-PF about the MDC was that the opposition party was receiving financial support from Western governments and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). What is clear and incontestable is that by the time of his ouster in November 2017, Mugabe was unpopular, having alienated and frustrated even his long-time friends, allies and supporters, many of whom aligned themselves with the G40 cabal, a faction of young and middle-aged ruling party activists who also consisted of intellectuals in ZANU-PF. The faction coalesced around Mugabe’s youthful and politically ambitious wife, Grace Mugabe. Overall, significant numbers of Zimbabwean people within his own party (and outside it) wanted to see his exit from the esteemed and highest office on the land. No matter how progressive and people-centred some of his earlier social policies (from the 1980s) were, by 2017, these were completely eclipsed by his authoritarian style of political leadership (from Gukurahundi onwards) and the equally ruinous populist economic policies and programmes that he implemented during the last part of his long reign. At present, few Zimbabweans give Mugabe credit for his robust and meticulous attention to expanded primary health care and universal primary education in the decade of the 1980s, or at least they rarely recall this. In other words, he shattered his legacy by overstaying his welcome and later becoming increasingly repressive politically, especially against the opposition and some dissenting elements within his own party. During his last two decades in office, he clung to power mainly through using coercive measures and, electoral manipulation as well as a well-oiled patronage system that fed into and benefited from corruption. Even during the height of his authoritarian rule, Mugabe was able to appeal to some sections of the population by distributing land, free agricultural inputs and other benefits. These strategies enabled him to maintain solid rural support. He was also able to remain popular within the security and intelligence services until he started to antagonise the war veterans (excombatants), some of whom were at the top echelons of the security sectors and supported Mnangagwa on the succession issue. Despite his popular appeal to certain vital constituencies within the country which enabled him to win for example the 2013 elections, it can be safely said that fear and trepidation pervaded almost every facet of life under the leadership of Mugabe.

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3 A Glimpse of Hope The so-called Second Republic’s messages of hope and vision for the country were carried out through the incoming President’s first and second inauguration speeches on 24 November 2017 and 26 August 2018 respectively, the ZANU-PF 2018 election manifesto, Mnangagwa’s 1st of October 2019 State of the Nation Address (SONA) and through a number of his other public addresses during his first months in office. Mnangagwa’s public speeches after his inauguration and when he was campaigning for the presidency in 2018 were loaded with meaning and inspiration, and relevant to the Zimbabwean context. They touched on a number of critical facets of social life and re-ignited hope for a better and more vibrant Zimbabwe that had long faded among millions of Zimbabweans both at home and abroad. He used carefully crafted rhetoric to appeal to (and resonate with) particular constituencies, both in rural and urban areas. Although he could not match Mugabe’s oratory skills and perceptive reading of an audience, Mnangagwa’s written speeches overshadowed his mediocrity as a public speaker. The question remains of course: Who drafted and wrote his speeches? Nevertheless, his catchphrases became, among others: ‘A new Zimbabwe’; ‘A new dispensation’; ‘Zimbabwe is open for business’; ‘l am a listening president, a servant leader’; ‘The voice of the people is the voice of God’; ‘Opening a new chapter in the history of Zimbabwe’; and ‘Engagement and re-engagement’ (Chronicle, 25 November 2017). The message of the ‘Second Republic’ also made it categorically clear that the rebuilding exercise would not be accomplished through speeches, but through hard work by all Zimbabweans across the political divide. Due to the high-sounding promises made and the conciliatory tone of President Mnangagwa, it is highly likely that those who listened to his speeches believed that he was indeed de-linking Zimbabwe from the past and charting a different way towards a new and brighter future. If public speeches and pronouncements that promise good are anything to go by, the ‘Second Republic’ would be ranked as one of the most democratic and progressive in Africa. Referring to the authoritarian leadership style of his predecessor, Mnangagwa said in his inauguration speech on 24 November 2017: Here at home, we must, however, appreciate that over the years, our domestic politics had become poisoned, rancorous and polarising. My goal is to preside over a polity and run an administration that recognise strength in our diversity as a people, hoping that this position and well-meant stance will be reciprocated and radiated to cover all our groups, organisations and communities. We dare not squander the moment (Chronicle, 25 November 2017).

The President also promised to uplift Zimbabwe from its pariah position into a global player and partner. He took note of the fact that Zimbabwe found itself in isolation globally because of the way it conducted its politics internally. In other words, Mnangagwa admitted that the Mugabe regime, of which he was part for close to four decades, practised toxic politics and he vowed to, in a sense, chlorinate and decontaminate national politics for the benefit of every citizen. He, therefore, promised

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far-reaching socio-political and economic reforms that would bring peace and development at home and endear the country to the international community. His reconciliation agenda was therefore two-pronged. It was targeted at reconciling Zimbabweans internally while also re-linking the country with the international community (specifically, the global North) through pursuing mutually beneficial policies. He categorically stated that: ‘Isolation has never been splendid or viable; solidarity and partnership are and will always be the way’ (Chronicle, 25 November 2017). The promises made by, and about, the ‘Second Republic’ were at the centre of what Zimbabweans had longed to hear for close to four decades (Noyes 2020). In the minds of many, it was hoped that the ‘Second Republic’ would be the panacea for all of Zimbabwe’s past ills. In the economic front, it pledged to extricate Zimbabweans from the plethora of debilitating economic challenges of the past decades and rid Zimbabwean society of the scourge of corruption. Addressing Zimbabweans and invited guests at the giant National Sports Stadium in Harare during his second inauguration, after the harmonised elections of 30 July 2018, he again rekindled the hope of Zimbabweans by publicly declaring that: In the Second Republic, no person or entity will be allowed to steal, loot or pocket that which belongs to the people of Zimbabwe. No one is above the law. This is a new Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe we all want. Let me assure you that tomorrow is brighter (Chronicle, 27 August 2018).

The second inauguration of Mnangagwa occurred after the tragic incident of the shooting and killing of six civilians (on 1 August 2018) who were protesting against the seemingly delayed release of presidential election results. As a ‘listening President, and a servant leader’, he made a commitment to swiftly announce members of a Commission of Inquiry into the shootings to get to the bottom of the issue and ensure that never again would such incidents recur. The bedrock of Mnangagwa’s speeches and promises was the ZANU-PF 2018 election manifesto which was couched in different terms from the previous ones. Anyone who read the ZANU-PF manifesto for the 2018 elections was left with no doubt that post-Mugabe ZANU-PF was to be vastly different than the previous one, and that it was very keen to conduct its politics and business differently domestically and to open a new chapter in its relations with the international community, particularly the West. In short, the manifesto sought to address corruption, economic decline, political disunity and polarisation, and it spoke about opening Zimbabwe for business and, mending its strained international relations. Of great significance, it spoke about ensuring that the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) was fully capacitated so that it could effectively execute its constitutional mandate of addressing significant incidents of injustice and gross human rights violations from both the pre- and post-independence periods (ZANU-PF 2018 Election Manifesto). Through its promises, the ‘Second Republic’ appealed to a variety of stakeholders, both at home and internationally. While a complete break with the past was expected, it is now important to interrogate what has actually happened in practice under the ‘Second Republic’.

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4 The Lingering Ghost of Mugabeism Now a few years into the ‘Second Republic’ it seems that the more things change the more they remain the same. This is not to discount the relevance of Mnangagwa’s reconciliation efforts as part of a broader formative project, but to argue that—at least in the case of reconciliation—this effort would logically entail a rejection not only of ZANU-PF’s past but also of its present and future: that is if it were a sincere and authentic process of reconciliation involving not just peace but also justice. Rather, the process under Mnangagwa has been remarkedly tentative and half-hearted because of the risk of destabilising ZANU-PF rule. In this way, Mugabe the person may have gone, but many of his political strategies remain intact under the ‘new dispensation’ as the latter seeks first and foremost to remain in office. Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2015) conceptualises Mugabeism as a complex constellation of political controversies, political behaviour, political ideas, utterances, rhetoric and actions that crystallised around Mugabe’s political life. While some view Mugabeism as Pan-Africanism due to Mugabe’s seemingly concerted and widespread resistance against Western imperialism and neo-colonialism, for many Zimbabweans whose livelihoods were ruined by his controversial leadership style, Mugabeism means everything that has destroyed Zimbabwe, once touted as the ‘jewel of Africa’. In other words, Mugabeism is a culture and ideology of doing things the Mugabe way. Among other things, this involves violence, toxic and exclusionary politics, patronage, subordinating the judiciary to the executive, corruption, and populist and irrational economic policies and programmes (Southall 2017; Noyes 2020). One of the traits of Mugabeism embedded in the ‘Second Republic’ is expressed in its quest to create a pliable judiciary through Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 2 which was signed into law on 7 May 2021 (Chronicle, 8 May 2021). Among other things, the Act seeks to create an imperial president by giving him powers to appoint judges without subjecting them to public interviews; it also removes the clause on running mates and gives the president powers to choose his vice president(s). Further, the Act stipulates that, if judges are mentally and physically sound, they can retire at seventy-five years instead of seventy years (Constitutional Amendment Act No. 2). Although the constitution is clear that the sitting judges cannot benefit from this particular clause of the Act, the President extended illegally the term of Chief Justice, Luke Malaba, on the basis of the constitutional amendment. Despite the fact that the High Court, through its judgement, has annulled the Chief Justice’s appointment, the government (through the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Ziyambi Ziyambi), has appealed against the High Court judgement. This is a clear indication of the State executive’s unbridled interference in the judiciary. The following discussion of an elusive inclusive government highlights further areas where the ghost of Mugabeism stifles progress and change under Mnangagwa, with particular reference to reconciliation.

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5 Elusive Inclusive Government The incoming ‘Second Republic’ mobilised multitudes across the political divide to help it push out Mugabe, including rallying the opposition in parliament in an anti-Mugabe political crusade. Even long before ‘Operation Restore Legacy’ that ousted Mugabe, there were significant discussions and expectations in some quarters about the desirability of a broad-based coalition government (Raftopoulos 2015). Taking cognisance of this, it is possible that many people involved in events around Mugabe’s fall thought that once Mugabe was gone, the ‘new dispensation’ would be an inclusive amalgam of different political parties, as well as the church, civil society and other critical stakeholders, so as to unite and effectively rebuild the country. However, immediately after the successful ouster of Mugabe, those in ZANU-PF like Patrick Chinamasa, former minister of Finance in the Mugabe administration, started to speak about ‘ChinhuChedu’ (‘Our Thing/Project’) and this set the tone for the preclusion of the opposition in the post-Mugabe cabinet. After the Mnangagwaled Lacoste faction ‘used’ the opposition to assist it in vanquishing the G40 faction, the opposition was dumped. Speaking to the Sunday Times after the announcement of the first post-Mugabe cabinet that was exclusively ZANU-PF, Tendai Biti, the former minister of Finance in the Government of National Unity (GNU) between Tsvangirai and Mugabe (2009– 2013), lamented the move. He said: What a missed opportunity! The honeymoon is over even before it had begun. What shame! Up until now, we had given the putsch the benefit of doubt. We did this in the genuine, perhaps naïve view that the country could actually move forward. We craved change, peace and stability in our country. How wrong we were (Sunday Times, 1 December 2017).

It is believed that, like the previous government of national unity, a coalition government after Mugabe’s ouster could have mustered enough trust and confidence from the people locally and in the international community to give the country a fresh and vibrant start in pursuing reconciliation. A coalition government could have attracted the much-needed foreign direct investment and stabilised the economy. Unfortunately, this opportunity was missed. With a two-thirds majority in parliament, ZANU-PF felt confident to go it alone in government. In a bid to hoodwink the international community into believing that the ‘new dispensation’ was inclusive, President Mnangagwa crafted a political strategy by calling all presidential candidates who contested the 30 July 2018 elections to join a platform, the Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD). The platform, apparently one based on inclusion, soon began to fail the credibility test, both locally and internationally (Munhende 2019). The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change-Alliance (MDC-A), under Nelson Chamisa, refused to be part of POLAD, arguing that the proposed political dialogue should be convened and facilitated by a credible, independent and internationally recognised interlocutor and not one of the disputants to the election. Chamisa’s spokesperson, Nkululeko Sibanda, dismissed it as a ‘tea party’ while former Vice President, Joyce Mujuru, scoffed at it as a ‘photo opportunity’

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(Munhende 2019). In fact, POLAD has not received much attention from the global community, and, even at home, people do not take it seriously. It cannot be doubted, therefore, that the ‘Second Republic’ has failed to politically unite the nation which was left splintered by Mugabe. Attempts to nudge political unity through regionallyfacilitated talks by former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, were also rebuffed by ZANU-PF in December 2019 (Daily News, 28 May 2020). ZANU-PF has maintained that the only platform that is open for dialogue with the MDC-A, as it is with all other political parties in the country, is the POLAD. However, it would seem politically prudent for ZANU-PF to negotiate with the MDCA rather than any other political party in the country, given the fact that its presidential candidate, Chamisa, polled 2,147,436 votes (44.3%) while Mnangagwa received 2,460,463 votes (50.8%) and their parties both have had significant representation in parliament (Zimbabwe Electoral Commission 2018). Entering into dialogue with 21 other candidates, whose combined total votes did not surpass 10% of the national vote is inconsequential politically and cannot bring about the much-needed national unity, peace and reconciliation. In this sense, POLAD is not genuinely inclusive, and it is possible that many political parties that decided to join POLAD are mere appendages of ZANU-PF. To indicate how opposed to a GNU ZANU-PF is, suggestions by former war veterans minister, Tshinga Dube, that a GNU could be a sine quo non (or absolute necessity) for Zimbabwean politics attracted public backlash and serious rebuke from George Charamba, who is the presidential spokesperson. Charamba even accused Dube of parroting the ‘enemy’s thinking’ by suggesting a GNU between MDC-A and ZANU-PF (Daily News, 27 May 2020; Daily News, 28 May 2020; News Day, 15 June 2020). It is no secret that the political differences between Chamisa and Mnangagwa have significantly contributed to the country’s economic woes as their lack of agreement has left the population divided along partisan lines, with local institutions polarised and the international community not warming up to ZANU-PF rule. South Africa, through its Minister of International Relations and Co-operation, Naledi Pandor, acknowledged in November 2019 that Zimbabwe’s political differences, and not sanctions alone, were responsible for the economic crisis in the country (Business Day, 19 December 2019). Although Dube conceded that sanctions are indeed hurting the economy through freezing lines of credit to the country, he also cautioned that they could not be fought by the ruling party by conducting street marches and organising big rallies. To the contrary, he argued, they can be successfully fought through collective political processes that stimulate positive change and inspire trust and confidence in the system, with genuine national dialogue and reconciliation, as well as a coalition government, being central to this. The expectation is that, if leaders unite politically, they would mainly concentrate on collectively running the economy and less on bickering and squabbling over politics. Because of this, Dube suggested a GNU, explaining his thinking as follows: ‘Economics and politics are two legs of men, if the other leg is dysfunctional, the other leg won’t be able to walk straight. You cannot have a good economy where there is no good politics’ (Daily News, 27 May 2020).

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It takes wise and selfless leaders to put their differences aside for the good of their people and country. However, the culture of exclusion, violence, marginalisation, selfishness, patronage and power retention seem too entrenched in the practices of ZANU-PF as an institutional formation to allow it to genuinely engage with the opposition. At the same time, the main opposition MDC-A is also uncompromising politically; hence, the country remains politically polarised between ZANU-PF and MDC-A. It is no exaggeration, then, that the ‘Second Republic’ has failed to do politics differently from Mugabe. This is not surprising as the so-called ‘new dispensation’ was part of the ‘old regime’ and emerged out of it. The culture of political exclusion that was so prevalent under Mugabe, including treating vibrant opposition parties as enemies rather than legitimate competitors, continues unabated under the ‘Second Republic’ (Noyes 2020). Thus, the ‘Second Republic’ is trying to reap political capital through delegitimising its opponents and branding them as sell-outs. Clearly, Mnangagwa missed the opportunity to create an inclusive government that might open opportunities and prospects for the country, bridge political polarisation and release fresh ideas and energies for developing the country economically (Ndlovu 2019). In practice, he has not shown genuine interest in departing from Mugabe’s style of leadership. For this reason, Noyes (2020: 8) rightly concludes that ‘there is a wide gap between the government’s reform rhetoric and the reality on the ground’. Simply put, reconciliation in any meaningful sense has not taken off.

6 The Gukurahundi Issue Another key opportunity that was missed by the ‘Second Republic’, now focused more fully in this chapter, was to bring closure to the Gukurahundi atrocities and reconcile the fractured nation. Despite promising a break from Mugabe’s authoritarian rule and declaring a firm commitment to accountability, tolerance, and reconciliation, the ‘Second Republic’ has been found inactive in addressing past human rights abuses. Observing that trend, Noyes (2020: 8) claims that Mnangagwa’s promises are just well-rehearsed slogans largely meant for the attention of the international diplomatic community and investors. In its 2018 election manifesto, which was slightly different from the previous ones under Mugabe in terms of its emphasis on accountability and transparency, ZANUPF, in line with the political trajectory of the ‘Second Republic’ of fostering national unity and reconciliation, promised to make full use of the NPRC as a vehicle for dealing with past human rights abuses (ZANU-PF 2018 Election Manifesto). On a positive note, President Mnangagwa also signed into law, in 2018, the enabling Act that brought into operation the NPRC, admittedly about five years into its envisaged tenure of ten years (Matabeleland Chiefs’ Submissions to the President, 8 June 2019). Further to this, Mnangagwa met on more than one occasion with the Matabeleland Collective at State House, Bulawayo, subsequent to his ascendancy into office.

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At first sight, the intention of these meetings was to engage productively and thereby stimulate debate on Gukurahundi so that contentious issues about Gukurahundi could be resolved. The Matabeleland Collective is a collection of civil society organisations, church leaders, academics and traditional leaders from the Matabeleland region (Compendium on the Matabeleland Collective 2019). Unlike Mugabe, who merely described Gukurahundi—as indicated—as a ‘moment of madness’, Mnangagwa made some effort to speak to critical stakeholders about Gukurahundi, rather than just acknowledging that Gukurahundi entailed gross human rights violations. However, even after meeting with chiefs from Matabeleland and parts of Midlands that were affected by Gukurahundi, and hearing their views and recommendations on how to go about addressing the ills brought about by Gukurahundi, nothing substantive (at least of major significance) has taken place so far on the ground. Given the lack of progress on bringing finality to this issue, it would appear that Mnangagwa’s stance on Gukurahundi is merely a publicity strategy and human relations project on the domestic and international fronts. Mnangagwa simply wants to placate Ndebele-speaking people in a minimalist manner, which in fact is all his regime can afford to do if it wants to remain in power in its present form. Thus, he is hoping to channel reconciliation along a particular route that does not disrupt the legitimacy and continuity of rule of ZANU-PF. Because of this, the ‘Second Republic’ has failed to capitalise on the renewed hope of the people of Matabeleland specifically and holistically address the long-standing Gukurahundi problem. Dealing with the Gukurahundi issue meaningfully and holistically is problematic as well because some of the key personnel in the execution of this operation (including of course Mnangagwa himself) hold important positions in the ‘Second Republic’. Moreover, the security services and other key stakeholders are not vested in a process of reconciliation around Gukurahundi. The president’s aim seems to be more inclined towards pacifying the people of Matabeleland and thwarting the further emergence of political groups with the declared purpose of secession from Zimbabwe, rather than redress around Gukurahundi and bringing about reconciliation, peace, justice and unity. Before drawing further conclusions, it is pertinent to outline some of the key recommendations made by the chiefs of Matabeleland and the Midlands on how they thought the Gukurahundi challenge could be best addressed. In their submissions to the President, the chiefs made numerous recommendations that they thought would define collectively a roadmap towards redressing the Gukurahundi issue. However, there were four key ones. First, the chiefs advised the President to make a public, official and unequivocal apology for Gukurahundi. Secondly, they suggested that an honest and open truth-seeking and telling process about the character and extent of the Gukurahundi atrocities would lay a firm foundation for subsequent processes that would facilitate redress and healing. Thirdly, the President was implored to facilitate the release of the reports of the Dumbutshena and Chihambakwe Commissions of Inquiry including their recommendations (Matabeleland Chiefs’ submissions to the President, 8 June 2019). These two Commissions of Inquiry were set up to investigate the violence of the 1980s related to Gukurahundi. The release of the two reports would shed more

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light on what really happened during Gukurahundi and enable even the voices of those who have since died to be heard. Furthermore, the release of the two reports (together with their recommendations) would make the work of the NPRC easier with regard to the recovery of truth about Gukurahundi and the way forward. A fourth recommendation was the return of ZIPRA ex-combatants’ properties. On asking the president to apologise for Gukurahundi, the chiefs explained that they believe that the responsibility for Gukurahundi atrocities primarily rests with the state and it is therefore logical for the president (as head of state) to publicly apologise on behalf of the state, and all its institutions and agencies that committed Gukurahundi atrocities (Matabeleland Chiefs’ submissions to the President, 8 June 2019). This did not imply that they meant that the President was personally responsible for the atrocities, but that he should apologise for the state as a culpable entity. As noted by the Motlanthe Commission of Inquiry into the 1st August 2018 post-election violence and the subsequent shootings, there are persisting grievances among communities in Matabeleland and the Midlands arising from Gukurahundi. On reflection, the existence of long-held grievances is hardly surprising. The scale of the suffering, and the lasting political and psychological trauma experienced by the IsiNdebele-speaking people, was and is enormous. People in Bulawayo and Gweru (in Matabeleland and Midlands regions respectively) spoke more about Gukurahundi atrocities than the 1st August 2018 post-election violence during public hearings conducted by the Motlanthe Commission in those two regions (Motlanthe Commission of Inquiry Report 2018: 49). What is brought to the fore by this is that, to the people of Matabeleland and some parts of the Midlands, the events of Gukurahundi supersede any other cases of violence and human rights violation in the country’s history. Although the recommendation for the president to apologise on behalf of the state for Gukurahundi was given no specific time frame, it seems the opportunity to heal the victims of Gukurahundi is slipping away as the president has not yet apologised well into his (likely first) five-year-term. This also is not surprising as there is no culture of apology in Zimbabwe. Beyond this, there are likely fears among Mnangagwa and his close associates that apologising would further amplify growing demands for reparations for Gukurahundi victims and further expose his personal complicity together with other leading ZANU-PF figures in the Gukurahundi atrocities. As one of the key ministers under Robert Mugabe in charge of state security (1980–1988), Mnangagwa knows that his hands are not clean, and any truth-telling regarding Gukurahundi would find him guilty of human rights violations. On the issue of ZIPRA properties, the ‘new dispensation’ is unequivocal that they cannot be returned to their rightful owners. The chiefs from Matabeleland and Midlands had recommended that, where it is not practical and possible to return the properties, some meaningful payment should be made (Matabeleland Chiefs’ submissions to the President, 8 June 2019). In March 2019, Ziyambi Ziyambi, the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, categorically stated that the matter of ZIPRA properties is a closed chapter as it was settled by the Unity Accord between PF-ZAPU and ZANU-PF on 22 December 1987. He argued that, as the two parties merged into one, any properties held by each party prior to the unification pact automatically became part of the ‘new party’ (Zimbabwe Independent, 22 March

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2019). Using his ‘legal knowledge’, he warned restive ZIPRA ex-combatants still yearning to get their properties back that if they dare take the issue to the courts, they would definitely lose as the Unity Accord effectively meant that ZIPRA properties now legally belong to ZANU-PF. In fact, what this means is that the Unity Accord was in practical ways not an amalgamation of equals, but a takeover of PF-ZAPU and whatever properties it had by ZANU-PF. While it is true that PF-ZAPU was in effect swallowed up by ZANU-PF, what Ziyambi ‘forgot’ is that although some properties could have belonged to PF-ZAPU as a party, there were many private properties that belonged to ZIPRA ex-combatants and these properties were registered under a private company known as NITRAM (Kriger 2003). These properties were bought by ZIPRA ex-combatants through contributing Z$50 each from the Z$400 they were given while at Assembly Points (Alexander et al. 2000; Kriger 2003). If the ‘new dispensation’ wants to be recognised for respecting property rights as well as genuine transitional justice processes, addressing the concerns of ZIPRA ex-combatants would contribute to building trust and confidence in this. Overall, no clear action has been taken on all four key recommendations made by the chiefs. The President could have taken advantage of the chiefs’ clear roadmap about Gukurahundi and, in doing so, commit himself and his party to opening a new chapter in the history of Zimbabwe by vowing that never again would such atrocities be committed by the state against its own citizens. The ‘moment of madness’ mindset, though, seems to be continuing under the ‘new dispensation’ as the ‘listening and servant President’ is failing to rise above speeches and political rhetoric to effectively address Gukurahundi. The ‘Second Republic’ appears to be obsessed with exhumations and burials of Gukurahundi victims as well as issuing birth and death certificates to the survivors of the carnage, rather than addressing fundamental transitional justice issues that could bring healing and reconciliation between victims and perpetrators of Gukurahundi and move the nation forward on a developmental trajectory. Without truth-telling, acknowledgement of wrongs done, apology, reparations and, forgiveness among other processes, there is minimal possibility of reconciliation and peace between former adversaries (Assefa 1993). For Mnangagwa, peace (no matter how superficial and fragile) is far preferable to justice, as the latter would entail far-reaching criticisms and likely political changes, which ZANU-PF is unwilling to confront and unable to bear. Southall (2017: 82) is perhaps correct in his observation that the political trajectory of the ‘new dispensation’ signifies an era of ‘Mugabe-ism without Mugabe’. From an analysis of what is taking place on the ground, it is safe to conclude that Mnangagwa is cunning and wants to pacify his critics at home and appeal to the international community by appearing to be addressing its concerns while in actual fact, he is doing little in practice. Mnangagwa tends to deceive both his foes and ‘friends’. He pretended to be loyal to (and working with) former President Mugabe after his appointment as Vice President of the party and country in 2014 but, simultaneously, plotting Mugabe’s ouster. During the interface rallies organised by the former First Lady, he did not appear moved by a tirade of scathing attacks directed against him and

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his allies and did not bother to defend his allies who were decimated and scattered around by the then-rival G40 faction. The ‘new dispensation’ should be well aware that pain not transformed is transmitted. It should also know that reconciliation cannot be achieved through slogans and political grandstanding meant to deflect attention and buy time. Malan (2008: 144) correctly notes that in the transitional justice process, ‘revenge and forgetting and moving on’ should be ruled out because these are not authentic versions of justice. The ‘new dispensation’ has tried to simply embrace a ‘moving on’ approach to Gukurahundi as its intervention measures remain at the level of speeches without meaningful action. It is possible that the ‘Second Republic’ hopes that the victims would be satisfied by mere rhetoric and empty gestures and would also merely forget and move forward. Overall, it appears that Mnangagwa is bent on canvassing for support both locally and internationally by pretending to be addressing the challenges left behind by Gukurahundi through his high-sounding public pronouncements while in practice he is perpetuating Mugabeism for his own preservation. According to Assefa (1993), genuine reconciliation is underpinned by an array of crucial processes like the acknowledgement of wrongs inflicted and pain suffered by victims, truth-seeking and telling, asking for forgiveness, repenting, remorse, apology, and compensation where it is possible. In other words, reconciliation is a difficult political voyage towards nation- and peace-building which cannot be achieved by those who are afraid of unearthing the truth of past events (no matter how unpleasant it is) and shouldering the responsibility. At the moment, with reference to Gukurahundi, the ‘new dispensation’ is not committed to bringing finality to the issue. As the chiefs from Matabeleland lament, the ‘new dispensation’ at times pushes the mammoth and sensitive issue of Gukurahundi onto the shoulders of the NPRC and does not want to take direct responsibility. The greatest challenges in Zimbabwe regarding the resolution of Gukurahundi are the asymmetries of power that are inherently embedded in the process, whereby a traumatised minority requires that political elites admit guilt and atone, with the possibility of open-ended and far-reaching consequences. The current process is not a grassroots movement of ownership and reconciliation, but a top-down one that is controlled by the political elite.

7 1st August 2018 Post-election Violence After the 1st August 2018 post-election violence, President Mnangagwa swiftly appointed a seven-member Commission of Inquiry to investigate the issue and establish the truth of what happened so as to exonerate Zimbabwe in the eyes of the international community. The Commission was appointed on 12 September 2018 and sworn in on 19 September of the same year. It was headed by former South African President, Kgalema Motlanthe (Motlanthe Commission of Inquiry 2018). The speed with which the Commission was set up gave Zimbabweans and members of the international community, in general, a false sense of hope that the ‘Second

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Republic’ was prepared to usher in a new dispensation predicated on accountability, transparency, reconciliation and justice. The Motlanthe Commission of Inquiry established that six people died and thirtyfive were injured as a result of the actions of the military and the police. The Commission (2018: 53) recommended that: (a) There should be payment of compensation for all victims of the violence and dependents of the deceased. Where the deceased had young children, they should be urgently assisted with school fees and their general welfare; (b) The government should put in place a special committee to assess and determine quantum of damages and compensation to be awarded to victims on a case by case basis; (c) The government should set up a fund to assist those directly affected; (d) Police to hasten their investigations to enable the prosecution of those persons responsible for the alleged crimes committed on 1st August 2018; (e) Those particular members of the military and police found to be in breach of their professional duties and discipline on 1st August 2018 should be identified as soon as possible for internal investigations and appropriate sanction; (f) There is need for national healing and reconciliation as highlighted by the continued reference to events such as Gukurahundi, especially in Bulawayo and Gweru. A number of years after the callous incident, no meaningful action has been taken to implement the recommendations of the Motlanthe Commission of Inquiry Report. It seems that the intention of instituting a commission of inquiry was to give the appearance to the international community of taking action to address the problem and heal the nation, while in actual fact it entailed window dressing. The victims of violence have not been afforded justice and the perpetrators have not been prosecuted. Contrary, there is more violence in the country as indicated by the January 2019 nationwide looting and the alleged killing of seventeen civilians by the military. Allegations of torture and abductions of opposition figures abound. For example, in mid-May 2020, the opposition MDC-A alleged that three of its members, Joana Mamombe, Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova were abducted and tortured by ZANU-PF agents (News Day, 14 May 2020; Zimbabwe Independent, 15 May 2020). Arguably, very little has changed in substantive terms since Mugabe’s departure from office. What has changed significantly is rhetoric that promises engagement, inclusivity, forgiveness and reconciliation. On the ground, the ‘new dispensation’ is, at least for now, just a matter of ‘old wine in new bottles’.

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8 Conclusion The ‘new dispensation’ certainly is trapped in the past and does not want to depart from the path of Mugabeism. In fact, it acts like the same ‘old regime’ with the same old culture of politics. Zimbabweans were given false hope through a multiplicity of progressive-oriented promises. The new regime’s procrastination in delivering ‘overdue’ justice on Gukurahundi issues, dithering in opening up political space for the opposition, using a captured judiciary to decimate the opposition MDC-A, and dealing brutally with any dissenting voices among other things is enough evidence that there is indeed nothing new about the so-called ‘new dispensation’ when it comes to reconciliation. The mooted political and economic reforms of the ‘new dispensation’ have been piecemeal, half-hearted and to a large degree cosmetic, and fall far too short of ensuring reconciliation both at home and with the international community. In the end, the Mnangagwa regime simply does not have the stomach for meaningful reconciliation. Such reconciliation entails revisiting the terror of the ZANU-PF government dating back to the 1980s, thereby questioning the very logic of the party’s form of rulership. This is a pill far too hard to swallow for Mnangagwa, particularly given his central role in the violence of the past. What the Motlanthe Commission of Inquiry (2018: 53) observed is that, ‘there is a worrisome degree of polarisation and bitterness within the body politic of Zimbabwe’. However, it seems the ‘Second Republic’ is squandering the opportunity to de-toxicate the long-practised political culture and reconcile the nation. It has to be borne in mind that if there is no truth, justice can hardly be delivered, and, without justice, it is difficult to forgive and reconcile. Without reconciliation, peace and development are not feasible, for the two are inextricably intertwined and are a product of reconciliation. In order to build sustainable peace that is predicated on reconciliation, the government of Zimbabwe should engage all victims and perpetrators of human rights violations and facilitate an open process of dialogue that would bring about mindset transformation, and foster a spirit of tolerance, peace, unity, inclusivity, trust, and confidence in each other. This does not appear possible because of the risks involved for Mnangagwa and the ZANU-PF leadership in relation to pursuing reconciliation in particular.

References Alao A (2012) Mugabe and the politics of security in Zimbabwe. Queens University Press, McGill Alexander J, McGregor J, Ranger TO (2000) Violence and memory: one hundred years in the ‘dark forests’ of Matabeleland. James Currey, Oxford Assefa H (1993) Peace and reconciliation as a paradigm: a philosophy of peace and its implications on conflict, governance, and economic growth in Africa. ACIS Press, Nairobi Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, and Legal Resources Foundation (1997) Breaking the silence, building true peace: a report on the disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands Region, 1980–1988. CCJP and LRF, Harare

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Chingono H (2010) Zimbabwe sanctions: an analysis of the ‘Lingo’ guiding the perceptions of the Sanctioners and the Sanctionees. African Journal of Political Science and International Relations 4(2):66–74 Feltoe G (2004) The onslaught against democracy and the rule of law in Zimbabwe in 2000. In: Harold-Barry D (ed) Zimbabwe: the past is the future. Weaver Press, Harare Kriger N (2003) Guerrilla veterans in post-war Zimbabwe: symbolic and violent politics, 1980– 1987. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Malan J (2008) Understanding transitional justice in Africa. In: Francis DJ (ed) Peace and conflict in Africa. Zed Books, London Masunungure E (2004) Travails of opposition politics in Zimbabwe since independence. In: HaroldBarry D (ed) Zimbabwe: the past is the present. Weaver Press, Harare Msipa CG (2015) In pursuit of freedom and justice: a memoir. Weaver Press, Harare Muchemwa C (2015) Building friendship between Shona and Ndebele ethnic groups in Zimbabwe. Unpublished PhD thesis, Durban University of Technology Munhende L (2019) Dialogue should be between Mnangagwa and Chamisa: thinking beyond. J Altern Democratic Zimbabwe 1(28) Ndlovu M (2019) Disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration in Zimbabwe: the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army’s experience and its implications for peace building. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Johannesburg Ndlovu-Gatsheni SJ (2003) The post-colonial state and Matabeleland regional perceptions of civilmilitary relations, 1980–2002. In: Williams R, Cawthra G, Abrahams D (eds) Ourselves to know: civil-military relations and defense transformation in Southern Africa. Institute of Security Studies, Pretoria Ndlovu-Gatsheni SJ (2015) Mugabeism and entanglements of history, politics, and power in the making of Zimbabwe. In: Ndlovu-Gatsheni SJ (ed) Mugabeism? History, politics, and power in Zimbabwe. Palgrave McMillan, New York Ngwenya D (2014) Healing the wounds of Gukurahundi: a participatory action research project. Unpublished PhD thesis, Durban University of Technology Noyes AH (2020) A new Zimbabwe? Assessing continuity and change after Mugabe. RAND Corporation, California Raftopoulos B (2015) Zimbabwe’s politics of despair. Solidarity Peace Trust Reeler AP (2004) Sticks and stones, skeletons and ghosts. In: Harold-Barry D (ed) Zimbabwe: the past is the future. Weaver Press, Harare Rogers D (2019) Two weeks in November: the astonishing untold story of the operation that toppled Mugabe. Short Books, London Southall R (2017) Bob is out, the Croc is in: continuity or change in Zimbabwe? Africa Spectrum 52(3):81–94 Sibanda E (2005) The Zimbabwe African People’s Union 1961–87: a political history of insurgency in Southern Rhodesia. Africa World Press, Trenton

Newspapers Business Day, 19 December 2019 Chronicle, 27 August 2017 Chronicle, 25 November 2017 Chronicle, 8 May 2021 Daily News, 27 May 2020 Daily News, 28 May 2020 News Day, 14 May 2020. News Day, 15 June 2020 Sunday Times, 01 December 2017

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Zimbabwe Independent, 22 March 2019 Zimbabwe Independent, 15 May 2020

Other Sources Compendium on the Matabeleland Collective, 2019 Constitutional Amendment Act, No. 2 Matabeleland Chiefs’ submissions to the President, 8 June 2019 Motlanthe Commission of Inquiry Report, 2018 ZANU-PF 2018 Election Manifesto Zimbabwe Electoral Commission Presidential Election Results, 2018

Mandlenkosi Ndlovu holds a Ph.D. in Politics and International Relations from the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He has a Master of Science in Peace, Leadership and Conflict Resolution and a B.A. in History and War and Strategic Studies. He is a senior lecturer in the Department of Development Studies at Lupane State University. His research interests are on conflict resolution and peace building, with a bias towards indigenous processes that are culturally-grounded and informed by Theories of Change (TOC). Christopher Ndlovu holds a Ph.D. in Science Education from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He is a senior lecturer in the Department of Educational Foundations at Lupane State University in Zimbabwe. His research interests are on indigenous knowledge systems, gender inequalities and curriculum conceptualisation. He has published 17 journal articles and book chapters.

The Second Republic’s Stance on Corruption and the Battle for Public Confidence Rodney Ruwende

Abstract Corruption in Zimbabwe has become a part of a government system of plundering state resources by a few well-connected individuals with the aid and blessing of the ruling elite. President Emmerson Mnangagwa has declared war on corruption and scored some levels of success through enhanced legislation and a renewed vigour to fight the scourge. However, this effort has become somewhat problematic given the continued blatant abuse of state resources by politically-connected individuals. In this regard, Mnangagwa’s formative project with specific reference to corruption is taking place within strict limits, as a pronounced anti-corruption crusade would likely undermine the very political hegemony of the ruling party. In assessing the Second Republic’s stance on corruption and the battle for public confidence, this chapter seeks to show that corruption is reducing the chances of the country attaining an upper-middle-class economic status and inhibiting progress towards effective functioning democratic institutions. Utilising an archival and documentary search methodology, the assessment shows that Zimbabweans generally have no confidence in the ability of the government to fight corruption and that there is a general lack of political will to address the problem of corruption. The chapter concludes that there is a need for the government to establish and adhere to a proper system for monitoring its resources. The tough anti-corruption talk by the new president must be accompanied by concrete action to jail corrupt individuals.

1 Introduction The former Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe was arguably at the forefront of the country’s economic malaise since it gained independence from Great Britain in 1980. Crucially, Mugabe’s government was soiled by a range of corruption scandals from the time he assumed power until his deposition by the army R. Ruwende (B) Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Moyo and K. Helliker (eds.), Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic, Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30129-2_4

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and his ruling party sycophants. The regime of his successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has failed to shake off this history of economic and political mismanagement which has now become associated invariably with the system of government of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). The same ills that characterised Mugabe’s rule, like gross violations of property and human rights, state-sponsored expropriation, restrictive business regulations and haphazard monetary policies, continue to haunt the so-called New Dispensation. Indeed, corruption has become a part of a government system of plundering state resources by a few well-connected individuals with the aid and blessing of the ruling elite, which raises disturbing questions about the lack of sincerity and will underpinning Mnangagwa’s formative project. As well, the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown sadly demonstrates that corruption in Zimbabwe is seemingly here to stay. Covid-19 buttressed the negative view of the government that persists even after the ousting of Mugabe in November 2017. Since the identification of the first Covid-19 case in early 2020, there were fears that the disease would spiral out of control because of the country’s dilapidated and collapsed health delivery system. The disease erupted when the health delivery system was already in a crumbled state due to a disgruntled working force, lack of basic equipment and medication, a huge staff exodus and poor infrastructure. The health sector was, like the rest of the economy and society, failing to take off as promised by the New Dispensation, with legitimacy issues associated with the 2018 harmonised elections blighting president Mnangagwa’s drive to turn around the economy. The president’s fledgling war against corruption, while having scored certain successes through enhanced legislation and a renewed vigour to fight the scourge, largely went unnoticed as most Zimbabweans focused on the continued blatant abuse of state resources by politically connected individuals. The president might have made some positive steps to tame the tide of corruption, including the appointment of a new Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) and the establishment of a Special Anti-Corruption Unit (SACU) directly under his control. But, the proliferation of corruption scandals linked directly to the president, his immediate family and business colleagues following the outbreak of Covid-19, diminished public confidence in the ability of his government to fight the scourge of corruption—thereby highlighting the challenges faced by a formative project pursued by ZANU-PF, as if shooting itself in the foot. Zimbabwe is returning to the Mugabe era where corruption was the order of the day with no punitive action against perpetrators. The New Dispensation at worst is complicit in the rampant corruption and, at best, is unable to instil discipline, accountability and ethical practices in government institutions. This chapter details the uneven steps taken by the New Dispensation to fight corruption and puts forward some measures that can be taken by the government to undermine corruption more effectively.

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2 Significance of Anti-corruption for Zimbabwe There are various definitions of corruption and they all converge on the fact that it involves acts of stealing or converting public revenues for private benefit through the abuse of public office and against the public good (Makumbe 1994; Baqwa 2001). Hence, it constitutes various acts that all involve depriving the state of potential revenues for the benefit of private citizens, with those involved normally in a position of authority or advantage. Nye (1967: 11) defines corruption as “behaviour which deviates from the normal duties of a public role because of private-regarding pecuniary or status gains: or violates rules against the exercise of certain types of private-regarding influence”. Acts of corruption include bribery, embezzlement, bidrigging, fraud or money laundering; and they may entail nepotism, tribalism and sectionalism (Lawal 2007). It is also the case that corruption in the public sector begets corruption in the private sector. In most countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, high levels of corruption involve capital outflows from the state treasury and from the country itself (OseiAssibey et al. 2018). This has been the case in Zimbabwe, particularly in the context of fast-track land reform from the year 2000. This chaotic reform process led to significant corruption, an uncertain investment climate and capital flight which, in turn, amounted to a loss of crucial fiscal resources which otherwise could have been used for financing economic growth and development (Makochekanwa 2007). For the Second Republic (under Mnangagwa), this challenge will continue unless there is a major attempt to prevent and manage corruption. If the situation remains unchanged, without any new methods of anti-corruption, then the chances of the much-touted Vision 2030 or its roadmap, the National Development Strategy One (NDS1), succeeding is very slim. Additionally, if established political figures and senior civil servants continue to be left to flagrantly violate established principles, regulations and ethical considerations, then the New Dispensation will leave most Zimbabweans disillusioned and the promised prosperity will remain elusive pie in the sky (Wini-Dari and Hamauswa 2016). While Mugabe might be dead and buried, the public perception of the government and its inability and unwillingness to fight corruption persists in the country. The New Dispensation promised Zimbabweans a new era of nation-building and a vision of an Upper Middle-Class Economy premised on a strong anti-graft stance. In this respect, there is evidence that suggests that there is a positive correlation between low levels of corruption and high levels of economic development (Mauro 1997; Muzurura 2017). As Transparency International (2014: 2) argues, “corruption has an indirect effect on a country’s economic performance by affecting many factors fuelling economic growth such as investment, taxation, level, composition and effectiveness of public expenditure”. Between 2005 and 2015, US$15 billion worth of diamonds was siphoned out of Zimbabwe, which is four times the country’s 2016 budget of US$4,5 billion (Choruma 2018). Hence, attaining a middle-class economic status might be an insurmountable task considering the entrenched economic and political problems left by

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Mugabe including endemic corruption. Before the fall of Mugabe, one study indicates that 80% of Zimbabweans believed that the government was faring badly in fighting corruption (Ndoma 2015). This perception remains so strong that the public has almost ignored Mnangagwa’s anti-corruption crusade. For example, the arrests of prominent public officials by the newly reconstituted ZACC have made headlines, but have failed to generate positive images of the Second Republic. Corruption has significant impacts on ordinary citizens. It inhibits the enjoyment of political rights by creating a vicious circle of lack of respect for the law and undermining the effective functioning of democratic institutions. As well, in terms of socio-economic rights, national and local infrastructure is left to deteriorate as corrupt cartels target government tenders to line their pockets from hefty pay-outs while, at the same time, not delivering on what they would have been contracted to provide. The OECD (2017) alludes to the fact that corruption perpetuates inequality and poverty, affecting negatively the well-being of citizens and inhibiting the distribution of income and wealth in society. A study by Ndoma (2015) shows the concerns of Zimbabwean citizens regarding the prevalence of corruption in the country. For instance, members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) were largely viewed by the general public as being widely corrupt, with almost three in five Zimbabweans (58%) saying that most if not all members of the police force were involved in corruption. The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) came second worst, being largely perceived as corrupt by 46% of the population, followed by local government councillors and central government officials (41% each) and business executives (39%). Zimbabwean citizens experience corruption in their daily lives, with 62% of citizens declaring this according to a Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) report (TI 2013). They had paid a bribe for one public service in the preceding twelve months. As Ndikumana (2013) claims, corruption results in the severe waste and misallocation of financial, human and natural resources, to the disadvantage of citizens. This will become clearer below in discussing the scale of corruption in Zimbabwe.

3 The Problem of Corruption in Zimbabwe Zimbabwe often appears at the tail end of Corruption Perception Rankings. Overall, Zimbabwe’s corruption rankings by Transparency International (TI) do not make for very good reading, particularly for a country seeking international re-engagement and foreign direct investment. According to the TI (2016), the country loses about US$1 billion to corruption in the public sector every year. The TI’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) for 2018 ranked Zimbabwe number 160 out of 180 countries (TI 2018). Using a scale of 0–100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean, Zimbabwe has a 22-index score for the perceived levels of public sector corruption. The World Bank (2017) ranks Zimbabwe in the 5.2‰, down from 15.1 in 2000 in its Control of Corruption Index (CCI). All this highlights the general negative feeling about the government and its intentions to fight corruption. In a study from 2014, it was concluded that 68% of Zimbabweans believe that the level of corruption continues

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to increase annually with a general sense of resignation about fighting corruption reflected in most citizens (Ndoma 2015).

3.1 State-Owned Enterprises Corruption is also very rampant at most State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) or parastatals in Zimbabwe. For Mnangagwa’s government to achieve its Vision 2030 and gain public confidence, it must address this endemic corruption. Parastatals play a vital role in the socio-economic development of a country, as they provide a crossspectrum of essential services and products, including the provision of public and social infrastructural services such as food, water, electricity and health (Muzapu et al. 2016). In the 1990s, these state institutions accounted for up to 40% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Over time, though, they became vehicles of self-enrichment through corruption (Rusvingo 2014) and a drain on the national budget as a result of poor investments and various structural problems (Agenor and Montiel 2015). It seems that nearly all state enterprises have a scandal named after them; for example, the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company (ZISCO) Scandal, the Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (ZUPCO) Scandal, the Kondozi Estate Looting Scandal, the Willowvale Scandal, the Fertiliser Scandal, the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM) Scandal, and the Harare Airport Extension Scandal. Notwithstanding the volumes of evidence and the negative implications of corruption for development, the culprits associated with all these scandals have been forgotten, condoned or rewarded in one way or the other (Anti-Corruption Trust of Southern Africa 2012). The office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has, in its annual audit report, constantly highlighted the systematic rot at these institutions and how they continue to be a drain on the national fiscus. One of the most recent corruption scandals is at the National Social Security Authority (NSSA) where management is reported to have been engaged in a raft of graft allegations involving millions of dollars. At the Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (ZINARA) as well, regulations relating to procurement, recruitment and tenders were violated by successive management teams. At NSSA, a special audit was ordered but the government delayed releasing the findings. This raised significant eyebrows on whether the Mnangagwa government wanted to protect certain people involved in graft. Delivering his second State of the Nation Address to parliament after winning the 2018 election, President Mnangagwa alluded to the fact that the government was working to restructure and privatise some key state enterprises which included the de-merger of Grain Marketing Board (GMB) into the GMB Strategic Grain Reserve and Silo Foods Industries; recapitalisation of the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ), for which US$420 million had been secured by the Diaspora Infrastructure Development Group (DIDG); recapitalisation of Cold Storage Company (CSC) with an approved strategic partner (this has fallen through as the identified partner,

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Boustead Beef, was found to be technically insolvent and involved in asset stripping); unbundling of the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (CAAZ); the privatisation of TelOne and NetOne as a single entity; and the partial privatisation of Allied Timbers, People’s Own Savings Bank (POSB), Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (ZUPCO), Agriculture Finance Corporation (AFC) Holdings (formerly Agribank) and the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ) (The Herald, 05 October 2019). The success of these measures, which are moving at a very slow pace, will greatly reduce government exposure to the vagaries of inept management at these institutions and also bring new investors and new money to these struggling entities. However, if not undertaken transparently, this might act as a cover for corruption and private wealth accumulation.

3.2 State Capture State capture refers to a state of affairs where there is a distinct network structure in which corrupt actors cluster around certain state organs and functions. Some parts or functions of the state are appropriated and its resources are used to the benefit of the corrupt group and the detriment of the public good (Chetwynd et al. 2003). Fazekas and Toth (2014) propound that state capture is institutionalised grand corruption which relates to the allocation and performance of public procurement contracts by bending explicit rules and principles of good public procurement to benefit a closed network while denying access to all others. In the case of Zimbabwe, state capture has made it difficult for President Mnangagwa to investigate certain individuals within his party known to be holders of ill-gotten gains who have captured the state. At times, corruption within state parastatals requires reference to the existence of state capture. For example, the tentacles of state capture can be seen in the procurement of mass urban transit buses by the government for its parastatal, the Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (ZUPCO). A company linked to Tagwirei Landela Investments was contracted to import 500 buses at a unit price of US$58,900 from Xiamen Golden Dragon Bus Company in China. These buses were then bought by the government for US$212,962 per unit with Landela pocketing US$59 million in profit, Mananavire (2020). Perhaps the largest state capture vehicle in Zimbabwe has been the Command Agriculture Programme (CAP) used to siphon funds from the government into the hands of the private sector and politically-connected individuals. Intriguingly, since its inception, Command Agriculture was president Mnangagwa’s brainchild. Appearing before Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary Public Finance Portfolio Committee in May 2019, officials in the ministries of Finance and Agriculture revealed that the treasury had released US$3 billion in less than a year to fund Command Agriculture with no supporting paper trail (Mapira 2019). The programme, instead of benefiting genuine farmers, provided corrupt and greedy politicians with a feeding trough. Equipment and inputs were distributed through a system of patronage benefiting connected individuals, including those not even involved in farming that ended

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up retailing the farming goods. Command Agriculture is linked to Sakunda Holdings, a company led by Kuda Tagwirei, a millionaire with extensive government links and contracts. More broadly, Tagwirei is involved in procuring and distributing fuel, generating electricity, banking, and mining. The extent of state capture in post-Mugabe Zimbabwe is evident from the recent report by the South African newspaper the Maverick Citizen (2021), which details the vast networks of the cartels in Zimbabwe, including involvement in collusion between the private sector and influential politicians to attain monopolistic positions, fix prices and stifle competition. This collusion is pervasive in the fuel sector where the precious liquid is sourced exclusively through Trafigura, a Singapore-based commodity brokerage firm with ties to Tagwirei’s Sakunda Holdings. According to Biti (2019), the broker imposes massive fees and commissions on the commodity resulting in high local fuel prices in the country. Most of the fuel comes into the country through the pipeline from Beira in Mozambique, which nominally is leased to Glencore (another Tagwirei-fronted entity, directly linked to very senior people in the ZANU-PF hierarchy). The pipeline costs Zimbabwe up to US$400 million per year to maintain because it is 40% under-utilised (Mhlanga 2020). At the retail stage, the fuel sector is monopolised by two key players (Zuva Petroleum and Puma Energy) whose shareholding is also linked to Tagwirei and senior ZANU-PF officials. These individuals have benefitted as well from Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe subsidies where they are allowed to pay for fuel in the local currency using the so-called interbank rate (Biti 2019). All this has led to Zimbabwe having the highest fuel price in the Southern Africa region, which has increased the cost of doing business in the country, fuelled inflation and curtailed an increase in the production levels of Zimbabwean manufacturing companies. Following a massive overnight devaluation of the Zimbabwean dollar on the parallel foreign exchange market in September 2019, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) moved in to freeze accounts linked to Kuda Tagwirei, as well as Moses Chingwena of Croco Motors (a long-time government vehicle supplier) and Tarirai Mnangagwa (owner of Spartan Security and nephew to the President) (Jambaya 2019). This seemed like a step in the right direction for the New Dispensation, which should have been followed by prosecution and conviction. At the time, there was a feeling that the President was showing his commitment to curb corruption and to allow the right economic policies to be implemented without fear or favour, as these businesspeople had enriched themselves on the back of the suffering of Zimbabweans, with illicit connections to government officials and with no record of any hard work or demonstrable business acumen.

3.3 Military and Corruption The security sector has been a dominant feature of the country’s political economy ever since the days of the Rhodesian Front. Chitiyo and Kibble (2014) postulate that the alliance between ZANU-PF and the military remains a powerful force in

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Zimbabwean politics. The military’s core objective, particularly after the coup, is to ensure that it remains the dominant stakeholder in politics and the economy while ZANU-PF sees the military as the base that solidifies its grip on power. After engineering Mnangagwa’s ascendancy to power, any real fight against corruption has to have the blessing of the military. At the same time, political interference, insufficient resources and a culture of impunity are among other factors that bedevil the fight against corruption, especially concerning the Military (Civil Society Submission to The APRM Zimbabwe 2021). The president’s name features prominently in certain graft scandals, including the pillaging of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with strong support from military leaders. According to the United Nations Final Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (S/2002/1146) (2002: 8): “The key strategist for the Zimbabwean branch of the elite network is the Speaker of the Parliament and former National Security Minister, Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa. Mr. Mnangagwa has won strong support from senior military and intelligence officers for an aggressive policy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo”. Mnangagwa’s ties with the military were further exposed when the wife of the 2017 coup leader and now Vice President Constantino Chiwenga was granted a multimillion-dollar contract to provide travel arrangements for senior government officials. The Deputy Chief Secretary in the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC), Ray Ndhlukula, admitted that there was a violation of tender procedures by awarding Mary Chiwenga a contract without first tendering it. Testifying in court, the deputy Chief Secretary revealed that the then Mrs Chiwenga was awarded the tender without meeting the requirements for providing services to the government including registration of the company with the State Procurement Board (SPB), a vendor number to ensure that all payments are made in line with the set Procurement Regulations, Tax Clearance Certificate from Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA), Certificate of Incorporation, and a CR14 form. In clear violation of procurement regulations, the company was engaged to provide services and then asked to later register with the SPB. According to Mr Ndlukula, the tender was awarded after considering the security of government officials (Guma 2018). The reference to the security of government officials is an attempt to hide the tender violation and avoid further scrutiny. This incident created the impression that Mnangagwa is not able to control the military, or that he chose to turn a blind eye to military-related corruption. Further concerns about corruption regarding Mnangagwa and the military relate to the diamond trade. After the military took control of the diamond fields in 2008 in Chiadzwa, using troops and helicopter gunships to remove villagers and small-scale miners, military chiefs bought luxury cars and opulent homes. The boards of mining companies then included executives who were serving and retired police and military officers. This firmly displayed the role of influential military personnel in the crux of the corruption system in Zimbabwe. The United States of America (USA) on 1 October 2019 banned the trading of diamonds from Zimbabwe. This move was a fresh blow to re-engagement between the two countries as Zimbabwe expected to produce 4.1 million carats of diamonds in

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2019, up from 2.8 million carats in 2018 (Samaita 2019). At the peak of production in 2012, the country’s annual diamond output was 12 million carats. However, allegations of gross corruption and looting have dogged this sector since the discovery of the gems in Marange. At the height of the scramble for diamonds, Global Witness (2013) reported that the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) had a stake in a Marange diamond mining company, Kusena Diamonds. The military also entered a partnership with a Chinese investor, to establish a diamond mining company called Anjin Mining. Mbada Diamonds held the largest concession in Marange, yet the owner of a 25% stake in the company has remained a secret. Diamond Mining Corporation (DMC) was formed as a joint venture between the government of Zimbabwe and a private investor. Former Finance Minister Tendai Biti disclosed the opaque character of the diamond trading system in Zimbabwe, saying the funds from the diamond mines did not reach the treasury: “Zanu-PF took a deliberate decision that the diamond companies would not give money to the treasury” (Zulu 2012). Anjin Mining, which commenced operations in Marange in 2009, was accused by Biti of not remitting anything to the treasury during his tenure in the Government of National Unity. In 2016, the government of Zimbabwe ordered the nine companies operating in the Marange fields to stop all mining activities, a ban that was subsequently lifted by Mnangagwa after he came to power. Curiously, only companies linked to the military have been allowed to return to the Chiadzwa diamond fields. In 2018, Anjin Mining was named by president Mnangagwa as one of the companies that illegally externalised cash from Zimbabwe. Corruption involving the ruling elites and mining corporations is a defining characteristic of destructive mining in Zimbabwe and the entire SADC region and the main reason why mining is at the epicentre of combined and uneven development (Namati 2016). It seems though that Anjin’s link with the military has seen the president issue a new licence to the company. Underlying the opaque operations in Chiadzwa and the continued looting of diamonds are Zimbabwe’s ties with China. China is Zimbabwe’s fourth-largest trading partner and currently the largest source of investment, with stakes worth billions of US dollars in far-flung ventures covering everything from agriculture to construction in Zimbabwe. Trade between the two countries is tilted heavily in favour of Beijing. China also provides the largest market for Zimbabwean exports, especially tobacco, and it has invested in technical support for state security and the presidency (Vines 2017). Following the death of Mugabe, a Chinese firm—the Shanghai Construction Group (SCG)—was awarded a tender to construct a Mausoleum for the late President Robert Mugabe even though there was no bidding opened for this project. Harare’s deals with China are never fully transparent, but they often involve the military. This raises serious questions about the military-backed government’s quest to fight corruption, particularly given that the Chinese have been accused of corruption regarding Marange diamonds (Ojakorotu and Kamidza 2018). The level of corruption exhibited through the Covid-19 procurement scandal (see later) has, however, as exhibited by the public rebuttal of politicians by the army, threatened to break this umbilical link between the president and his military allies. The Covid-19 scandal created some discord within the army. For instance, the

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Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF), Phillip Sibanda, commented on the Drax scandal and rebuked the political leadership by saying that the level of corruption displayed by some of the country’s politicians was tantamount to selling out the liberation struggle by amassing personal wealth through illicit means. The Covid-19 scandal seems to be affecting the ties that the president has had with the military since his time as Defence Minister in the Mugabe era. The scandal claimed the scalp of the head of the Procurement Regulatory Agency of Zimbabwe (PRAZ), Nyasha Chizu, a former military man. He admitted before Parliament’s Committee on the Budget, Finance and Economic Development in July 2020 that some government entities had not complied with procurement guidelines issued by the authority when the Covid-19 pandemic was declared a national disaster (Vandira 2020). While he pointed out that some of these entities had been referred to the ZACC for prosecution, this admission seems to have ruffled the feathers of his (army) bosses who immediately sent him packing. The PRAZ head was sacrificed to cover up the role of the army elite in systemic corruption.

4 Anti-corruption Measures in Zimbabwe 4.1 Political Will to Fight Corruption in Zimbabwe One key factor relating to the prevalence of corruption in Zimbabwe is a lack of political will to address the problem, given that the political elites are likely the primary beneficiaries of corruption (Moyo 2014). Under Mugabe, while there were some concrete and noticeable developments in establishing a legal and constitutional framework to fight corruption, there was never a clear demonstration of the political will to engage in anti-corruption measures. Mnangagwa has presented himself as embodying the political will to do so, as supposedly embedded in a wide-reaching formative project. One of Mnangagwa’s boldest moves was to reassign to the backseat most ministers who were associated with Mugabe’s cabinet. These ministers had been recycled for a long time with some in government since 1980. This was an important signal that the president meant to change the political system inherited from Mugabe and introduce a new way of doing business. While this was welcomed by the public, his new cabinet did not instil much confidence in the nation. It was very lean, which was a good sign but still had some remnants from the Mugabe era, in addition to a host of unfamiliar faces who, while new to the government, were reported to have been long-time henchmen of the president. This implied that the Mugabe system of cronyism was still intact with just new players. Admittedly, directly through his office, and in conjunction with the ZACC and SACU, the government of President Mnangagwa has threatened to arrest and prosecute high-profile individuals linked to corruption, without fear or favour. However, like in the previous Mugabe regime, this largely remains just talk, not backed by

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serious moves on the ground. Arresting prominent politicians would entail arresting themselves as, at times, this has involved the first lady and first family of the Zimbabwean president. In the case of Mugabe, his first wife Sally Mugabe was rumoured to have benefitted from transactions involving sending a corruptly-acquired vehicle to Ghana. While there is no concrete evidence suggesting her direct involvement in the scheme, Magaisa (2017) propounds that it could also mean the evidence of her involvement was suppressed. Grace Mugabe, the second wife of the late president, was likewise fingered in a controversial VIP housing project in 1995 when she, alongside top ZANU-PF officials, acquired houses meant for low-earning civil servants in the “pay-for-your-house scheme”. Presently, the wife of Mnangagwa has again been rumoured to be behind several graft schemes. In October 2020, Henrietta Rushwaya (President of the Zimbabwe Miners Federation) was arrested in possession of six kilogrammes of gold at Robert Mugabe International Airport after a scanner detected the presence of gold in a hand luggage bag. In name-dropping, Rushwaya boasted that the gold belonged to the First Lady Auxilia Mnangagwa and her son Collins. While this was later denied by the Mnangagwas and the police, it is not clear if the ownership of the gold was disowned by a lack of evidence linking it to the first family or the evidence of the link was suppressed. Mnangagwa is adamant that his government has zero tolerance for corruption. In his State of the Nation Address of 1 October 2019, Mnangagwa thus confirmed his desire to fight corruption. He condemned corruption for retarding development, frustrating the country’s ease and cost of undertaking business reforms and robbing it of revenue. He spoke about efforts to strengthen and capacitate government institutions in enhancing accountability and transparency, and in pursuing anti-corruption prevention. One of the first moves by Mnangagwa, whether by design or by accident, was to remove the menace of the police on the country’s roads. Though not entailing an effort to uncover high-level corruption, this would hopefully enhance the anticorruption image of the Second Republic amongst the public. The police had become brazenly oblivious to their role in maintaining law and order and had turned themselves into a money-generating venture through excessive and unwarranted traffic enforcement (Ndoma 2015). In addition, the proliferation of roadblocks across Zimbabwe’s appallingly maintained road network led to growing frustration among road users (Sokwanele 2012). The disbandment of the notoriously corrupt traffic section by Mnangagwa focused on low-level or petty corruption which, while popular, potentially turned attention away from grand corruption. The Mnangagwa government continues to tout its fight against corruption while, on the ground, it seems there are some sacred cows. One of the most prominent programmes of the Second Republic has been the extensive road rehabilitation projects that have been undertaken under the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme. This has seen contractors being awarded tenders to revamp and reconstruct highways and urban roads in the country. While this has been a flagship programme, it has also come under scrutiny with concerns over the awarding of tenders for the projects. The government claims to be promoting transparency of transactions, for example making public all road rehabilitation tender awards. The

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government believes such contract disclosures are important and show its commitment to reducing corruption (Dapira 2021). However, residents in some towns “smell a rat” in the awarding of contracts to unknown entities, citing poor workmanship in the process and claiming that contracts were not awarded by merit but by political connections.

4.2 Prominent Arrests In attempting to show the public that he is serious about fighting corruption at all levels of society, there have been several notable arrests for corruption or its alternate charge of abuse of office, since Mnangagwa took office. The outbreak of Covid19 was accompanied by serious setbacks around corruption and governance issues, which reinforced the perception amongst Zimbabweans that graft is still very rampant and systemic in government and even the private sector. Because of the Covid-19 procurement scandal and the involvement at least indirectly of the president’s family members in it, the pandemic perpetuated the established link between the highest office in the land (the office of the state president), and the aiding, abetting and blessing of corruption. The Covidgate or Draxgate Covid-19 procurement scandal exhibited the egregious character of corruption in Zimbabwe. The country’s public servants at the National Pharmaceutical Company (NatPham) were found to be complicit in the Covidgate scandal after disregarding the laid down tender procedure. The proper procurement procedures were subverted when a relatively unknown entity (Drax International) was given contracts of US$20 million and US$40 million to supply medical equipment and drugs when it was not on the PRAZ register of approved government suppliers (Mabuza 2020). This, it seems, was done to allow people perceived to be close to the President to win the drug supply contracts. Journalists like Hopewell Chin’ono and Elias Mambo of the ZimMorning Post broke and updated the story about the procurement scandal on social media, particularly Twitter. These investigative journalists discovered that Drax’s local representative was Dalish Nguwaya a business associate of President Mnangagwa’s son, Collins. While this relationship was immediately disowned by the President’s son, images filtered through to the social and mainstream media of Nguwaya with the President, the First Lady and Collins. This scandal dominated the media space, receiving more attention than Covid-19 infections and deaths. It led to the controversy around the President and his claims of a New Dispensation fighting corruption, as it was seen as indicative of wider and rampant corruption under Mnangagwa (Kairiza 2020). While the Health Minister and accomplices were arrested, the prosecution case was very thin on detail in a manner designed deliberately to make it fail (Magaisa 2020). The arrest of people linked to the Covid-19 procurement scandal, however, is significant in that it heralded a new trend in the fight against corruption. The case found itself before the courts if only because the government felt compelled to do so because of pressure from civil society to prosecute the President’s portentous

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political and business allies for corruption. The relentless pressure to release all the details about the procurement deal seemingly left the president with no option but to charge his nephew and Minister of Health Obadiah Moyo with abuse of office. Nevertheless, these arrests and the subsequent sacking of Moyo were of some significance in trying to differentiate between the Mugabe and Mnangagwa periods. For a long time, Zimbabweans complained that, while corruption was rampant in the Mugabe government, senior officials were never arrested or convicted for graft. This case inadvertently also put the president under increased scrutiny to not only act on corruption but to act decisively to appease public perceptions and pressure. Certainly, it was the first time that the people in their various representations were able to exert pressure on the Zimbabwean government to cancel a corrupt deal, seek prosecution for the perpetrators of corruption, and fire a government minister suspected of corrupt activities even before conviction. In this sense, public pressure might play an important role in moving forward the—albeit limited—formative project of Mnangagwa, thereby potentially heightening the risks for those in power nationally (including Mnangagwa). There have been other prominent persons arrested in the New Dispensation but these are largely understood as attempts by the president to retaliate against his former political foes, and hence they merely involve political infighting within the ruling party. This understanding arose because the first prominent arrest was former Finance Minister Ignatius Chombo on charges of criminal abuse of office over the way he handled the Garikai/HlalaniKuhle programme on the Whitecliff farm in Harare (Share 2017). In February 2018, former Mines and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa and his former Permanent Secretary (Professor Francis Gudyanga) were arrested on separate charges of abuse of office. On the 20th of July 2018, former Energy and Power Development Minister Samuel Undenge, who was accused of prejudicing the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) of US$12,650, was sentenced to an effective two-and-a-half years in prison (Anti-Corruption TrustSouthern Africa 2019). On the 7th of November 2018, former Information Communication Technology Minister Supa Mandiwanzira was arrested on allegations of criminal abuse of office (Chingarande 2018). Former Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) Commissioner-General Gershem Pasi, National Social Security Authority (NSSA) General Manager Elizabeth Chitiga and the former City of Harare Town Clerk Tendai Mahachi also appeared in court separately in January 2019 accused of criminal abuse of office (Chingarande 2019). Chombo was again picked up by ZACC on fresh corruption allegations in July 2019 on an undisclosed matter. Despite the arrest of all of these senior government officials, including the President’s relatives and business acquaintances, Zimbabweans are still sceptical about Mnangagwa’s entire anti-graft crusade. The arrest of former cabinet ministers from the Mugabe era is linked to the President’s fight for political survival rather than any anti-corruption crusade. Chombo, Mupfumira and Mandiwanzira are all linked to the ZANU-PF G-40 faction that was strongly opposed to President Mnangagwa’s ascendancy to the leadership of the ruling party.

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The arrest in August 2022 of Gokwe-Nembudziya legislator Justice Mayor Wadyajena and top Cottco officials by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission on fraud and money laundering charges involving over US$5 million could be a milestone in the fight against corruption as he is believed to be a top Mnangagwa ally. The scandal shows how connected individuals acting in common purpose hatched a plan to defraud Cottco of millions of United States dollars through the fictitious purchase of goods purportedly for use by Cottco. While the legislator (as Chairperson of the Parliament Portfolio Committee on Agriculture) was supposed to have oversight over the state institutions, he stands accused of conflict of interest as he was undertaking business with the very people he was supposed to oversee. While the arrest has some political intrigues embedded in it, it shows that—with the proper support—ZACC can exercise its authority and powers to arrest.

4.3 Strengthening the Anti-corruption Fight The Second Republic has expressed and at times demonstrated its desire to fight corruption, at times with overzealous imprecision. In May 2018, Mnangagwa appointed a Special Anti-Corruption Unit (SACU) located in his office, to improve efficiency in the fight against all forms of corruption and strengthen the effectiveness of the national mechanisms for the prevention and prosecution of corruption (Mundopa 2021). Immediately, the special unit (or task force) was faced with criticisms on its legality. The view was that its appointment was not procedural since the country already had the ZACC, an independent body appointed by the president through input from parliament. Magaisa (2017) notes that the ill-informed decision to house an anti-crime department in the office of the president was in blatant violation of the constitution, and it also weakened the autonomy of the ZACC and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). As a result, its formation merely served to underline that Zimbabwe already has institutions and legal frameworks, but lacks the political will and legalism to implement the law. Mnangagwa’s presidency has been characterised by many declared intentions to engage in anti-corruption measures, but some of these measures have not brought about any tangible arrests or return of looted assets and resources. At the onset of his presidency, Mnangagwa announced a moratorium on prosecuting those who had externalised funds illegally. At the time, the move was described as having two likely benefits, to enhance the liquidity situation as well as help reduce corruption in the country. However, after the three-month moratorium period expired, the whole process turned out to be a damp squib—certainly, no notable externalisers were arrested. Though potentially of significance in combating corruption and recovering externalised wealth as part of rebuilding the political economy of Zimbabwe, it may be that this move was, like with other anti-corruption rhetoric, merely part of Mnangagwa’s charm offensive since taking power through a coup (Dzirutwe 2018). This entails portraying an image of his government conducive to the mantra of Zimbabwe being “open for business”.

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The Covid-19 procurement scandal, and Mnangagwa’s handling of it, could also be turned into good news about the president’s intentions to deal with corruption in Zimbabwe. While the public is convinced that the arrest of Health Minister Obadiah Moyo and the management team at NatPharm is a smokescreen or part of the “catch and release” strategy by the president, quick convictions and sentencing could turn the tide for the embattled president. To strengthen the struggle against further looting of Covid-19 materials, the president should aim at improving financial systems by examining the relations between government ministries, departments and other institutions involved in battling against Covid-19, so that there is a systematic and transparent resource or tool for tracking Covid-19 contributions (Moyo 2020). This would save the president from further embarrassment and ensure the effective utilisation of resources in fighting Covid-19. Hopefully, Constitutional Amendment Number 2 of 2020 (which was signed into law in May 2021) will add further impetus to the fight against corruption through Clauses 17 and 18, which seek to reintroduce the office of the Public Protector (which was previously called the office of the Ombudsmen in the Lancaster House constitution). This office is tasked with protecting the public against abuse of power and maladministration by state and public institutions or by officers of such institutions. It has the authority to investigate cases of corruption, and citizens can report any public officer whom they suspect to have infringed upon their right to receive state services because of corruption. The Public Protector will be responsible for investigating allegations that public officers and authorities have exercised their functions unjustly, where there is no remedy by way of court proceedings reasonably available to the persons who have suffered injustice. The public officers and authorities who may be investigated by the Public Protector will be members of “any Ministry or department” and “such other persons and authorities as may be prescribed by or under an Act of Parliament” (Veritas 2020). One of the key early achievements of President Mnangagwa was bringing to finality the issue of the appointment of a Prosecutor General (PG) in January 2019. The Prosecutor General is in charge of all prosecutions in the country. The office of the PG had been vacant for over a year following the resignation of Mr Raymond Goba in 2018. This office is very important as, according to the NPA Act (2014), the individual is responsible for leading the NPA, which is responsible for instituting and undertaking criminal prosecutions on behalf of the state. The PG may direct the Commissioner-General of Police to investigate and report to him or her anything which, in the PG’s opinion, relates to an offence or alleged or suspected offence. The impartiality of the NPA was further strengthened after the Constitutional Court (CC) ordered the NPA to disengage all serving members of the security services within its employment. The removal of service personnel from the NPA strengthened the fight against corruption as it ensured that only independent prosecutors who were not part of the civil service but reported directly and only to the PG, were recruited (Veritas 2019a). The Second Republic also showed that it was committed to dealing with corruption cases expeditiously by announcing moves to establish special anti-corruption courts. Officially opening the 2018 legal year, Chief Justice Luke Malaba said the Judicial

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Services Commission (JSC) had come up with the idea of specialised anti-corruption courts as a strategy to eliminate corruption efficiently and effectively handle cases of corruption, thereby sending a loud and clear message to would-be offenders (Laiton 2018). This was a bold move and the commission in March of the same year allocated twelve magistrates to preside over cases of corruption in the five anti-corruption courts. The establishment of these courts may be an important milestone. However, such courts must be modelled under, and comply with international best practices. They must not be used to suffocate the accused persons’ right to a fair trial. In this way, the anti-corruption courts must not be used impetuously to justify unlawful arrests or act as springboards for malicious prosecutions. The court system itself has often been viewed in Zimbabwe as an agent of corruption. In this regard, like most jurisdictions in the region, the Zimbabwean government also announced in January 2020 that it was in the process of introducing an integrated electronic case management system. The system assists in the management, monitoring and tracking of all cases filed in the courts. It allows users to be able to identify bottlenecks that cause delays in the justice delivery process. Justice Malaba noted that the JSC was confident the system would rectify anomalies, as it would enhance efficiency in the courts, assist in reducing backlogs and, critically, eliminate corruption in the criminal justice system (Laiton 2018). Such a system is critical as it reduces the need for people to attend physically court registries to file documents. In suitable cases, witnesses would not have to appear in court to give evidence. Virtual hearings could also be conducted, greatly reducing human interfaces which at times increase the chances of corruption to evade justice. These measures are of significance in that judicial officials will be able to access a dashboard meant to track the status of all cases on their cause list to increase efficiency. The system will also allow the public to check the status of cases through electronic kiosks found in the registry. Such measures if implemented will allow for more transparency in the handling of cases.

4.4 Reconstituting and Recapacitating ZACC An anti-corruption body is essential for the development of any state, as corruption is a huge economic cost for most developing countries as it normally results in the subversion of development plans and programmes. Because of this, the development priorities of a country are substituted in favour of those that generate the greatest personal gains for the elite. Corruption inherently leads to the diversion of resources that may have been invested more efficiently and it distorts the market to the extent that it discourages investments (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa 2016). Zimbabwe signed the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) on 20 February 2004 and ratified it on 8 March 2007. Among the key institutions advocated in the convention and essential in the anti-graft crusade is the ZACC. As noted earlier, Mnangagwa was so eager to kick start his fight against corruption that he controversially appointed a task force housed in his office to fight the scourge.

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However, after the initial blundering by the presidency, an opportunity to bring order to the fight against corruption came when the entire ZACC led by Job Wabhira resigned on 31 January 2019 after being pressured by the government to vacate their positions, ostensibly because the commission itself had become corrupt. A new commission was constituted led by Judge Loice Matanda Moyo, whose appointment was also tainted with controversy. This new commission represented another key change in the country as it comprised members from the opposition. This was possibly a move to build the confidence of the public in the new body, as the ZACC was previously thought of as just a window-dressing mechanism with no real design to fight corruption. After successfully constituting ZACC, Mnangagwa’s government moved swiftly to grant the anti-graft body arresting powers. Through Statutory Instrument 143 (2019), ZACC, for long rapped for being a toothless bulldog, received arresting powers, a major stride in its quest to tackle the scourge of corruption. The regulations modified the previous legal instrument that dealt with peace officers. Veritas (2019b) praised the move as, over the years, ZACC had been at the receiving end of insults and derision from the general public, who felt it was doing less than it should to contain corruption. Riding on its new powers, the commission moved with much publicity to knock on the doors of suspected corrupt officials, leading to the prominent arrest of Prisca Mupfumira on charges related to abuse of power relating to NSSA during her tenure as Minister of Labour, Public Service and Social Welfare. The body was also picked up for questioning the former vice-president, Phelekezela Mphoko. While the work of the ZACC has been high profile, it is all related to the Mugabe era in that all the high-profile arrests committed their offences before President Mnangagwa assumed office. While members of the public generally see corruption on the increase in Zimbabwe, ZACC is only targeting the small fish with no prominent arrests to talk about regarding crimes committed during the tenure of the new dispensation. While the president has declared that there would be no sacred cows, there are still top party and state officials associated with corruption who have yet to be arrested or charged, while well-connected individuals who are known to be beneficiaries of government tenders and contracts also remain untouched.

5 Conclusion The declared intention of the new dispensation under President Emmerson Mnangagwa to fight corruption and the prevailing situation on the ground seems to remain worlds apart, thereby bringing to the fore the significant limitations marking Mnangagwa’s formative project. The public continues to view the so-called anti-graft crusade as mere rhetoric with no intention on the part of the government to fill the country’s prisons with the multitudes of corrupt individuals. The Second Republic, like the days before it, facilitates the existence of a group of seemingly sacred corrupt individuals who are untouchable and wine and dine with the ruling party elite. Through their various networks, corrupt individuals appear to flourish with

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the blessing or support of the country’s elite. Corruption in Zimbabwe is mostly perpetrated through state capture, state-owned enterprises and the irregular award of government contracts. While the president has enacted enabling legislation to capacitate ZACC and law enforcement agencies to counter these forms of corruption, there have not been any prominent arrests to show that the various measures are working in practice. In the final analysis, the president has created a solid and enabling framework to fight corruption, but political will is now the missing link in order to ensure that corrupt individuals are identified, arrested and sentenced, because of the political risks entailed in doing so. This political will is crucial for sending a clear message that the president is indeed a man of his word. Otherwise, as things stand, the public will continue with its perception of the insincerity of the “new dispensation” government in fighting and ending all forms of graft.

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Veritas (2019a) Court Watch 4/2019—prosecutor-general appointment gazetted and court decisions affecting national prosecuting authority. Veritas Zimbabwe, Harare. http://www.veritaszim.net/ node/3546 Veritas (2019b) Commissions watch 17th July 2019. Powers of arrest for ZACC officers: what it means. Veritas, Harare. http://www.veritaszim.net/node/3597 Veritas (2020) Constitution watch 4/2020—amending the constitution—part 4. Veritas Zimbabwe, Harare. http://www.veritaszim.net/node/3909 Vines A (2017) How influential is China in Zimbabwe? Chatham House. https://www.chathamho use.org/2017/11/how-influential-china-zimbabwe Wini-Dari NK, Hamauswa S (2016) Fighting corruption in Zimbabwe: making a case for community psychology towards the realisation of ZimAsset. J Stud Soc Sci Hum 2(4) Witness G (2013) An inside job Zimbabwe: the state, the security forces, and a decade of disappearing diamonds. Global Witness, London World Bank (2017) Control of corruption index. World Bank Group, Washington. https://databank. worldbank.org/databases/control-of-corruption/page/1?qterm=zimbabwe Zulu B (2012) Former finance minister claims Mugabe was aware of looting of US$15 billion diamond revenue, voice of America. https://www.voazimbabwe.com/a/zimbabwe-economy/ 3220434.html

Rodney Ruwende has a Master Degree in Public Policy and Development Management with Lupane State University and a Bachelor of Science Honours Degree in Political Science from the University of Zimbabwe. Ruwende has been a broadcaster with the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation since November 2001 when he joined the corporation as a Writer for national languages. He has presented and produced Radio programmes covering business, agriculture, the arts, politics, current affairs, and social and development issues.

Media Policies and Practices in Zimbabwe’s ‘New Dispensation’ Mandlenkosi Mpofu

Abstract Mnangagwa’s ascendancy into the presidency in November 2017 came with significant promise for Zimbabweans who were tired of the long autocratic rule of President Robert Mugabe. Touting itself as the ‘New Dispensation’ and Zimbabwe’s ‘Second Republic’, the new regime promised to lead Zimbabwe into prosperity, underpinned by respect for democratic principles and the rule of law. Significantly, Mnangagwa’s regime reached out to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, promised to restore relations with the international community and declared that Zimbabwe was ‘open for business’. In this chapter, I argue that the Second Republic’s declared intentions have not been matched by its actions, with specific reference to the media. Since the general elections in July 2018, Zimbabweans have experienced various forms of repression that have included violent disruption of demonstrations and the brutal and public killing of civilian protestors by the army. This assault on civic spaces and basic liberties has been accompanied by similar efforts targeting opposition political parties and spaces. The new regime has also used different tactics, including co-optation, to control the media and emasculate communicative spaces. I conclude that, under Mnangagwa, there has been more continuity than change from the old media policies and practices of Robert Mugabe. Because of this, the significance of Mnangagwa’s formative project should be seriously doubted.

1 Introduction On 20 July 2020, Zimbabwe’s ‘New Dispensation’ was shaken by news of the arrest of popular investigative journalist Hopewell Chin’ono and opposition politician Jacob Ngarivhume. About a month earlier, Ngarivhume had called for protests—to take place on July 31—against political corruption and deteriorating economic conditions M. Mpofu (B) Journalism, University of Eswatini, Kwaluseni, Eswatini e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Moyo and K. Helliker (eds.), Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic, Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30129-2_5

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as the Covid-19-induced lockdowns left the lives of many Zimbabweans unbearable, in part because of inadequate responses from an incapacitated state. Chin’ono, meanwhile, had become one of the most prominent critics of the new Mnangagwaled government. Beginning with his arrest together with Ngarivhume, he had been detained three times by May 2021. Relying mainly on his popular Twitter handle, Chin’ono has been at the forefront of highlighting cases of corruption, maladministration and human rights abuses. As Zimbabweans experienced the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Chin’ono exposed massive corruption involving the supply of Covid-19 material, in which the president’s family was implicated. That the two were charged with inciting Zimbabweans to revolt against the government indicated that part of the reason for the arrests was growing paranoia within the government as the day of the protests (July 31) drew near. This was consistent with the now historically common trait of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) of selectively using the law to justify and legitimise repressive state intervention in Zimbabwean society (Raftopoulos 2019). Hence, in justifying the arrests against mounting local and international pressure, the country’s Information Minister said Chin’ono and Ngarivhume were arrested ‘lawfully’ for using their social media profiles to incite people to violently overthrow a legitimate government and not for exposing corruption as claimed by those who supported them (ZBC Reporter 2020). The arrest of a journalist and a politician on the eve of a major protest underlines the turnaround in state–society relations subsequent to Mnangagwa being swept into power by the military and after he dangled the promise of a more tolerant regime. In his inauguration speech on succeeding Mugabe, Mnangagwa expressed a deep commitment to strengthen the pillars of democracy and ensure that they would be respected (Ngwenya and Moyo 2020). But the record so far has been the opposite, with Zimbabweans virtually unable to stage any lawful protests throughout his short reign. Other investigative journalists, such as Zenzele Ndebele and Mduduzi Mathuthu, have also faced various forms of state harassment since the general elections in 2018. As well, many opposition politicians including Members of Parliament from the Nelson Chamisa-led Movement for Democratic Change-Alliance (MDC-A) have been arrested or faced other forms of intimidation over the same period. This has continued under the Citizens Coalition for Change, the party that Chamisa’s group launched in January 2022. The attack on these two important institutions of democracy—organised political opposition and independent journalism—form the background to this chapter, which concludes that, far from moving away from Mugabe’s form of rule under the so-called Second Republic, Zimbabwe’s much-anticipated transition (and the formative project contained within it) has stalled (Ngwenya and Moyo 2020; Helliker and Murisa 2020). These attacks should also be read in the context of other developments that have shown a tendency towards authoritarianism since Mnangagwa controversially won the disputed election in July 2018, suggesting that the current regime is even extending the worst excesses of Mugabe’s rule.

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In this light, this chapter focuses on media policies and practices in Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe. It firstly provides a background to Zimbabwe’s (read ZANUPF’s) attitude and practice with regard to freedom of expression, and of the press and other media, tracing Zimbabwe’s historical transition from independence to the New Dispensation. Secondly, the chapter provides a review of the state of media under Mnangagwa’s rule, bearing in mind his promise of a clean break from Robert Mugabe’s autocratic style. The chapter, thirdly, also provides a contextual analysis of state–society relations under Mnangagwa’s New Dispensation, within which to locate the Zimbabwean state’s specific relationship with the media. I conclude that Mnangagwa’s dalliance with the Zimbabwean media was short-lived, and lasted only as long as his regime’s position was secure and devoid of political risk.

2 Assaults on Zimbabwean Democracy Under Mnangagwa On 1 August 2018, two days after the July 30 general elections, six people were killed in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare when the army fired live bullets on groups of protestors demonstrating against alleged election rigging. A government-convened commission led by former South African president Kgalema Motlanthe later found that the army had used unjustifiable and disproportionate force against the demonstrators (BBC 2018). Barely six months later, on 14 January 2019, Zimbabweans flooded the streets again, to protest against a massive 130% hike in fuel prices and declining standards of living. In response, the government, again, unleashed the army and other security agents, which led to multiple losses of lives. Fearing an escalation of protests, the government then blocked social media sites and shut down the Internet, to stop activists from coordinating further action. These heavy-handed crackdowns on protests and other forms of dissent are grim illustrations of the political environment that Zimbabwean media must currently navigate. Helliker and Murisa (2020: 9) describe this environment in vivid detail: [T]he Zimbabwean nation has been gripped with a new fear since the July 2018 elections: whereas protestors were either arrested or beaten up under Mugabe, it is difficult to recall a time when seven protestors were shot with live ammunition in one incident in a brazen and public manner, as happened just after the 2018 elections. As if that was not enough, 17 more people were reportedly shot dead during the January 2019 protests.

These incidents raise questions about the character of the transition from Mugabe; in particular, whether there is more continuity than change from the previous regime. They have also been accompanied by similarly worrying developments within the judiciary—another important institution in a democracy—which has been increasingly seen as serving the interests of the ruling party. Among these developments was the announcement by Chief Justice (CJ) Luke Malaba directing that judges’ rulings should be seen and approved by heads of court divisions before they were handed down. The African Judges and Jurists Forum described the move, later reversed after resistance from the country’s judges, as a serious threat to judiciary independence in

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Zimbabwe as it undermined the individual and decisional independence of judges, in violation of the constitution (Tshuma 2020a, b). Malaba’s directive followed a worrying trend in which the executive arm of the state was seen as attempting to reduce the oversight role of the Judiciary Services Commission (JSC) and give the president disproportionate powers in the appointment of judges to superior courts. Constitutional Amendment No. 1 of the new constitution and Amendment No. 2 (which was passed controversially in May 2020), effectively rendered the JSC redundant in taking away its power in the appointments of the CJ, the Deputy Chief Justice and Judge President of the High Court. Further, Amendment No. 2 allowed the president to extend the term of office of the CJ beyond the age of retirement, which was clearly designed to keep the current CJ Luke Malaba in office (Chingarande 2020; ICJ 2020). The extension of CJ Malaba’s term of office nearly plunged Zimbabwe into an unprecedented constitutional crisis. Additional attempts to control important institutions such as the Zimbabwe AntiCorruption Commission, the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (all of which have guaranteed constitutional independence) since the coup underline a worrying disregard for constitutionally guaranteed separation of powers by Mnangagwa’s Second Republic. Far from delivering on promises of a more open dispensation with respect for basic human rights, the pursuit of any of the new ZANU-PF government’s assurances are conditional on the security of their rule—this means that the formative project becomes stalled whenever risks to the Mnangagwa regime arise. To this end, it is significant that the new regime’s dalliance with Zimbabwe ended in August 2018 when its legitimacy was threatened by street protests. This is because, for the new regime to secure its tenure, it has had to satisfy three constituencies. Firstly, there is the restive local constituency, comprised of triumphant supporters of Mnangagwa’s Lacoste faction who, like the generality of Zimbabweans, longed for a more economically secure life, as well as the opposition led by the MDC and a myriad of social groups that include civil society and the media. The support of all these groups was crucial in legitimising Mugabe’s ouster. Secondly, there is the regional community of states in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU) which, despite being glad to see Mugabe’s back, were keen to have Zimbabwe’s coup presented as a popular democratic change of power, as a coup would be contrary to the AU’s 2007 Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (Louw-Vaudran 2017). And, thirdly, the new regime needed to retain the approval of a jittery international community mainly Western powers which were equally happy to see Mugabe deposed. But this international community desired a new order in which basic standards concerning elections, human rights, treatment of oppositional groups and socio-economic relations were restored. As its actions were to reveal, Mnangagwa’s new regime was desperate to convince this constituency that Zimbabwe was ‘open for business’ in order to attract much-needed investment and donor funding (Raftopoulos 2019; Helliker and Murisa 2020).

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3 Zimbabwe’s Post-Colonial ‘Transitions’ in Context In order to understand fully the challenges of the transition from Mugabe to the Second Republic, it is important to recall that Zimbabwe has been a country in transition since it attained independence in 1980. Many scholarly works have reflected on these transitions, with some periodising them according to decades and others in relation to important historical events (Chuma 2007; Kupe 1997; Mpofu 2015). This periodisation of history is useful in seeking to make sense of the past and the present (Helliker and Murisa 2020). Hyden and Okigbo (2002) employ the concept of a wave—based on Samuel Huntington’s (1991) use of the term to describe Africa’s transition from colonial rule—to refer to ‘a group of transitions from one type of regime to another that occur within a specific period of time and that significantly outnumber transitions in the opposite direction during that period of time’ (Hyden and Okigbo 2002: 31). In this context, Zimbabwe’s transitions can be identified as follows: 1980–1987, 1988–1998, 1999–2008, 2009–2013, 2014–2016 and 2017 to the present. Within these transitions, there are three watershed moments in Zimbabwe’s independence history: the Unity Accord between the Patriotic Front-Zimbabwe African People’s Union (PF-ZAPU) and ZANU-PF in December 1987 (which effectively ended the Gukurahundi genocide); the Global Political Agreement (GPA) in 2008 which ushered in the Government of National Unity (GNU) between ZANU-PF and the MDC parties and had the impact of temporarily halting a deepening of the Zimbabwean crisis; and the November 2017 coup which ended Mugabe’s rule and ushered in the Second Republic’s ‘new dispensation’. Within each of these periods, the country’s record in relation to the media and to civic and political rights has been characterised by intolerance. A few highlights from some of these transitions will illustrate this. Upon attaining independence in 1980, ZANU-PF recreated the colonial situation by ensuring that the public sphere served the interests of the ruling establishment (Rønning and Kupe 2000). In 1981, the government acquired majority shares in the Rhodesia Printing and Publishing Company, which was renamed the Zimbabwe Newspapers Ltd (Zimpapers). Although it established the Zimbabwe Mass Media Trust (ZMMT) under which it placed Zimpapers, the government soon found ways of directly interfering with the new media empire, effectively undercutting an ideal model public service press in the region (Waldahl 2001; Todd 2007; Saunders 1991; Moyo 2005). Zimpapers has since that time served the exclusive interests of the ruling party-state as the cited studies and many others have shown. The government’s expectations for the media have remained the same throughout the country’s various transitions: that is, the media should bend to the will of the ruling government and promote its development agenda in a complementary, partnership role. Saunders (1991) termed this sunshine journalism ‘whereby the media highlighted the achievements of government through, inter alia, covering the opening of development projects such as the construction of school blocks, boreholes and even Blair toilets’. Under this media-development-theory-inspired approach, the media’s main role entailed providing support for the government of the day, in order to

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contribute to the critical project of nation-building. In essence, this led to the establishment of an acquiescent type of journalism which rarely (if ever) questioned those in authority and which increasingly determined what was in the public interest (Saunders 1991). During the second transition from 1988 to 1998, the December 1987 Unity Accord between PF-ZAPU and ZANU-PF opened up space for critical voices in Zimbabwean society (Moyo 1992). For many analysts, this period marked a brief phase of political liberalisation in Zimbabwe’s history (Raftopoulos 2006). ZANU-PF faced more open criticism and challenges by groups such as the student union at the University of Zimbabwe, the labour movement led by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, academics, civil society organisations and an increasingly critical independent press. This relaxation was also a result of a shift from a command-type approach towards economy and society to more liberal policies under the controversial Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) which was adopted in 1991. For the first time since independence, human rights and governance became central concerns for civil society groups. Through civil society and an emergent independent press, some pressure was exerted on the government in this regard. But the ruling party’s penchant for controlling civic and political spaces was not diminished. Repressive tendencies towards civic actors and the press during this period suggested that ZANU-PF continued to tighten its grip and to pull Zimbabwe in the opposite direction of regional changes taking place at the time (Knight 1991). In January 1999, Mark Chavunduka, the editor of The Standard, and journalist Ray Choto were arrested and tortured by the army after the newspaper published a story (authored by Choto) claiming that there had been an attempted military coup. The brutality these two journalists faced and the government’s arrogant defiance of the courts illustrated ZANU-PF’s intolerance of an independent press. The event became a harbinger of the hostile media environment that was to unfold in the early 2000s. Zimbabwe’s third transition from 1998 to 2008 was marked by the worst economic crisis since independence, which culminated in the country abandoning its national currency for the United States dollar, as inflation and currency devaluation set world records for a country not at war. In journalistic, academic and political speak, this period came to be called the Zimbabwean crisis. Much of the economic and political ravages reflected crises that had been slowly developing since independence. Against the background of the painful ESAP (under which cutbacks in state expenditure induced by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank had resulted in massive retrenchments in all sectors of the economy), by the turn of the millennium, many sections of Zimbabwean society were in open rebellion against the ruling party. The formation of the MDC in 1999 built on this discontent and led to a serious challenge to ZANU-PF’S previously guaranteed rule. The assault on media, civic and political liberties became heightened as ZANU-PF literally fought to remain in power. It is during this period that a plethora of media organisations based abroad, operated by Zimbabweans in the diaspora, emerged. While many of these organisations such as Internet-based newspapers like Newzimbabwe.com and Zimonline reflected technological changes taking place across the world, they were also the outcome of the hostile media environment in Zimbabwe.

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Several laws enacted during this period became blunt instruments used for bludgeoning the media and closing down democratic spaces. These include the following: Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) (2002), Broadcasting Services Act (BSA) (2001), Interception of Communications Act (2007), Public Order and Security Act (POSA) (2002) and several provisions of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act (2004). Moyo (2011: 2) points out that the BSA, AIPPA and POSA, in conjunction with many extrajudicial measures, ‘not only neutralised the public and private media as spaces of civic engagement and public debate, but also had a constraining impact on freedom of journalistic practice and other constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties and human rights’. The BSA, enacted after the Supreme Court overturned the state monopoly in broadcasting in September 2000, became a useful instrument for ZANU-PF as it sought to prevent the opening up of the airwaves. The importance of this Act should be measured against the significance of radio as the most commonly accessible mass medium of communication for the majority of people in a developing country like Zimbabwe. The government framed the promulgation of the BSA in 2001 as a big step towards the introduction of a diverse broadcasting regime but, in reality, it turned out to be part of a strategy to delay such a development, in light of the Supreme Court’s repeal of the state monopoly held by the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC). In fact, it was not until 2011 that the first commercial radio stations were licenced in Zimbabwe (Mpofu 2015). Even then, the independence of the new private commercial radio stations from the ruling party-state remains questionable. The growth of independent diaspora radio—labelled pirate radio by the Zimbabwean government—established abroad by Zimbabwean journalists and broadcasting into the country through shortwave frequencies, was an outcome of the environment that saw the promulgation of the BSA. Chief among these radio stations which became ‘responses from below’ (Chiumbu and Moyo 2009) and challenged the government’s media hegemony, was the Voice of the People (known as VOP) based in the Netherlands, SW Radio Africa in the United Kingdom and Studio 7 on the United States’ Voice of America. The inappropriately named AIPPA (by highlighting access to information and protection of privacy) and POSA marked the beginning of the government’s renewed determination to restrict space for critical media and to place serious limitations on civic and political space. A key aspect of the AIPPA was the mandatory licencing of journalists through a statutory regulatory authority, the Media and Information Commission (MIC), renamed Zimbabwe Media Commission after January 2008 amendments. Tafataona Mahoso, a well-known ZANU-PF apologist who regularly attacked the private press, was appointed to run MIC. AIPPA’s introduction inflamed an already volatile environment for the Zimbabwean media. The ZANU-PF party-state also was resorting to many extra-legal actions to intimidate the press, such as banning private papers in some areas and arresting journalists. The most abhorrent examples of these were the bombing of the Daily News’ offices and printing press in 2000 and 2001, and the bombing of the offices housing the shortwave radio VOP in 2002. Not surprisingly, there were no serious attempts by state security agents to bring the culprits to book. The most dramatic

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impact of AIPPA was the closure of the privately owned Daily News in September 2003 (Moyo 2005). For many government critics this incident, together with the shutting down of other, lesser-known newspapers and the dramatic expulsion of a foreign media correspondent, marked the height of the Mugabe regime’s intolerance of divergent voices (Moyo 2005). In order to grasp its full import, perhaps it helps to read the Public Order and Security Act against Parkinson’s (2012: 1) dictum that democracy should be understood as concerning ‘real people who take up, occupy, share and contest physical space’. Since its enactment, POSA has essentially been employed to close down physical spaces that are critical to the practice of democracy. An ironic reincarnation of the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act under which many of Zimbabwe’s nationalist leaders were jailed in the last two decades before independence, POSA has been used indiscriminately to shut down or prevent public gatherings. Despite the protests of activists and human rights lawyers, the police insisted that the law empowered them to sanction any gathering of more than 10 people. Many critics of the government including Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) workers fell victim to this law. During the GPA, ZANU-PF relented and allowed the Daily News to return. In fact, the GPA ushered a relatively more relaxed regulatory environment leading to the licensing of more privately owned newspapers such as the Newsday and the Southern Eye. In 2011, Zimbabwe also witnessed the introduction of the first commercially owned radio station in its history of broadcasting. But these developments did not mark a complete turnabout. The first two commercial radio stations to be licenced— Star FM owned by the print media giant Zimpapers, and ZiFM owned by ZANU-PF politician Supa Mandiwanzira—could hardly be described as independent. As well, there were many cases of arrests of journalists and human rights activists during the GPA, which indicated ZANU-PF’s reluctance to break with the past (Nehanda Radio 2014). Other stations that were later licensed can similarly be linked to ZANU-PF or the political establishment more broadly. YA-FM in Zvishavane is run by Munyaradzi Hwengwere, a former director-general of the ZBC who also worked in the president’s office under Mugabe. In Matabeleland where clamours for independent locally owned radio stations predated the BSA, Fairtalk Communications (which runs two stations, SkyzMetro FM in Bulawayo and Breeze FM in Victoria Falls) has faced accusations that the Zimbabwean national army has shares in its ventures. Fairtalk Communications was also granted one of the six television licences that were issued in 2020 (Guma and Ndoro 2020). Clearly, there was a desire to perpetuate rather than undermine the ZANU-PF party-state monopoly on broadcasting, and this position has not changed under Mnangagwa’s new dispensation. It was probably because of this desire that the government resolutely refused to licence community radio stations, the cheapest and most accessible of the three models of broadcasting envisaged under the BSA. There have been attempts to change or repeal some of the laws in order to align with the 2013 constitution. In 2016, Mugabe’s administration conceded that the BSA and AIPPA were not compatible with constitutional provisions (Ngwenya and Moyo 2020). However,

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according to advocates of media freedom, the new media laws are worse than previous legislation (Ngwenya and Moyo 2020). According to the Media Institute of Southern Africa, the repeal of AIPPA has not created a favourable environment for the practice of journalism in Zimbabwe, in particular, because of the government’s refusal to completely do away with statutory regulation of the media in favour of self-regulation, which is common practice in democratic states. The new laws, namely, the Freedom of Information Act, the Cyber and Data Protection Act and the Zimbabwe Media Commission Act, have not significantly altered the status quo. Further, the government’s proposals for a Patriot Bill (also referred to as the ‘sanctions’ law) (Towindo 2020; Murwira 2020) are alarming for anyone concerned with the state of freedom of expression in Zimbabwe. Among other things, the proposed law will punish Zimbabwean citizens for communicating messages intended to harm the image or reputation of the country, or to harm any positive images of it (Moyo 2021). This goes contrary to the regime’s declared respect for democratic rights when it came into power in 2017 and suggests a continuation of Mugabe’s hard-line stance. Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s (2015) notion of Mugabeism is instructive in understanding that, despite its rhetoric, it would have been misplaced to expect that the Second Republic’s relationship with freedom of expression would change dramatically. As propounded by Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2015), ‘Mugabeism’ refers to a set of attitudes and tendencies that run commonly across ZANU-PF as a political organisation, most of them quite retrogressive. Drawing on Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2015), Helliker and Murisa (2020) suggest that far from a clean break from Mugabe, Mnangagwa has prioritised certain tendencies of Mugabeism while downplaying others. Moving on from Mugabe therefore essentially means both continuity and change in terms of the discourses and practices of the new government. Where its interests are threatened, and the risks arising from a formative project are too great, it tends to fall back to old regime tactics no matter how horrifying they are.

4 Media Under the New Dispensation Zimbabwean media have therefore had a tortured relationship with the state, which has continued under the Second Republic’s New Dispensation. This relationship has been underlined by ZANU-PF’s two-pronged strategy; that is, to gain more control over state media and use them to consolidate hegemonic dominance, while diluting the influence of independent media by any means. Under the New Dispensation, diluting the influence of independent media has increasingly focused on social media platforms (particularly Twitter), through which Zimbabweans disseminate messages quickly without the need for established media platforms. During Mugabe’s reign, controversial judicial and extra-judicial measures were taken to neutralise the vibrant private press. Under the Second Republic, the tactics have changed slightly. Although cases of arrests of journalists (highlighted above) indicate some degree of continuity with the so-called First Republic’s strategies, there have also been attempts to co-opt private media. At the same time, there have been

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concerted efforts to muzzle free speech through targeting independent journalists. This is because of the challenges that the coup created. The post-coup ZANU-PF party has been at pains to balance societal mistrust of the ruling party because of intense hatred of former president Mugabe, with the need to fend off challenges from the opposition. By the time of the coup, the opposition was weakened because the-then president of MDC (Morgan Tsvangirai) was critically ill and the party was failing to hold together a coalition of political parties to challenge ZANU-PF in the next elections. In order to achieve these objectives, ZANU-PF’s new leaders extended the olive branch to the MDC and other oppositional groups as the coup unfolded, partly to legitimise the post-coup rulers (Raftopoulos 2019; Moore 2018). It is within this context that the term ‘Second Republic’ was coined, suggesting that it was a complete break from the nearly four decades of Mugabe-led rule; and, hence, it was a ‘New Dispensation’ in which different moral values that recognised Zimbabweans’ constitutionally guaranteed rights would be espoused and respected. Also, this fitted in with the new regime’s narrative that Zimbabwe was now under transition, which involved a profound transformation of the economy and society in general, whose success would require ‘still waters’ (Helliker and Murisa 2020: 6). Cynically, characterising the country as undergoing transition called for ‘patience and silence on the part of citizens so as not to disrupt the inevitable march of progress’ (Helliker and Murisa 2020: 6). The Second Republic’s media control tactics followed ZANU-PF’s old script, which meant the immediate task for the New Dispensation was to appoint a trustworthy person to run the Ministry of Information and Publicity and oversee the state media empire. This also meant changing senior editors in order to appoint loyalists and others who could easily be controlled or manipulated to push the new rulers’ narrative. Monica Mutsvangwa, whose husband Chris was one of the most prominent figures in Mnangagwa’s Lacoste faction, became the new Information ministry Tsar. However, Mutsvangwa’s appointment revealed cleavages within the new ruling establishment as frequent clashes between her and her deputy, Energy Mutodi (who was eventually fired) played out in the public arena. Continuing a now too-common tradition within ZANU-PF, Mutsvangwa’s reign has claimed the scalps of many editors in the Zimpapers’ stable. Nearly ten editors have been moved around or fired since her appointment. Among these are veteran journalists Caesar Zvayi and Joram Nyathi. Nyathi’s dismissal vividly dramatised the continued lack of editorial independence among senior editors at Zimpapers. Dating back to the first decade of independence, an editor’s tenure has depended on pleasing the ruling party establishment. Nyathi (one of the most experienced editors in Zimbabwe) was dismissed for what private media reports described as a bad judgement after The Herald buried a picture of President Mnangagwa, who was returning from a tour of five countries in Eastern Europe, in an inside page (Machaya 2019; Karombo 2019; UK Bureau 2019). The episode also underlined the direct interference of ruling party officials and politics in the running of state-owned newspapers. For instance, senior ZANU-PF MP and Mnangagwa loyalist Justice Mayor Wadyajena, tweeted disapproval of the treatment of the president’s picture in a message that warned about consequences. The search

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for Nyathi’s replacement further underscored the level of interference at Zimpapers under the Second Republic, as aspiring candidates were reportedly asked to submit their curriculum vitae for Minister Mutsvangwa’s consideration. This kind of direct interference with the running of state newspapers has been a controversial issue since the government took a controlling stake in Zimpapers in the 1980s. As well, the state broadcaster, ZBC, has not escaped undue government interference. For instance, in early July 2020, it was reported that several workers had been suspended or fired at ZBC after the corporation’s television news had reported then Vice-President Kembo Mohadi as having told a ruling party meeting in Gwanda that his administration was failing to run the economy because the white colonisers had not taught them how to do so (Kuyedzwa 2020). These examples demonstrate the extent to which the Second Republic’s administration is willing to go to ensure favourable narratives from the media. Effective handling of state media does not, however, complete the job as far as controlling the media is concerned. An equally important aspect of media control is managing the country’s private media, which enjoys relative independence from the government’s clutches and has played an influential role in determining the political agenda especially in terms of external narratives about Zimbabwe. In the 2000s, the state’s strategy was to emasculate this section of the media through controversial laws and extra-legal measures, as discussed above. Departing slightly from Mugabe’s rule, the Second Republic engaged in charm offensives towards the privately owned media, opting for a strategy towards the private press of containment and co-optation. In the immediate period after the coup, Trevor Ncube, proprietor of Alpha Media Holdings (AMH), the biggest private media group in Zimbabwe, warmed up to the charms of the new administration. Ncube allegedly became involved in business dealings with the president’s son-in-law, a prominent businessman who reportedly acquired substantial shares in Ncube’s media business (Ndebele 2019; Staff Reporter 2019). Ncube’s popular YouTube show, In Conversation with Trevor, was also reportedly sponsored by the president’s son-in-law. Not surprisingly, this previously vicious critic of ZANU-PF soon became one of the main defenders of the new regime, using mainly his popular Twitter handle. Significantly, he was also appointed to the influential Presidential Advisory Committee, which consisted of other previous critics of the ruling party in both business and civil society. While his newspapers maintained their critical reporting against the government, Ncube sometimes went to the extent of using his Twitter handle to publicly dispute their narratives on state policies (Chirisa 2019). It is through the Daily News, the previous nemesis of ZANU-PF, however, that the new regime’s media co-optation strategies have been fully evident. Under the Second Republic and particularly since the disputed July 2018 elections, the Daily News has increasingly become a staunch supporter of the ruling government if not sometimes its mouthpiece, with some of the paper’s headlines sometimes resembling those of the state-owned newspapers. A brief review of the newspaper’s coverage of the controversy surrounding politician Douglas Mwonzora breaking away from the MDC Alliance, subsequently being elected as president of the MDC-T, will suffice to demonstrate this.

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Central to the controversy is the manner in which the MDC-T took control of the MDC Alliance’s Members of Parliament (MPs) following equally controversial court rulings which quashed Nelson Chamisa’s position as president of the main faction of the post-Tsvangirai MDC. Critically, Chamisa’s MDC Alliance won the second-biggest number of seats in the 2018 elections, becoming essentially the only significant opposition in parliament. Without going into much detail, the rulings and subsequent developments in which the MDC-A lost MPs to the faction controlled by Thokozani Khupe (who contested under a breakaway faction of MDC) and later Mwonzora, appeared to be a well-designed strategy by ZANU-PF to neutralise the opposition. The reasons behind the seemingly desperate need to decimate the MDC-A were not clear until the passing of Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 2, which drastically increased the powers of Zimbabwe’s executive president. For instance, the Bill removed the running mate clause and gave the president powers to directly appoint senior High Court and Constitutional Court judges. ZANU-PF did not have the required two-thirds parliamentary majority to amend the constitution and would likely have been prevented from doing so by the MDC Alliance. It was only because of the MPs appointed by Mwonzora (after he gained control of MDC-A’s MPs and replaced many of them while some joined him to protect their seats) that the amendment was passed. Despite suspicions over Mwonzora’s conduct, the Daily News gave him good press coverage, at times suggesting, without evidence, that he was now the main opposition politician in Zimbabwe. Employing the political economy of communication approach, it is instructive to explain that Mnangagwa’s direct or indirect interest in AMH, the Daily News and other independent media businesses is driven by the desire to have some control over their influence in the Zimbabwean public sphere, in pursuance of selfish political and commercial goals (Golding and Murdock 2000; Doyle 2002). As Ogola’s (2011) study of ownership patterns and structures in Kenyan media shows, ruling families in Africa often use acquisitions of popular private media in order to neutralise them or to gain control of the political agenda. Ogola’s (2011: 78) observations concerning such acquisitions in Kenya beg similar questions of Zimbabwe’s Second Republic: [T]he sale [of private media stakes to Kenya’s Kenyatta family] bore imprints of the problematic relationship between the news media and a powerful parallel political infrastructure, without whose support it appeared most news media found it difficult to survive. This development seemed to reify the extent to which the local news media were wedded to politics and, as a consequence, raised concerns as to whether these media were in fact capable of performing their normative roles.

In Zimbabwe, reports about the government making inroads into the privately owned press have been accompanied by significant changes in the editorial teams of some private newspapers. Many senior editors such as Dumisani Muleya and Brezhnev Malaba left the AMH group, with similar staff turnover at the rival Daily News. There could be a number of reasons why the owners of these newspapers, which are traditionally proud of their independence, are warming up to the new regime. In the volatile economic environment that unfolded after the 2018 elections, many businesses have struggled to remain afloat. Zimbabwean media has had to rely

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on an ever-shrinking advertising base, where state departments and companies have increased their significance as an important source of advertising revenue.

5 Criminalisation of Social Media The Second Republic’s media control tactics would likely have been successful in another, earlier era. However, in an age where even in Zimbabwe (with its gaping social and economic divide) new media technologies are fairly well diffused, it is impossible to effectively control the flow of information. Towards the end of Mugabe’s rule, as economic pressures started to be felt, Zimbabweans began to use social media platforms strategically to mobilise each other, thereby circumventing geographic and state barriers. From the time they arose during the Zimbabwean crisis, Internet-based platforms became important alternative media spaces on which citizens waged counter-hegemonic discourses. In the Zimbabwean context, Papacharissi’s (2009) characterisation of a virtual sphere which enables citizens as prosumers (Moyo 2011) to engage in ‘dissent with a public agenda’ has become more tangible in the world of social media. Notwithstanding the reservations of political economists and social media pessimists who foreground issues of inequality and access (Moyo 2011; Fuchs 2014), social media platforms go a long way in extending citizen access to communicative spaces, making their voices heard and also giving them tools to organise. The most recognisable social media campaign in Zimbabwe was led by a young pastor, Evan Mawarire, in 2016. Using the hashtag #ThisFlag, Mawarire effectively employed Twitter to mobilise Zimbabweans and to initiate vertical communication (with authorities) and horizontal discussions between ordinary citizens (Mpofu and Mare 2020). Mpofu and Mare (2020: 154) observe that this campaign ‘attempted to question the insensitivity of the Zimbabwean government in the face of joblessness, economic stagnation and unbridled corrupt tendencies’. Their description of #ThisFlag cyber protests illustrates the potency of online platforms, particularly if employed by activists to mobilise citizens under ideal conditions. This explains why Zimbabwe’s Second Republic has adopted such a high-handed approach towards social media activists. As the New Dispensation government used different measures to tighten the screws on public and private media as spaces of civic and political engagement, citizens turned to social media as platforms on which they could reach each other without hindrance. The new regime’s seemingly relentless focus on social media dates back to the July 2018 elections, at which time supporters of both Mnangagwa and Chamisa used Twitter and Facebook as platforms for campaigning and distributing propaganda messages (Chibuwe 2020). Since then, social media activism by journalists and political activists has subjected the Mnangagwa government to various levels of scrutiny, forcing it to be on the defensive. In the run-up to the 31 July 2020 protests, as the state flooded cities with police and military units, journalists were arrested or hunted down presumably for helping mobilise or popularise the protests. Many of

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those targeted were people with a significant following on social media, who had been using the platforms to criticise or challenge state authority. Mduduzi Mathuthu, who runs the ZimLive.com website and is also a former state media editor, along with many others, had to go underground as police invaded their homes and harassed relatives. Mathuthu’s nephew, a journalism student at the National University of Science and Technology in the city of Bulawayo, was abducted and tortured allegedly by police units. Apart from using state spokesmen to dispute material posted by government critics and to push the narratives of the government, Mnangagwa’s regime has leaned on the law to prosecute and persecute its critics. The arrest of two MDC politicians, Job Sikhala and Fadzayi Mahere, and journalist/activist Hopewell Chin’ono, in January 2021 illustrates the new regime’s heightened fear of social media activism. The trio was arrested for communicating falsehoods and for inciting Zimbabweans to revolt against the government, under Section 31 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act. The case concerned an incident in which a Zimbabwean police officer enforcing Covid-19 lockdown measures was erroneously said to have killed an infant. The video purporting to show the incident, which was retweeted by many Zimbabweans, caused outrage until it turned out to be false. Despite questions over the constitutionality of the statute under which the three were arrested, they were detained for several weeks. The trio’s lawyers pointed out that the Supreme Court had expunged the Criminal Law Act, a position that was confirmed by the High Court when it quashed charges against Chin’ono in April 2021. The reaction of the authorities highlights the importance of social media as a new battle ground in Zimbabwe. Mnangagwa’s government has managed to attain and maintain a level of control over traditional media platforms (as explained above) while also making sure that physical spaces—where citizens can engage in protest— are closed. The obsession with controlling social media spaces also stems from the Second Republic’s sensitivity to projecting and protecting a positive image. Indeed, social media has become the new playground for the creation and maintenance of image and perception by states and institutions globally, including for Zimbabwe. However, for the Second Republic, the image of a new regime characterised by tolerance and openness was shattered by the events of 1 August 2018 when the army fired on protesters in broad daylight (Helliker and Murisa 2020). Recovering that image is critical to other strategies notably with reference to containing the collapse of the economy, which is a threat to the retention of power. Overall, #ThisFlag and other protests showed that Zimbabweans can deploy social media to enhance their agency in order to contest hegemonic narratives from the ruling party. Under the New Dispensation, some of the actors highlighted in this chapter have led the way in using their social media profiles and handles to challenge the regime’s narratives on many issues, including the Gukurahundi genocide, corruption, human rights abuses and service delivery failures.

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6 Conclusion Mnangagwa’s assumption of the leadership of ZANU-PF and Zimbabwe raised many expectations, despite the controversial circumstances. Besides the Zimbabwean public, whose expectations included a more democratic culture and better economic prospects, there were expectations from Western countries—with whom his regime desperately needed to restore relations in order to reactivate the economy. These countries welcomed Mnangagwa and his leadership after the coup with a level of magnanimity which left the Zimbabwean opposition, whose honeymoon with the new regime did not last long, in dismay. Within Zimbabwe, Mugabe’s departure triggered euphoric celebrations not unlike the scenes when ZANU-PF won the first elections in 1980. For many Zimbabweans, Mugabe’s ouster was a culmination of popular struggles against his rule (Helliker and Murisa 2020) and therefore marked a watershed moment not unlike independence. Among SADC states, tacit support for the coup leaders was based on the understanding that no situation could be worse than Mugabe’s burdensome rule. The new regime’s policy pronouncements soon after taking over power, such as the new slogan ‘Zimbabwe is Open for Business’, and the public commitments concerning freedom of the media and constitutional provisions on civil and political activism, were meant to calm down the nerves of these and other groups. Because of this, they have not become embedded in a meaningful formative project, at least in relation to the media. However, the election campaigns in 2018 showed that the MDC Alliance’s Nelson Chamisa was stronger than was envisaged, such that the government became jittery, leading to the ill-fated deployment of soldiers against peaceful protesters as tension gripped the country in the post-election period in early August 2018. After that event, the legitimacy crisis created by opposition dissatisfaction over elections, the deteriorating economy (especially the introduction of the local currency and its sudden depreciation) and reports of corruption in which senior state officials were implicated, all eroded the confidence with which the Second Republic had ascended to power. It is against all this that the new regime has replicated some of Mugabe’s worst media control tactics, thereby revealing its true colours.

References BBC (2018) Zimbabwe army used ‘unjustifiable’ force in post-election clashes. https://www.bbc. com/news/world-africa-46614129 Chibuwe A (2020) Social media and elections in Zimbabwe: twitter war between Pro ZANU-PF and Pro-MDC-A Netizens. Communicatio 46(4):1–24 Chingarande D (2020) Court dismisses constitutional amendment No 1. https://www.newsday.co. zw/2020/04/court-dismisses-constitutional-amendment-no-1/ Chirisa S (2019) Trevor Ncube names & Shames own newspaper for writing ‘fake’ story. iHarare.com. https://iharare.com/trevor-ncube-names-shames/

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Mpofu M (2015) ICTs in the struggle for democracy: civil society, democratisation and organisational forms in the Zimbabwean crisis, 2000–2013 Unp PhD dissertation, University of Oslo Murwira Z (2020) Cabinet approves sanctions law. The Herald. https://www.herald.co.zw/cabinetapproves-sanctions-law/ Ndebele L (2019) Fears over media freedom in Zimbabwe last independent journalists see threat in AMH deal with president’s relative. Sunday Times Online. https://www.timeslive.co.za/sun day-times/news/2019-10-13-fears-over-media-freedom-in-zimbabwe/ Ndlovu-Gatsheni S (ed) (2015) Mugabeism? history, politics and power in Zimbabwe. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke Ngwenya N, Moyo T (2020) Zimbabwe’s media policy and regulatory landscape: a reflection of the country’s fluid politics. In: Masunungure EV (ed) Zimbabwe’s trajectory: stepping forward or sliding back? Weaver Press, Harare Nehanda Radio (2014) Con Court deals criminal defamation fatal blow. https://nehandaradio.com/ 2014/06/13/con-court-deals-criminal-defamation-fatal-blow/ Ogola G (2011) The political economy of the media in Kenya: from Kenyatta’s nation building press to Kibaki’s local-language FM radio. Afr Today 57(3):77–95 Papacharissi Z (2009) The virtual sphere 2.0. The internet, the public sphere and beyond. In: Chadwick A, Howard PN (eds) Routledge handbook of internet politics, pp 230–245 Parkinson JR (2012) Democracy and public space: the physical sites of democratic performance. Oxford University Press, Oxford Raftopoulos B (2006) The Zimbabwean crisis and the challenges of the left. J South Afr Stud 32(2):203–219 Raftopoulos B (2019) Zimbabwe: regional politics and dynamics. In: Oxford research encyclopedia of politics Rønning H, Kupe T (2000) The dual legacy of democracy and authoritarianism: the media and the state in Zimbabwe. In: Curran J, Park MG (eds) De-Westernizing media studies. Routledge, London & New York Saunders R (1991) Information in the interregnum: the press, state and civil society in the struggles for Hegemony, Zimbabwe 1980–1990. unp. PhD thesis, University of Carleton Staff Reporter (2019) Trevor Ncube purges critical editor as he delivers AMH to Mnangagwa. Zimlive.com. https://www.zimlive.com/2019/10/08/trevor-ncube-purges-critical-editor-as-hed elivers-amh-to-mnangagwa/ Todd JG (2007) Through the darkness: a life in Zimbabwe. Zebra Press, Cape Town Towindo L (2020) New law to criminalise unpatriotic acts. Sunday Mail. https://www.sundaymail. co.zw/new-law-to-criminalise-unpatriotic-acts Tshuma M (2020a) Malaba reverses court judgements review directive. CITE https://cite.org.zw/ malaba-reverses-court-judgements-review-directive/ Tshuma M (2020b) African judges challenge Malaba to revoke directive ‘threatening judicial independence. CTIE. https://cite.org.zw/african-judges-challenge-malaba-to-revoke-directivethreatening-judicial-independence/ UK Bureau (2019) HERALD editor fired over Mnangagwa story; leaves after just one month on the job. Newzimbabwe.com. https://www.newzimbabwe.com/herald-editor-fired-over-mnanga gwa-story-leavesafter-just-one-month-on-the-job/ Waldahl R (2001) Politics and persuasion: media coverage of Zimbabwe’s 2000 election. Weaver Press, Harare ZBC Reporter (2020) UPDATED: Govt sets record straight on Chin’ono & Ngarivhume arrest. ZBC Online edition. https://www.zbcnews.co.zw/just-in-govt-setsrecord-straight-on-chinono-ngariv hume-arrest/

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Mandlenkosi Mpofu is a Senior Lecturer in journalism at the University of Eswatini. He researches political communication, civil society and the state, and alternative media. He worked for more than 10 years in local and international development in Zimbabwe and Malawi, in areas of freedom of expression, governance and effective participation. He also was an online editor in Zimbabwe’s biggest independent newspaper group. Mpofu is currently engaged in programmes creating platforms for citizen participation and transitional justice in Zimbabwe. He is co-editor of a book, Memory and Erasure: Gukurahundi and the Culture of Violence in Zimbabwe.

Reconfiguring Governance

Exploring the Politics of Jecharism in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic Divane Nzima and Geogina Charity Gumindega

Abstract This chapter traces the character and methods of power contestation in the Zimbabwean political space since independence, including during the Second Republic. In doing so, the politics of deliberate systematic sabotage in contemporary Zimbabwe (kudirajecha or Jecharism) is conceptualised and argued to be a key barrier of progress. While this is often associated with opposition party politics, throughout history in Zimbabwe, this strategy has been employed by ruling and opposition parties. Therefore, Jecharism is a politics that negates the interests of the people and the country in favour of politicians’ own self interests of consolidating their hold on power or their ambition to hold power. Hence, in the case of Zimbabwe, there has never been evidence of any benefit that ordinary citizens have gained from Jecharism, only perpetual economic misfortunes and continued suffering. Continuing in this path where self-interest precedes what is best for the country will only result in perpetual conflict and suffering. To move forward, politicians must exercise political tolerance and compromise. However, this does not seem to be the case with reference to the Second Republic under Mnangagwa. Indeed, any ongoing Jecharism on the part of Mnangagwa’s government is bound to minimise the possibility of the development of a formative project which takes democratic transition and consolidation seriously.

1 Introduction Zimbabwe has had a long history of socio-economic and political turmoil that saw the near collapse of the economy. Since the country attained independence in 1980, the economy has been on a downward spiral, and it has failed to attract confidence from local and international investors. Political sabotage by way of ‘targeted’ economic sanctions from the West, poor governance and rampant corruption that has hollowed D. Nzima (B) University of the Free State, Phuthaditjhaba, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] G. C. Gumindega University of Greifswad, Greifswald, Germany © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Moyo and K. Helliker (eds.), Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic, Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30129-2_6

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out private and public institutions have largely been blamed. The birth of a strong opposition party (Movement for Democratic Change—MDC) in 1999 brought fierce competition to the Zimbabwean political space which resulted in increased political violence and the peak of it in the year 2008 brought about the negotiated Government of National Unity (GNU). This brought hope as the country experienced relative socio-economic stability despite prominent power contestations in the GNU. However, the GNU served as a preview of the trajectory that a united country is likely to follow towards prosperity. The contested re-election of Robert Mugabe in 2013 reinforced the political contestations with both major political parties desperately making attempts to prove that the economic relief of the GNU era was of their doing. While everyone was occupied with intraparty and interparty power and moral contestations, the country kept on sinking. This culminated in the military-assisted ousting of Robert Mugabe in 2017 which saw Zimbabweans from all walks of life participating in countrywide celebrations. For many Zimbabweans and particularly for opposition parties, this was the time for an interim administration modelled around the GNU. The aforementioned did not materialise because ZANU-PF monopolised what many perceived as the people’s revolution. This betrayal by ZANU-PF escalated the power contestations in the Zimbabwean polity which resulted in post-election violence in 2018 and the opposition’s refusal to recognise the new government. Upon the death of Mugabe in 2019, the country witnessed his final act of defiance as his burial became a subject of contention—he chose to be buried in his rural village instead of the national heroes’ acre where many of his contemporaries are buried. In this chapter, we criticise the character and methods of political contestations since independence. We argue that these contestations are marked by Jecharism (kudirajecha), which is synonymous to ‘throwing the spanner in the works’ or ‘spoiling the pot’. This was heightened by the MDC Alliance in its attempt to challenge Emmerson Mnangagwa’s 2018 election victory, but it has existed throughout the post-colonial period (and under colonialism) in Zimbabwe. This is a form of sabotage that serves the political and careerist interests of political elites at the expense of the interests of citizens. This type of political culture encompasses the substitution of political theatre for genuine engagement on substantive policy issues. Because of this, any ongoing Jecharism on the part of Mnangagwa’s government is bound to minimise the possibility of the development of a formative project which takes democratic transition and consolidation seriously. We trace Jecharism historically in Zimbabwe, up to and including political contestations in the Mnangagwa era. We also explore how, in the face of a global coronavirus pandemic, politicians in the country pursued misplaced priorities. First, though, we provide a conceptual overview of the notion of Jecharism.

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2 KudiraJecha/Jecharism: The Concept The saying ‘kudirajecha (musadza)’ in the local Shona language can be literally translated to English to mean ‘pouring sand (into food)’. This saying was popularised by the then MDC leader (now leader of Citizens Coalition for Change—CCC) Nelson Chamisa during the 2018 election season, referring to his party’s intention to challenge the legitimacy of ZANU-PF’s presidential election victory. However, among ZANU-PF supporters, this has been taken to mean disruption and disturbance of government processes of rebuilding the country in order to score political points. In doing so, authorities also accused the opposition leader of inciting violence that resulted in the post-election protests of the 1st August 2018. This saying was seen as passive-aggressive and a covert way of unleashing violent post-election protests. Chamisa appeared before the Motlanthe Commission that was tasked with investigating the 2018 post-election violence where six people died after the intervention of the army. In his defence, he stated on Twitter that he used the saying ‘kudirajecha’ in reference to his contestation of the 2018 election results to delay Mnangagwa’s inauguration: The jecha thing got so misunderstood by our opposite number. Remember we said it in the context of our Concourt (Constitutional Court) challenge to delay the ED [Mnangagwa] inauguration. Indeed, we delayed! @nelsonchamisa

‘Kudirajecha’ has been a popular mantra since Zimbabwe’s 2018 election. It features extensively in debates on national politics, particularly on social media, microblogging sites, and Twitter. Prominent politicians in Zimbabwe, including influential ghost accounts, participate in political debates on Twitter. On Twitter and other online spaces, there are two extreme positions, namely, those who vehemently support the ZANU-PF government and those completely against it. Those occupying the middle ground are often not tolerated, either dismissed immediately or labelled as part of one of the two extremes. Through the language of kudirajecha, the prevailing adversarial politics has completely dichotomised the political landscape in Zimbabwe. Both sides accuse each other of deliberate wrecking tactics rather than substantive engagement on the merits of the issues at hand. They often say ‘zvadirwajecha’ literally translated to mean ‘sand has been poured’. Kudirajecha has found expression as well through the arts as evidenced by the release of a controversial music track by Zimbabwean musician Wallace Chirumiko, popularly known as Winky D. In the song, the musician simultaneously mocks and blames the current government led by Emmerson Mnangagwa for the country’s economic hardships (Muchirahondo 2018). The song speaks about the government sabotaging the livelihoods of Zimbabwean citizens, accusing it of pouring sand into people’s dreams. Therefore, essentially, kudirajecha has been conceptualised to mean sabotage. In this way, Mnangagwa argues that, by lining up a series of demonstrations against his administration, Chamisa’s opposition works to fulfil its policy of throwing sand in the dish (kudirajecha). This suggests that he also interprets this as deliberate political sabotage.

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Sabotage is an intentional and calculated action aimed at weakening a polity, or effort, or organisation through subversion, obstruction, disruption and, if need be, destruction (Anderton and Brauer 2016). In advancing sectional and personal interests rather than seeking unity for the sake of development, Jecharists claim to be the only ones able to bring about positive change. As such, any efforts by other groupings to bring about positive change are met with deliberate sabotage. Political sabotage has been observed in several countries (Kydd and Walter 2002; Kodrich 2008). The purpose of political sabotage is often to intensify doubts about the capacity of those being targeted to enact socio-economic development (Hirsch and Kastellec 2019). In this way, the Jecharist can be entrusted with supposedly pursuing development-focused change on a successful basis. When sabotage becomes the norm, political violence becomes prevalent and violent protests show a clear and recurring pattern. These saboteurs exist in both the ZANU-PF and popular opposition parties (notably, CCC), and they damage the political culture of Zimbabwe by deeply entrenching political differences that hinder intra-party cooperation and collaboration. Kudirajecha works towards ensuring that the polity is ungovernable. The irony here is that sandy soils do not produce any grains as they are largely not fertile and pouring sand into the dish makes the food inedible. In the context of Zimbabwe, by seeking to destroy any economic transformation strategies implemented by the ruling ZANU-PF, the actions of MDC and CCC’s kudirajecha have and consistently continue to derail the country’s economic recovery. In the same vein, ZANU-PF uses this as an excuse and opportunity to shift attention from critical issues such as state capture and corruption that need to be urgently addressed. Additionally, by using repressive laws to persecute political opponents as well as unleashing the brutality of security forces to squash the dissenting voices of the opposition, the country’s image is tainted, and efforts to hold the government to account are frustrated. The question is: who goes hungry once the sand has been poured?—citizens, not the political elites. Hence, the adoption of the kudirajecha strategy by both ZANU-PF and the opposition is detrimental to the very people they claim to represent. In the following sections, we trace the politics of Jecharism in Zimbabwean history and society.

3 The Early Years of Independence and the Rise of the MDC The toxic politics of Jecharism was soon set in motion in post-colonial Zimbabwe which, in the end, betrayed the nationalist agenda of building a just society as there was a drive to develop and consolidate a vice-like grip on political power. In particular, Robert Mugabe became obsessed with establishing a de jure one-party state in the early 1980s. Over time, this created a culture among nationalist politicians of being constantly fixated on holding power as opposed to championing the agenda of national development.

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Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) was the main obstacle in the achievement of a one-party state and thus Mugabe’s government sought to act against it. The state’s coercive machinery was unleashed and members of ZAPU who formed part of the initial unity government were purged. The presence of war dissidents in Matabeleland (a region that was a ZAPU stronghold) presented an opportunity for Mugabe to justify a military intervention that would annihilate the party’s support base. The unbridled desire to hold power at all costs necessitated the unleashing of the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade on unarmed civilians, which led to the Gukurahundi. In doing so, the factional interests of ZANU-PF as well as personal rivalries led to the use of state resources at the expense of democracy and development in the country, thereby sabotaging national reconstruction after a bitter liberation war. This resulted in the 1987 Unity Accord and the disappearance of ZAPU as a separate political entity. Throughout the late 1980s and into the 1990s, the absence of strong political opposition enabled the ZANU-PF government to rule as one centre of power. With only minimal accountability to society and its citizens, Mugabe pursued and implemented policies and programmes which were often detrimental to the country— including a devastating structural adjustment programme which contributed to deindustrialisation, unemployment and poverty (Kanji and Jazdowska 1993; Jenkins 1997; MacLean 2002). In 1997, the government paid unbudgeted ZW$50,000 lump sum compensation packages to war veterans of the liberation struggle. In 1998, it embarked on an expensive military intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) civil war (Zhou 2012). During this time, there was no strong political opposition to offer alternative policy narratives, in part because ZANU-PF was practicing the politics of Jecharism by frustrating opposition politics and stifling meaningful political debate. The formation of the MDC in 1999 posed a threat to ZANU-PF’s political hegemony and overall grip on power in Zimbabwe. The leadership of the MDC was drawn from trade unionists, and this meant that it commanded a significant support base drawn from labour (Alexander 2000). MDC’s political influence was affirmed when it campaigned against the new constitution in a referendum in February 2000 and managed to influence people to vote against the new constitution. This victory signalled a new age for opposition politics in Zimbabwe as ZANU-PF had never suffered nationwide defeat in a popular vote (Raftopoulos 2000). In addition, a few months later, the MDC won 57 out of 120 seats in the 2000 parliamentary elections. In this context, and with the 2002 presidential elections on the horizon, ZANUPF formulated and implemented the infamous fast-track land reform programme. Mugabe turned the Zimbabwean land reform agenda into a revolution aimed at achieving rapid social transformation through reenergising Zimbabweans’ connection to the liberation struggle. Despite this programme being packaged as a nationalist move, we argue that it was done in the true spirit of kudirajecha in a bid to thwart the opposition electorally. A properly planned land reform programme would have been a positive step towards redressing past colonial injustices. However, Zimbabwe’s land reform was unplanned as it was hastily implemented in order to secure the rural

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vote in the 2002 presidential elections. Hence, its economic damage to the agrarian and national economy was not of immediate concern to the ruling party. Despite the land reform programme, and even with Mugabe’s victory in the 2002 presidential elections, ZANU PF’s popularity showed further decline especially in the urban centres and among middle-class voters. Because of this, the ZANU-PF government began to use whatever means possible (through the various apparatuses of the state) to frustrate the MDC opposition. This entailed state-orchestrated violence and intimidation, enforced through the Zanufication of the state and militarisation of national politics, as well as monopolising control of publicly owned and funded media (Mlambo 2009). The ruling party feared dialogue and negotiation (and democracy itself) as it felt threatened by dissenting voices and alternative political imaginations, thereby sabotaging democratic development. Following the land reform programme and the subsequent political violence during elections, the West imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe (Mukhuhlani 2014). In the political contestation of power, it was evident that defeating Mugabe through elections alone was a difficult task as his party was accused of electoral rigging. A narrative thus emerged that the opposition party under Morgan Tsvangirai actively campaigned for these sanctions (IOL 2002; The Humanitarian 2004). The calling for sanctions, or even simply supporting them, was yet another form of kudirajecha. Although Tsvangirai and the MDC argued that the aim of the sanctions was to stabilise the country, they became the focal point of instability just as much as they weakened the economy (Levy 2014). In fact, sanctions against Zimbabwe served to make life difficult for ordinary Zimbabweans, with the intention of swaying citizens ultimately to vote Mugabe and his party out. While Zimbabwe’s economic sanctions have been blamed on Mugabe’s political mismanagement (including via fast-track land reform), there is a strong element of political sabotage embodied in the sanctions move. By supporting or calling for sanctions, the MDC brought about a degree of harm to the ordinary people of Zimbabwe, and for the own potential political gain of the MDC elites. In this respect, the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband once claimed that the United Kingdom’s position on sanctions was largely driven by the MDC’s directive and position on socioeconomic reforms and conditions in Zimbabwe (Smith-Hohn 2010). Seemingly, it was therefore within the MDC’s power to stop the continued suffering of the people as a result of sanctions—but it did not as its leaders expected to use them as a weapon to win political power. Meanwhile, the sanctions brought multi-layered suffering that includes global isolation, hyper-inflation, shortage of goods and high unemployment rates yet without any democratic reform whatsoever (Chingono 2010). Evidence suggests that sanctions have never been a plausible way of resolving international disagreements, conflicts or effecting behavioural change (Ogbonna 2017). In a comparative study of Cuba and Zimbabwe, Hove et al. (2020) argue that Cuba has managed to survive the United States’ sanctions through rigorous policy formulation and implementation. In the case of Zimbabwe, the imposition of sanctions has failed to yield any economic and political reforms consistent with the demands of the West. As well, Grebe (2010) established that targeted sanctions against Zimbabwe were ineffective in achieving the political objectives set by the

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European Union and the United States. Simultaneously, the restrictive measures severely impacted the well-being, health and education rights of ordinary Zimbabweans (Hove 2012; Ogbonna 2017). Quite possibly, the dynamics of Jecha-politics undermined the potentially positive outcomes of sanctions as initially anticipated by the MDC. Morgan Tsvangirai once famously boasted that he had the keys to unlocking Zimbabwe’s economy. Did he pour sand on the country’s economy by calling for sanctions with the hope that people would eventually vote Robert Mugabe out of power? If so, does the end justify the means? The politics of sabotage is often a politics of personal gain. At the peak of his political career (2011), Tsvangirai published a memoir titled ‘At the deep end’. According to Nyanda (2017), memoirs are typically published at the end of one’s career, yet Morgan published them at the peak of his career. Amidst calling for the extension of sanctions against Zimbabwe and publishing a memoir that articulated his position as Zimbabwe’s political messiah, Nyanda (2017) argues that Tsvangirai’s acts were defiant and sought personal glorification (rather than the delivery of public goods). This is the same stance that the current (post-Tsvangirai) opposition leadership adopts, as we discuss later.

4 Government of National Unity: A Glimmer of Hope Since the year 2000, Zimbabwe’s economic conditions have been characterised by political turmoil, capital flight, corruption and mismanagement. Sachikonye (2011) has dubbed the period between the year 2000 and 2008 as ‘a lost decade’ as this was the period in which Zimbabwe plunged deeply into dire economic doldrums. During this decade of crisis, Zimbabwe experienced endemic shortages of key inputs such as fuel resulting in long queues, unstable prices and hyperinflation as well as severe shortages of basic consumer goods (Mukhuhlani 2014). However, the seeming silver lining appeared between 2009 and 2013 during the Government of National Unity (GNU) which was formed after Mugabe had for the first time lost an election to the opposition. Based on the Global Political Agreement (GPA), the people of Zimbabwe experienced some relief as the hybrid power-sharing government (i.e. the GNU)— made up of three political parties (ZANU-PF and two MDCs)—provided some hope for Zimbabwe’s democracy and economic wellbeing (Kwenda 2009). Regardless of the political structure post-2013, the situation after the GNU was expected to be better than the pre-2008 days. When antagonistic political contenders unite, nation-building becomes a possibility, and this means that peace and democracy become achievable goals. Had the GNU not been implemented in Zimbabwe after the disputed 2008 presidential and parliamentary elections, the situation could have degenerated into internal strife. The disputed elections that led to the formation of the GNU showed that the opposition was on the verge of democratically seizing power. Thus, for the ruling ZANU-PF party, opting for a ‘coalition government’ was a way of relinquishing power while, for the opposition, it was a ‘one foot in the door’ situation (Mapuva 2013). The

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GPA framework provided checks and balances to inhibit power abuse by all political parties involved (Mukhuhlani 2014). This, according to Nkomo (2011), forced ZANU-PF to consider a path of fundamental democratic reforms and it held Mugabe accountable to some degree to his GPA partners. Therefore, as a temporary solution, the GNU between 2008 and 2013 was a noble strategy to prevent violent conflicts (Mapuva 2013; Mukhuhlani 2014) and hopefully provide a basis for permanently addressing Zimbabwe’s socio-economic challenges and redirect the country towards a path to success. The social, economic and political successes achieved through the short-term emergency recovery programmes under the GNU include a new constitution, the introduction of a multi-currency regime, the resurrection of defunct services such as medical aid and pension schemes, a steady availability of basic commodities, provision of textbooks in school, media reforms among others. The GNU over-turned fuel price and food security challenges that Zimbabweans had persistently faced in the preceding years. Under the GNU, Zimbabwe’s economy was on a growth trajectory as between 2009 and 2012, it grew by 8 per cent each year (Ryan 2018). Hence, the GNU period enabled the people of Zimbabwe to regain buying power and it offered them a sense of renewed hope (Nkomo 2011; Mukhuhlani 2014). Drawing from an understanding of certain similarities between the cases of Zimbabwe and Kenya, Cheeseman and Tendi (2010) conclude that a power-sharing model creates conditions necessary for reform, but that instead of resolving conflict a unity government merely postpones it. While the GNU did not permanently resolve Zimbabwe’s problems, the successes of the GNU between 2009 and 2013 show that, in order to bring about a more lasting solution, Zimbabwe needs engagement, not sanctions (Hove 2012). The GNU served as a preview of the positive trajectory that Zimbabwe could take if concerted efforts towards rebuilding the country are made by all political players. The GNU should have created a stable policy environment, state agencies of self-restraint and the separation of powers between the ruling party and the state executive. It should have minimised state capture and looting of state resources by vested interests, and it should have involved putting the country and its citizens first. However, there is significant evidence of kudirajecha in inter and intra-partypolitical power contestations within the GNU. With one foot in the door, MDC politicians tasted political power and the luxuries that come with it for the first time, being corrupted by power in losing sight of their mandate and concentrating on self-enrichment. While the MDC formations were enjoying this newly found shortterm political clout, ZANU-PF was focused on ongoing efforts to accumulate private wealth (through a parallel state). Nkomo (2011) argues that Mugabe wanted three developments from the GNU, namely, legitimacy, time to retreat and reorganise and the removal of sanctions. In this light, ZANU-PF took advantage of its weaker coalition partners to manipulate different public institutions for political gain (Mapuva 2013) and it concentrated on ways of winning the upcoming 2013 elections to regain its lost monopoly over political power. Combined, the practices of all political parties in the GNU involved promoting and defending sectional agendas and interests to the disadvantage of suffering Zimbabweans.

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After the GNU, ZANU-PF regained absolute power in the contested election of 2013. The one-centre-of-power mantra re-emerged and became louder regarding the intra-party politics of the ruling party, with the succession question within the party becoming the elephant in the room. Again, ZANU-PF politicians neglected their mandate of serving the interests of the country and focused on internal power struggles. In the MDC, there were problems as well, leading to the dismissal of certain members of parliament—this resulted in the formation of another MDC breakaway party. Tsvangirai aided ZANU-PF in consolidating political hegemony through his action of dismissals; this was synonymous with donating seats because, in the byelections, ZANU PF was uncontested. Meanwhile, Tsvangirai was hungover from the power that came with the Prime Minister’s office, as he refused to relinquish the luxury of a government mansion that came with that office. Despite any differences across the political-party landscape in Zimbabwe, these political intrigues, within both the ruling and opposition parties, amount to kudirajecha.

5 The Politics of Jecharism in Post-Mugabe Zimbabwe The politics of Jecharism has existed in Zimbabwean political spaces for a long time. However, it has become even more apparent in the post-Mugabe era. After the military-assisted ousting of Robert Mugabe in 2017 which saw Zimbabweans from all walks of life participating in countrywide celebrations, expectations were not met. The opposition, which also took part in nationwide marches and attended a gathering to pledge support for the anti-Mugabe movement, saw an opportunity to be part of government once again. For many in the country and in the opposition, this was the time for an interim administration modelled around the GNU; however, this did not happen. The opposition felt used by ZANU-PF in its internal succession battles, as expressed in the military-assisted transition. As a result, since November 2017, the MDC has not forgiven this perceived betrayal. This has escalated the power contestations in the Zimbabwean polity, taking on a toxic path. At first, the opposition threatened to boycott the 2018 elections, citing the need for electoral reforms, an opportunity it missed and failed to bring about during the GNU. As well, while the elections were largely peaceful, the opposition is accused of inciting violence to cast aspersions on the legitimacy of the ZANU-PF government: Winning resoundingly... We’ve done exceedingly well…we are ready to form the next (government). @NelsonChamisa

The above tweet was posted by opposition leader Nelson Chamisa (who controversially took over the leadership of the main MDC party after the death of Tsvangirai) in celebration of his supposed victory in 2018 before the election results were announced. Unfortunately, while still awaiting the outcome of the elections, there were violent protests believed to be defending the ‘stolen’ opposition vote, to which the government’s response was fatal.

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These methods, being used to contest and retain power, do not move the country forward in terms of democratic development. On the one hand, the MDC opposition could have called off the protesters as opposed to encouraging the defending of the voting process by means that were ambiguous to say the least. More specifically, while calling for defending the electoral process, the methods to be used were not explicitly stated by MDC leaders, leaving protesters to take matters into their own hands. On the other hand, the use of the army by the government was an unnecessary show of force and served to reaffirm that the new Mnangagwa government was no different from that of Mugabe’s era because it was prepared to defend its hold on power by all means. After the 2018 elections, results were announced with ZANU-PF’s Emmerson Mnangagwa declared a winner. In this light, the politics of Jecharism intensified. The opposition MDC Alliance (under Nelson Chamisa’s leadership) held numerous press conferences where it categorically stated that it did not recognise the election results. Because of this, the results were challenged at the constitutional court as provided for in the constitution. Even after losing this court challenge, the opposition refused to recognise ZANU’PF’s victory. To the contrary, it questioned the credibility of the judges and the court outcome: I am neither a ZANU PF supporter nor that of MDC. However, ZANU PF is government now, instead of this kudirajecha strategy, MDC can show leadership by engaging to get the country functional. @MMhandire

The above tweet, from an ordinary person, shows that there are those among the citizenry who are concerned with the methods being deployed to contest power in Zimbabwean politics. The fact that the opposition fails to recognise a constitutional court judgement but continues to advocate for anarchy (or to make the country ungovernable) until it gains political power suggests that its leaders perceive themselves to be the only ones who can serve the country in a genuine and meaningful way and that, without them, nothing is possible. The ordinary citizen in the tweet is appealing to the MDC to put the country first (i.e. to make it “functional”) through leadership, if need be through dialogue with the ruling party. However, Chamisa’s MDC refused to participate in Mnangagwa’s multi-party dialogue to find solutions to move the country forward. The main opposition party remained too fixated on pouring sand on any and all efforts of the ruling party and manoeuvring to topple ZANU-PF, instead of ensuring that ZANU-PF becomes accountable to the public. In the true spirit of kudirajecha, both ZANU-PF and the opposition failed to serve the national interests of Zimbabwe. On the one hand, on a continuous basis, ZANUPF blamed the failure to bring stability to the economy on sanctions and apportioned blame to the MDC for not lobbying against their removal. On the other hand, the MDC insisted that ZANU-PF’s irresponsibility and undemocratic practices are to blame for the sanctions regime (Smith-Hohn 2010) and the failing economy. While the United Kingdom and United States’ governments have stated that they would consider lifting the restrictive measures once there is evidence of genuine reforms on the ground, the opposition in Zimbabwe vowed to ‘pour sand’ until ZANU-PF is

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forced out of power. The following tweets show everyday concerns about the toxic politics of politicians: Chamisa, some may ask you the same question. Why kudirajechamu Zimbabwe or begging for sanctions for the love of power. Sanctions never affect the Zanu PF elites, but the general public. So why manage your politics in such a way that it leaves Zimbabwe worse? @sibbsniel Sanctions beggars - u have nowhere to run. You can beg for more sanctions, but it’s MDC supporters who suffer the most from sanctions. Factories close, dirty water is pumped to residents & power shortages abound. But villagers have no problems. Come 2023 u lose again @matigary

The MDC leadership was on record stating that the country will become ungovernable if Nelson Chamisa did not become the president. This suggests that their actions to actively disrupt the efforts of the incumbent government were deliberate. Today, Zimbabweans tend to desire the removal of economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe over the years, as this is seen to be crucial to the country’s economic recovery. Meanwhile, opposition elites call for the tightening of sanctions against Zimbabwe. ZANU-PF has also failed to inspire confidence as the economy continues to be on a downward spiral; however, the presence of sanctions offers the party an excuse for its own failure. The actions of the opposition create another scapegoat to justify ZANU-PF’s own incompetence, citing systematic sabotage.

6 Mugabe’s Final Act of Jecharism Having overstayed in power until his deposal in late 2017, Robert Mugabe took offense at the betrayal by his trusted comrades and army generals who had aided his long-term hold on power. He did not take the betrayal well because it brought him insurmountable embarrassment. In his last days as a bitter man, he used every opportunity available to him to sabotage the military-backed government of Emmerson Mnangagwa. A man who was once strictly against a multi-party state publicly pronounced his support for his long-time rival opposition party (the MDC) to pour sand on his former party’s potential election victory. As well, upon his death on the 6th September 2019, the place of his burial became a subject of contention as his close family members sought to ensure the fulfilment of his last wish not to be laid to rest at the National Heroes Acre in Harare. In his prime, Mugabe had presided over and compulsorily prescribed the burial of his fellow liberation fighters at this monumental shrine. Commenting during the hype of the 2017 political changes in Zimbabwe, journalist Hopewell Chin’ono made the following remarks on Twitter: …when he [Robert Mugabe] dies, he would probably want to have nothing to do with the heroes Acre. He will see it as a place where he buried his minions, those he sees as political lumpen. The Mugabe I know will want to have his own special place where his supporters and admirers come to pay homage without him having to share that attention with other ZANU PF luminaries buried at the hill. I would like to be proved wrong, time will tell @daddyhope

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History proved Hopewell Chin’ono right as Mugabe was buried in a special grave in his rural village. We suggest that reducing the value of the Heroes’ Acre was Mugabe’s final act of Jecharism. Once again, as he had done throughout his years in power, he put his ego first before the country. This was a move to take away any chance of reconciliation that his burial at the national shrine could have presented between his erstwhile comrades and the country as a collective. The burial at the Heroes’ Acre would have shone a positive light on Mnangagwa’s administration, and thus the squabble over Mugabe’s final resting place was an act of defiance. This act completely cast aspersions on the meaning and value of the monumental shrine he founded. Without Mugabe, a once glorified national burial site has been reduced to an ordinary graveyard, as observed by citizens in the press and on Twitter: ZANU PF is genuinely hurting for a good reason. As I mentioned in my June 2017 piece predicting that Bob will not go to the Heroes Acre, ZANU PF knows that without Bob at the Heroes Acre, it becomes just an ordinary cemetery. He knew it too. Some are already thinking of reburials! @daddyhope Well considering that the incumbent is scrambling in desperation to preside over the burial, I would say that yes, indeed VaMugabe vazvidira ma jecha [Mr Mugabe has poured sand] @tatsmaxalive

7 Misplaced Priorities Amidst the Global Covid-19 Pandemic Considering the recent global Covid-19 pandemic, Zimbabwean politicians have heightened their self-interests over the interests of the nation. Their priorities have continued to be placed on power contestation and consolidation instead of collective action in response to the global pandemic. Consequently, the Zimbabwean population has increasingly become politically polarised despite the threat of this global pandemic. Given the prevailing economic crisis, the Zimbabwean state and its citizens are handicapped in containing the pandemic while also addressing other negative externalities such as food insecurity and mounting debt (Moyo 2020). This is a time when politicians are supposed to focus their efforts towards driving collective action to come up with viable response strategies, particularly considering the long-term shortages of healthcare professionals owing to high levels of brain drain (Chikanda 2006). The recent sporadic protests by doctors and nurses came at the worst possible time when the country’s health system is in dire need of frontline workers. While grappling with the pandemic, Zimbabwe also experienced a further reversal of the successes against malaria as there were reports of increasing cases and deaths related to malaria. There were also speculations that the government was under-reporting Covid-19 cases as well as suspicions that most of the Covid-19 cases were being reported as malaria cases (Chingono 2020). Such claims suggest that there is gross mistrust of the government by citizens. Many people took to Twitter to register their

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lack of confidence and dissatisfaction with government response strategies to the pandemic. Those malaria cases are covid cases. I’ve raised that with a friend of mine in the health corridors and proved it by sending a relative who just died of “malaria”. I demanded that their samples get tested for covid in Hre only to come out positive. - @zimneedschange If Zimbabwe government was providing decent quarantine facilities, people wouldn’t be bribing security at these centres & running away from quarantine. Secondly a lot of immigrants are using illegal port of entries to get into Zimbabwe. These actions are a recipe for disaster. - @lilomatic

The government’s response to Covid-19 has been marred by serious irregularities and, above all, it became an opportunity for the political elite to loot state resources. As has become customary, the ruling ZANU-PF government persistently poured sand on the health prospects of citizens, leaving them deeply exposed to the pandemic and its effects. Towards the end of June 2020, Obadiah Moyo (the Minister of Health) was arrested on charges of corruption over scandals surrounding the procurement of Covid-19 test kits and other equipment (Nyoka 2020). Although this was now the second Minister in the ‘Second Republic’ to face corruption charges, many would argue that the government has not sought to systemically address the prevalence of corruption. In this respect, the arrest of ZANU-PF-linked ministers in corruptionrelated cases is merely an attempt to pacify citizens agitating against corruption by giving the appearance of acting against it. Indeed, most high-profile corruption cases have ended in acquittals. Amid the global pandemic, Zimbabwe’s opposition politics has taken a very startling direction as the focus was on internal power struggles instead of providing much-needed oversight over the government’s responses to Covid-19. A Supreme Court judgement that was handed down in March 2020 (during the early stages of the Covid-19 national lockdown) declared Nelson Chamisa an illegitimate leader of the MDC (Kamhungira 2020). This ruling upheld the High Court ruling of 2019 that declared Thokozani Khupe the legitimate leader of the MDC (Allison 2019). This power struggle can be traced back to decisions made by the late opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai that were controversial and in violation of party procedures. In 2016, Tsvangirai appointed two additional vice presidents, Nelson Chamisa and Elias Mudzuri, to serve alongside Thokozani Khupe, an elected official. In similar fashion as Mugabe, when Tsvangirai was expected to choose a successor, he made a controversial decision to appoint additional vice presidents, thereby casting doubts over Khupe’s leadership capabilities. This was a very unpopular decision which was at odds with the party’s constitution. Tsvangirai was reading from the same script as Mugabe by appointing himself as the only centre of power in the MDC. After the death of Tsvangirai in 2018, the popular Chamisa usurped the presidency of the party and Khupe was allegedly assaulted and humiliated by the supporters of Chamisa at Tsvangirai’s funeral. Here we see the opposition applying violent methods of power contestation that have traditionally been associated with ZANU-PF. Tsvangirai’s unconstitutional decisions have continued to cause havoc many years after his death resulting in further political polarisation and delayed progress for the country.

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The timing of the Supreme Court ruling and the way the judgement was received and acted upon by its benefactors was even more puzzling. The ruling also exposed fault lines that had long been suspected within the main opposition formation. Douglas Mwonzora (who was victimised together with Khupe at Tsvangirai’s funeral) and Morgan Komichi (who was among the biggest losers of the MDC Alliance congress held in Gweru in May 2019) suddenly stood with Khupe who was declared the legitimate leader by the court. These politicians led the initiative to reclaim the assets of the MDC as well as nullifying decisions taken by Chamisa, such as recalling some Councillors and Mayors around the country (Kamhungira 2020). While the world was dealing with a global pandemic, Zimbabwean politicians (MDC and ZANU-PF) seized the opportunity to consolidate political power. There were even suspicions that the Khupe-led group was sponsored by ZANU-PF to destabilise a much stronger and popular Chamisaled formation. This arose from the way the Zimbabwean state moved to support the efforts of occupying Morgan Tsvangirai House (formerly known as Harvest House), the headquarters of the MDC. State security forces were dispatched to assist in evicting occupants from the Chamisa formation, giving control to the secretary general (Mwonzora). Whether or not the challenges within the MDC are engineered by the ruling ZANU-PF is a matter of unsubstantiated speculation. Yet, we argue that the striking resemblance of power contestations within ZANU-PF and MDC is proof that the politics of sabotage is the main reason Zimbabwe is failing to progress.

8 Conclusion In this chapter, we have traced the nature and methods of power contestations in Zimbabwe since independence. In doing so, we have argued that the politics of deliberate systematic sabotage, which in contemporary Zimbabwe has been dubbed kudirajecha or Jecharism, is a key barrier of progress. While this is often associated with opposition party politics, we argue that throughout history in Zimbabwe, these detrimental methods have been employed by both those in power and the opposition. As a result, we conclude that Jecharism is a politics that negates the interests of the people and the country in favour of politicians’ own self-interests of consolidating their hold on power or their ambition to hold power. As such, in the case of Zimbabwe, there has never been any benefit that ordinary citizens have gained from Jecharism; it has only served to perpetuate economic misfortunes and continued suffering for the vast majority of Zimbabweans. The GNU, despite its failures, was a preview of the possibilities which might emerge when people try to work as a united force for the good of the country. Instead of continuing to sabotage each other for political gain, there is indeed a need for all Zimbabweans to come together and put the interests of the country first. As things stand, particularly with the intensification of Jecharism, whoever wins Zimbabwe’s national elections (for instance, in 2023) will be sabotaged and the vicious circle will simply continue. The transition from

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Mugabe to Mnangagwa and the national elections soon afterwards (in 2018) aptly demonstrate this. Clearly, Jecharism characterises both ZANU-PF and the political opposition. Any formative project, including the one initiated by Mnangagwa, requires a meaningful level of trust and consensus-building across the political divides. Regrettably, the widespread presence of Jecharism in Zimbabwean politics runs counter to the building of trust and consensus-building, as well as the overall social compact, thereby putting brakes on Mnangagwa’s formative project. Acknowledgements This work is based on the research supported by the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Innovation and National Research Foundation of South Africa [Grant Number 64816].

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Divane Nzima is a lecturer in the department of Sociology at the University of the Free State’s Qwaqwa campus in South Africa. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. His research focuses on migration and development, family dynamics and parenting, and the well-being of the elderly in resource-constrained countries. Recently, he has taken an interest in political sociology after realising a need for more young people to participate in political debates in Africa. His main interest is in the nature and methods of political contestations around wielding political power in environments that are always in election mode. Geogina Charity Gumindega is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Greifswad in Germany. She is interested in the link between society and environment by formulating and understanding how various factors influence the realities of different people in varying contexts. Her current research and past interests are in socio-economic, political and environmental influences on human behaviour, access to health services among vulnerable populations in rural areas,

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gender-based violence, women’s economic status, sexual and reproductive health and rights of key populations, and environmental management.

Change and Continuity—Traditional Leadership’s Political and Developmental Footprint in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic Rodrick Fayayo, McDonald Lewanika, and Bheki R Mngomezulu

Abstract This chapter examines the role of traditional leaders in the Second Dispensation under Emmerson Mnangagwa in Zimbabwe. It seeks to understand whether there are continuities or discontinuities in the relationship between the traditional leadership and the Mnangagwa presidency in comparison to the previous Mugabe regime. It concludes that the Mnangagwa regime has adopted the same forms of bargains and compromises that were part of the Mugabe regime’s political strategy vis-à-vis traditional leaders. In particular, though the Mnangagwa-led government has “changed” the strategy of fetishising traditional leaders, it has ensured that this leadership institution in rural spaces has remained constant and captive to political interests, with development strategies pertinent to the areas of jurisdiction of traditional leaders administered as part of the ruling party’s clientelist politics. At the same time, Mnangagwa’s “open for business mantra”—as part of his formative project— implies the possibility of a strengthened state-corporate alliance which lessens the dependence of his regime and its legitimacy on traditional leaders and the interests of the rural populace, leading to possible tensions which the Mnangagwa administration will need to balance.

1 Introduction After Robert Mugabe’s political demise in a coup in 2017, Zimbabwe appeared to be on a new path. Despite the problematic character of the regime change, citizens developed a level of hope for institutional and structural transformation. This included R. Fayayo (B) Public Policy and Research Institute of Zimbabwe, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] M. Lewanika Accountability Lab Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe B. R. Mngomezulu Political Science, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Moyo and K. Helliker (eds.), Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic, Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30129-2_7

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hope for the transformation of institutional and structural arrangements that Mugabe’s administration had put in place or captured during his 37-year rule, including traditional leadership. However, questions arose around whether traditional leadership would survive this “new” militarised regime; if so, with what refashioned role in the country’s development, and with what kind of support? It was unclear whether the new regime under Emmerson Mnangagwa would allow space for a significant role the institution of traditional leadership, either as advocates of a political ideology or developmental ethos or as purveyors and sponsors of violence. This chapter attempts to set out tentative answers to some of the questions and issues around traditional leadership through the limited prism of the new dispensation’s initial four-year period in power (2017–2021). It re-examines the role of traditional leaders in Zimbabwe’s development process and presents a schematic analysis of the life of traditional leadership as an institution across space (Zimbabwe and Africa) and time (colonial to post-colonial)—homing in on the transition from the Mugabe to the Mnangagwa regime in Zimbabwe. It is an interim assessment of the role of traditional leaders and their contribution (or lack thereof) to democracy and development in the post-Mugabe era. Though the chapter identifies patterns and emphasises continuity across the transition, it also raises the issue of the way Mnangagwa’s “open for business” agenda (as part of the formative project) might lessen the Mnangagwa administration’s dependence on the traditional leadership for its legitimacy and survival. The chapter’s argument draws on several data collection methods including document analysis, especially media and grey literature scans, as well as academic literature. It is also informed by the researchers’ insights from primary data gathered through key informant interviews (KIIs) with traditional chiefs, Provincial Development Coordinators, District Development Coordinators, and civic society actors, in addition to focus group meetings with key local governance practitioners across Zimbabwe between August and November 2020. However, given the limited life span so far of the dispensation, a significant part of the analysis that follows relies on “raw” critical reflection.

2 Traditional Leadership’s Resilience Across Time and Space The chapter adopts an understanding of development that distinguishes between the notion of intervention (projects) and of political, economic and structural change (transformation or historical change). It, therefore, assesses the role of traditional institutions in development within the context of large historical shifts as represented by the coup-inspired regime change, as well as their role regarding direct lower-level interventions at their community levels. In this context, significant debate exists about the relevance of traditional leaders and the role they can perform in modern polities, including with reference to

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Zimbabwe. Typically, Traditionalists argue that traditional leaders have a significant role to play. Contrary to this, Modernists claim that traditional leaders have no role whatsoever to play in a liberal democracy, in large part because of their hereditary or appointed character. Some authors argue that the dual system that often appears in Africa, of retaining traditional leaders within a democratic order and letting them operate side-by-side with elected representatives, only serves to compromise democracy (Ntsebeza 2006). Like in the rest of Africa, traditional leadership in Zimbabwe has been a contested terrain. Stretching back many decades, different political regimes across colonial and post-colonial times have attempted to model, reconfigure and discipline traditional leadership to support their hold over the state and impact national development. In all these efforts in Zimbabwe specifically, the institution of traditional leadership has been resilient and adaptive and, while at times under threat, it also has been resurgent at other times. While this is generally true of the institution beyond Zimbabwe as well, traditional leadership during different epochs and in different nations has defied homogeneous characterisation given the complexities of its constituent parts, with traditional leaders adopting different postures and approaches about relations with the formal state. During colonial times in Zimbabwe, variation in approaches was on display through some traditional leaders siding with nationalist liberation movements, while others accented in becoming and being the settler regime’s local state agents. In the latter case, traditional leaders assisted with local administration and countered the influence and penetration of liberation fighters into rural areas (Bratton 1978; Kriger 1985; Lan 1985; Weinrich 1971). The colonial regime often rewarded traditional leaders who conformed in these ways; and, in some instances, removed and replaced those who resisted the colonial agenda with more compliant chiefs (Kriger 1985). The co-option of traditional leadership in Zimbabwe often led to the emergence of competing local structures supporting the nationalist struggle, such that a range of “spiritual” alliances, for instance, arose between the liberation fighters and spirit mediums and Mhondoro (spirits of past chiefs), thereby attempting to water down, counter and usurp the local authority of traditional leaders (Alexander 2006; Lan 1985). The above contestations continued post-liberation, to the extent that the new governing regime of Robert Mugabe considered dismantling the traditional leadership institution, which it viewed, in the main, as a former agent of the colonial administration (Alexander 2006). Some in the new government also saw traditional leadership as without a place in the new (supposedly) socialist revolutionary dispensation and attempted to exclude it from meaningful power and authority. Through this exclusion, they hoped that traditional leadership would simply “wither away”. At the same time, the observable implications of exclusion led to questions as to whether the institution was “in eclipse” and or was already “gone” (Ranger 1983, 1985, 2001). However, like the rumours of Mark Twain’s death circa 1887, time would show that claims of the withering and “death” of traditional leadership were greatly exaggerated. By the late 1980s, continuous lobbying and advocacy around improving

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the welfare of chiefs and their relations with the government began to bear fruit (Alexander 2006). Traditional leaders had some of their lost prestige and power returned to them, mainly through the 1989 Chiefs and Headman’s Act and the effects of the 1994 Land Tenure Commission. Traditional leaders, especially chiefs, now receive monthly salaries from central government and, in practice, chiefs can keep, for their use, court appearance fees and fines imposed on offenders brought before traditional courts (Kurebwa 2015). Villagers appearing before the traditional court are required to pay US$5 for their case to be heard (Makumbe 2010). The proceeds from these court appearance fees and fines are used at the chief’s discretion but in large part to support developmental activities of the relevant chieftaincy (Chigwata 2016). With the onset of the radical fast track land reform programme in 2000, the Mugabe regime hijacked the genuine concerns of the land hungry poor and adopted corporatism as a strategy for political survival. This corporatism, which appeared to paint the image of a common long-standing struggle between ZANU-PF and the landless, was also applied to some sections of domestic and international capital. The state made concessions with these and other elite groups at the height of the land invasions which, at the domestic level, also included traditional leaders. In the early 2000s, ZANU-PF went further to co-opt traditional leaders into its ideological and mobilisation campaign for political hegemony, through legislative restoration of powers that the state had taken away in 1982. According to Zamchiya (2011), the Traditional Leaders Act (1998) increased the number of functions of a chief from three to twenty-two, those of a headman from three to eleven, and village heads were allocated sixteen new functions. As such, after 2000, the institution became wellrewarded and applauded by the ZANU-PF government, as it acted more in concert with the party and was aligned to ZANU-PF’s rural development policies. More widely in Africa, there has been renewed interest in indigenous political institutions, as elitist local government structures inherited from the colonial state and under the direct hegemony of the central state have failed to govern in line with the development aspirations of rural citizens (Chikerema 2013; Chakunda and Chikerema 2014). This renewed interest has taken place primarily because of the increasing popularity of decentralisation and devolution, which have been central to policy experiments and initiatives in many African countries for several years now (Makumbe 2010). Chakunda (2015) notes that the call to involve traditional authorities more deeply in the governance agendas of “modern” African states, by both African scholars and Western donor agencies, has become louder and louder. For instance, several scholars have observed that the relationship between Westernstyle democracy based on the notion of individuals’ political and social rights, and the ethnic-based collectivism characteristic of African societies, should not be seen necessarily as an antagonistic one. Rather, traditional structures can now operate alongside modern structures as development agents and partners (Alexander 2018; Kurebwa 2015). This resilient character of traditional leadership institutions can be traced across Africa to countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Malawi, and Mozambique, which once toyed with the idea of dismantling the institution. In Botswana’s case, the situation

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has been slightly different because the country’s leaders have been more firmly rooted within the institution of traditional leadership. In the case of South Africa, until 1993, the African National Congress (ANC) held that traditional leaders would have no space in a post-Apartheid South Africa. However, from 1993, the ANC increasingly realised that doing away with traditional leaders could cost it significant rural support. The institution of traditional leadership was included in the 1993 Interim Constitution and again in the National Constitution adopted in 1996 (Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996). It is thus evident that traditional leadership has been resilient and, in cases where central governments have attempted to sideline it, it has sometimes come back with full force (Oomen 2005). Throughout Africa, as Makumbe (2010) argues, traditional leadership has essentially involved political, social, and economic structures for maintaining the sociopolitical order and as a possible prerequisite for rural development. Baldwin (2015) in fact advises that endeavours to bring about meaningful rural development in Africa must utilise the intrinsic strengths of the institution of traditional leaders. This, she argues, would underpin government legitimacy in ways akin to Weber’s (1978) notion of “traditional authority” based on the sanctity of tradition and citizens owing obedience to the “traditional” authority or lord. Across Africa, there are many examples which show traditional chiefs’ vital role in development processes in their respective areas. In the case of Zambia, Baldwin (2015) argues that some traditional chiefs have bolstered the education agenda by marshaling resources from within and outside their areas of jurisdiction, to ensure education for local children. In South Africa, traditional leaders have played an essential role in ensuring the provision of health services, including efforts to stem the tide of HIV and AIDS in their regions (Hozlinger 2016). In Ghana, Chief Ashantihene took the concerns of his community to the international donor community, such as the World Bank, calling for more resources and partnerships to improve the social conditions of his people by supporting social programmes. In some African countries, governments have even put aside a transparent funding mechanism to assist traditional leaders as they carry out their developmental responsibilities (Comaroff and Comaroff 2018). In South Africa, the Ingonyama Trust was established to hold all land previously owned by or belonging to the KwaZulu Bantustan Government in the name of the Trust, for the benefit, material welfare, and social well-being of the members of the “tribes and communities” living on the land (Koeble 2005). The Trust became responsible for managing some 2.8 million hectares of land in KwaZulu-Natal. Land vests in the Ingonyama (or King) as the trustee who administers it on behalf of members of specific communities. The fact that South Africa has both the National and Provincial House of Traditional Leaders and has a special sitting of the House of Traditional Leaders indicates that the country’s political leadership realises and acknowledges the role of traditional leadership in development projects in the country. Other governments in Africa have likewise infused traditional leaders with power and embedded them in their political leadership structure, including Ghana and Nigeria but also clearly Zimbabwe.

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3 Constitutional Role of Traditional Leaders in Zimbabwe Ostensibly, the institution of traditional leadership in Zimbabwe is operationalised and regulated by various Acts of Parliament. These include inter alia, the Traditional Leaders Act of 1998; the Customary Law and Local Courts Act of 1990; and Chapter 15 of Zimbabwe’s constitution. Chapter 15 specifically deals with traditional leaders and their functions, and highlights and reiterates their role in facilitating the “equitable” allocation of national resources and the participation of local communities in the determination of development priorities within their areas of jurisdiction. As well, Section 282 of the constitution emphasises traditional leaders’ role in ensuring local development as well as in administering land and protecting the natural environment by leading environmental conservation and guarding natural resources (Sibanda 2016). On this authority, traditional leaders for example distribute farming inputs to rural farmers in communal areas on behalf of state and non-state actors. Non-state actors like non-governmental organisations (NGOs) also collaborate with traditional leaders when implementing their programmes and projects in rural areas. In fact, in most cases, both state and non-state actors seek permission from—or at least notify—traditional leaders before they implement development projects in the traditional leader’s area of delegated authority. This gives traditional leaders both real and perceptional coordinating and authorising power, making them an essential component of the developmental ecosystems of their respective rural areas. Further, the legal framework gives traditional leaders some control over cultural, customary, and traditional functions in their communities. The Traditional Leaders Act also assigns state-agent-like responsibilities to traditional leaders reminiscent of the colonial days. They thus oversee the collection of levies, taxes, rates, and charges payable at local level within rural spaces (Chigwata 2016). According to the Traditional Leaders Act, chiefs have the responsibility to prevent unauthorised settlement or use of communal land and to approve any new settlers’ movement into, and settlement in, their areas (Shumba 2013). This relates to their responsibility of ensuring that land and natural resources are used and “exploited” legally. Additionally, chiefs have the responsibility to notify civil rural authorities about natural disasters and the outbreak of epidemics, publish public orders, directives, or notices, protect public property, and promote the maintenance of good standards of health and education (Sibanda 2016). For instance, government and aid agencies often assign traditional leaders the duty of distributing food during droughts and even coordinating relief programmes. Where possible and necessary, they sensitise the rural community on health issues like HIV and AIDS, promote education, encourage economic enterprises, inspire respect for the law, engage in conflict resolution, and urge communities to participate in the electoral process. These roles complement government efforts to mobilise rural communities in favour of development projects.

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4 The Mugabe Era The proximity of traditional leaders to ruling elites has always been fluid in postcolonial Zimbabwe. Before independence, chiefs appeared to be “decentralised despots” (Mamdani 1996) who enforced the will of the colonialists on black Zimbabweans. Post-independence, the government soon began to fetishise chiefs and ensure that they operated as almost electoral commissars for the ruling party and divert developmental projects meant for the general populace at large towards ZANU-PF’s political sustenance and survival in rural parts of the country. During the Mugabe era, chiefs played a significant role in land administration. Land administration by traditional leaders encompasses determining the appropriate use of land as well as the allocation of stands for both residential and commercial purposes. It was expected that traditional leaders would identify the people’s needs for land and approach local Municipalities (or civil authorities) for assistance with proper environmental impact assessment, planning, demarcation, and allocation to deserving villagers (Makumbe 2010). However, there have been numerous allegations that the amounts being charged for allocating commercial and residential stands varied widely within and across the districts and communal areas in Zimbabwe, leading to controversies around the fairness of the charges. Indeed, some traditional leaders took advantage of their power and abused the privilege of allocating land bestowed on them by setting either exorbitant or meagre prices depending on their relationship with the purchasing persons (Chatiza 2010). The Herald (9 January 2019) reported that the Minister of State for Masvingo Provincial Affairs had warned against the rampant and unprocedural selling of land to desperate land seekers by traditional leaders. However, these violations likely were exceptions and not the norm. The evidence suggests that most traditional leaders in Zimbabwe continuously executed their responsibilities with sincerity and per their African cultural norms and practices. Where necessary, they co-operated with elected government officials and combined both traditional and modern governance systems for the betterment of the lives of their people. During President Mugabe’s time, traditional leaders had safety and security responsibilities. This involved reporting to the police any unrest in their local communities and dissuading communities from engaging in violent practices. However, traditional leaders under the Mugabe dispensation also acted otherwise. Reports allege that traditional leaders used threats and memories of past electoral violence to coerce their subjects to behave in a prescribed way (Matyszak 2012). Some chiefs reportedly reminded subjects of the traumatic events of 2008 during the controversial presidential election, when those who did not vote for ZANU-PF were then subjected to violence (Newsday, 31 January 2018). Evidence also shows that, during the Mugabe dispensation, traditional leaders were viewed as well-positioned to meaningfully contribute to the economic development of their areas, which constituted circa 68% of the country. Chigwata (2016) thus highlights the ways in which traditional leaders collected financial contributions from community members to start communal area development projects. At the same

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time, they often experienced challenges with accounting, leading to clashes between villagers and traditional leaders, for instance, in Mutoko (Herald, 4 January 2018). Chiefs would lobby government and other agencies to play more distinct roles in developing their areas while also monitoring community development projects. Some international NGOs indicated that they had been invited into several areas by traditional leaders (Reliefweb 2008). According to the Herald (18 October 2013), the commander of Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) noted that the ZNA in Masvingo was recruiting young men and women from different communities and that traditional leaders had a crucial role to play in nurturing and identifying community youths to be employed in the army. Beyond this, traditional leadership under Mugabe played roles in health and social development. They assisted in the registration of indigents and distribution of food parcels to the poor. However, these are responsibilities that traditional leaders easily abuse. The Daily News (3 December 2010) reported that some goods donated by the government’s Social Welfare department were found located in Chief Nemangwe’s backyard. Furthermore, some opposition political parties claimed that the food parcels were being distributed based on political lines (Reliefweb 2008), with those not known to support the ruling party being denied food aid. This amounted to the abuse of power. In 2012, under the Government of National Unity (GNU), Community Share Ownership Trust Schemes (CSOTs) began to be implemented. Overall, CSOTs were meant to spearhead the development and empowerment of communal areas by giving them a 10% stake in all businesses that access and make use of natural resources in their areas (Herald, 29 June 2012). Fifty such CSOTs, with an average funding base of 10 million American dollars each, were set up and President Mugabe inaugurated most of them ahead of the 2013 elections (VoA, 1 March 2013). Traditional leaders were the designated community custodians and representatives on the CSOTs (Shumba 2013). However, like similar initiatives, the leadership and inauguration of CSOTs were calculated to show that ZANU-PF could deliver on local economic empowerment; despite being initially pursued during the period of the Government of National Unity (GNU), they were presented as an exclusively ZANU-PF project (Herald, 29 June 2012). The CSOTs were part of the government’s indigenisation policy, designed to empower black Zimbabweans by ensuring that rural communities benefit directly from the natural resources (such as minerals) in their areas (Sibanda 2016).

5 Traditional Leaders in the “New Dispensation”—Continuities The privileges and developmental roles that chiefs enjoyed in the 2000s continued after the fall of the Mugabe regime. Following the November 2017 coup, President Mnangagwa wasted no time in calling chiefs to the city of Gweru, where they were

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each offered a vehicle. This took place despite the Finance Minister intimating during his budget statement that the government did not have enough money and would cut down on expenditures like cars. However, without any clear funding framework for their developmental work, traditional leaders remained as an important stakeholder in the new political dispensation, and a rural stakeholder worthy of incentivising through personal emoluments like cars. In a measure of continuity, Fayayo (2018) notes that in Matobo, Matabeleland South, chiefs continued to deny those who are not ZANU-PF members access to food aid. This was corroborated by evidence collected during Focus Group Discussions (September 2020) in Filabusi under Chief Maduna, where participants retort that: In community meetings called by traditional leaders, people are reminded of the challenges that they have faced as a result of rebelling against the view of the chiefs. Those challenges emanate mostly from being excluded in government sponsored food handouts.

Like under Mugabe, the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) also indicates that some traditional leaders use vivid memories of past violence, or the threat of violence, as a basis for ensuring compliance with the dictates of the ruling party (Zimbabwe Peace Project 2022). These trends under Mnangagwa are not surprising given their entrenchment in ZANU-PF’s institutional culture. For example, ZANU-PF has always co-opted traditional leaders through emoluments such as cars and salaries, and it has built houses for them as a way of ensuring a solid patronage system. In the post-Mugabe era, developmental projects pursued by traditional leaders for the good of their communities continue to be leveraged for ruling party-political gain. Traditional leaders organised in their area-based cohorts, and individually, continue to lobby various development agencies and different spheres of the state to ensure that socio-economic development takes place in their jurisdictions, uplifting their areas and personally benefiting in the process. One key informant from a humanitarian organisation (Interview with Nkayi, 23 October 2020) narrated how NGOs had to register all their food distribution programmes and ensure that chiefs, as the local authority familiar with the area and its villagers, play a critical role in the distribution. It is notable that, at times, elected political leaders take traditional leaders “for a ride” by manipulating them, albeit clandestinely. Hence, tensions do exist between civil authorities and traditional leadership, now as under Mugabe. Newsday (12 February 2018) reported that chief Sivalo had appealed to Nkayi residents/villagers to contribute towards the building of a school, but the government, in overseeing the school’s official opening, claimed credit for funding the school though it invested nothing. This tendency is supported by information collected from one chief in Matabeleland North (Interview, 16 October 2020) who indicated that: Sometimes people just blame us, but politicians hijack our programmes. It becomes difficult to say no to them because you never know who would have sent them.

This suggests that, for traditional leaders to ensure some level of development in their areas, there is a need for a budget from which they can draw; currently, the absence of a budget means that they become susceptible to the whims of the

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ruling elite. Unlike local councils which have set revenue, traditional leaders in Zimbabwe have no financial base, yet they are supposed to bring about developmental programmes. In instances where a CSOT exists, these are often not under the full and direct control of the relevant traditional leaders and, in other instances, they exist but with limited material and developmental benefit to the community. For instance, one of the most revered CSOTs in Zimbabwe, the Chiadzwa Community Share Ownership Trust, was accused of being a political stocking horse for politicians to brag about, but with no meaningful development to the community (Shumba 2013). Traditional authorities under Mnangagwa continue to assist in collecting levies, taxes, rates, and charges payable to rural local authorities, while also conserving the environment and natural resources. Furthermore, chiefs maintain their role regarding disaster preparedness. But, due to the absence of a budget, their responsibilities have been reduced to simply notifying rural local government authorities about natural disasters and the outbreak of epidemic diseases, while also somehow trying to protect public property and maintain minimum standards of good health and education. Though the Chronicle (28 June 2019) reported that President Mnangagwa would be meeting with traditional leaders from around the disaster-struck areas of Chipinge (arising from Cyclone Idai), indications are that this was undertaken mainly for formality purposes as chiefs had no resources to carry out any disaster risk-reduction related work. In this regard, Zimbabwe would do well to learn from its counterparts in South Africa. As Oomen (2005) notes, the Traditional Leadership and Framework Act of South Africa allows for the collection of levies and financial contributions to support activities that traditional leaders preside over. These include the promotion of education through erecting and maintaining school buildings and granting bursaries and loans to scholars; the maintenance of roads and bridges and the organisation and promotion of agricultural activities—for instance, the control of grazing and arable land, the establishment of agricultural co-operatives as well as the purchasing of cattle stock for villagers’ use (Koeble 2005). These are important roles by any standards and facilitate respect for traditional leaders. As mentioned earlier, in addition to the monthly salaries to which chiefs are entitled, there is a cultural practice whereby chiefs can keep, for their use, fines imposed on offenders brought before traditional courts (Chigwata 2016). Under Mnangagwa, chiefs continue to keep court appearance fees as they did when Mugabe was president. During Mugabe’s time, proceeds from the fines and court appearance fees, though not substantial in value, were used at the chief’s discretion to support the activities of the institution of traditional leadership in the relevant chieftainship area. Chiefs also benefitted from government programmes designed to uplift their living standards, such as subsidised vehicle purchasing schemes, electrification programmes and housing schemes (Sibanda 2016). In 2014, the chief’s monthly salary or allowance was about US$300 per month, and those in the National Council of Chiefs received an additional US$30. Beyond the new cars offered by Mnangagwa, chiefs received ZWL31,000 (USD 200) per month in 2021. Ideally, this arrangement enhances the financial security of chiefs and reduces their vulnerability to considerations of monetary gain when carrying out their duties.

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In practice, though, there are ongoing and serious allegations of corruption and nepotism in using these resources, as some traditional leaders try to amass more wealth and influence. Furthermore, the government has used these benefits to keep a hold on the chiefs, ensuring that they channel developmental activities towards the ruling party, with the promise for more goods if they entrench, more deeply, support for the ruling party in their area of jurisdiction. The Matabeleland Institute for Human Rights (17 April 2018) reports that the Mnangagwa government, through ruling party youths, tried to take away the vehicle it gave to Chief Khayisa Ndiweni because he was “rebellious”. Based on this, it appears that the cars given to traditional leaders by President Mnangagwa’s administration were meant to buy their loyalty by making them feel perpetually indebted to ZANU-PF, with disloyalty attracting the impounding of their vehicles. Despite earning money and other perks which far exceed the incomes of their subjects, chiefs in the “new dispensation” are not satisfied with the remuneration package they receive. It is understood that chiefs are advocating for remuneration packages that match those of judges because they also preside over court cases in their local communities in the traditional courts. Chiefs consider this function as just as essential as judges’ judicial role. However, even this is not enough for some traditional leaders. In this context, certain chiefs have been accused of accepting bribes and kickbacks and practicing other corrupt tendencies (Alexander 2018). These corrupt activities tend to take place in areas involving resource allocation, whether it be allocating land or farming inputs, among others. The ruling party is aware of this illicit behaviour by traditional leaders and it is used on many occasions to coerce chiefs into working for the ruling party during elections or risk losing the support they receive from the government and perhaps even being charged with corruption). In the transition to a new dispensation under Mnangagwa, the dual local governance system that saw conflict between elected officials and traditional leaders remains in place. This duality of functions has led to confusion in Zimbabwe about the roles of traditional leaders, especially around land allocation. Nevertheless, Botswana’s earlier experiences suggest that discontinuing the land allocation function of chiefs could lead to serious challenges—doing so resulted in contestations between the elected representatives and the traditional leaders. Hence, in Botswana, Land Boards took away the exclusive authority of chiefs to allocate tribal land, triggering severe conflict between the two institutions (Hozlinger 2016). South Africa is not immune to this reality. In Vhembe District Municipality in Limpopo Province, a municipality was reported to have allocated land in areas falling under a Traditional Council’s jurisdiction, and this led to conflicts. Consequently, several court cases were reported (Baldwin 2015). Inevitably, this kind of situation continues to cause much confusion regarding land tenure in Zimbabwe, at times leading to litigation. These incidents contribute to communal area people’s lack of trust in traditional leaders and slow down the pace of service delivery and overall development (Chatiza 2010). Furthermore, these incidents go contrary to the “open for business” mantra of Mnangagwa, as the property

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rights of communal area villagers are subject to contestations, while the biased allocation of land leads to tenure insecurity and impedes progress towards investments on communal land.

6 “Change” Under the New Era Based on the discussion so far, the new administration’s approach to traditional leaders suggests that the regime wants to bring them closer, using the carrot and stick approach, to cement their loyalty to the new dispensation. This entails a process of further co-option of traditional leaders to ensure that they continue to channel developmental-effort dividends towards the ruling regime. At the same time, the Mnangagwa government initially indicated that changes were afoot by, at least in public, discouraging traditional leaders from overtly associating with the ruling party, and through not allowing them to hold offices within the party. During the Mugabe era, for instance, the village headman was almost automatically the head of a ZANU-PF cell in his village. Anecdotal evidence suggests that traditional leaders are not overtly aiding the rural electoral interests of ZANU-PF as much as they did in the past, but that actual support continues at a more covert level. The ruling party still uses chiefs’ local legitimacy and easy access to villagers to misinform and manipulate them and their subjects. For instance, in 2018, traditional leaders were instrumental in misleading rural communities into believing that photographs taken during the biometric voter registration process (prior to the 2018 general election) would be used to trace voter preferences amongst villagers, leading to the punishment of those who voted against the ruling party (Heal Zimbabwe Trust 2017). Part of this overt retreat on the part of the chiefs may be on account of the structural character of the new dispensation’s political settlement. The Mnangagwa regime is pursuing an elite alliance between military, business and state, an alliance which in part at least displaces any existing alliance between those presiding over the state and the people. This suggests different modes of capturing and retention of power between the two (Mugabe and Mnangagwa) dispensations. Whereas the Mugabe regime was largely political agent which plied its political craft on the political terrain, the new dispensation, while political, has much stronger and more serious overt military and corporate overtones. These differences affect the overt role and importance of traditional leaders in electoral processes and suggest the possible usurpation of their importance at the community level by militarised structures and business interests. While many chiefs continue to support ZANU-PF and carry out work to fulfil its electoral goals under Mnangagwa’s regime, a growing number of traditional leaders—in enacting their own agency—have stood their ground and refused to partake in the repression of their people on behalf of the ruling party. Perhaps they think that, with the ousting of former President Mugabe, possibilities now exist for them to operate independently of ZANU-PF and become authentic champions of

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their people. In Matabeleland, many chiefs have been at loggerheads with President Mnangagwa’s government over land, peace and security issues. In July 2019, three prominent chiefs from Matabeleland won a court order against the Minister of Home Affairs, Obert Mpofu, whom they alleged was interfering with their work. The minister wanted the chiefs to channel developmental projects towards his constituency, and they refused (Fayayo 2018). In Midlands Province, a few traditional leaders addressed their subjects requesting that they avoid involvement in party-linked violence (Fayayo 2018). In Manicaland Province, chiefs have castigated subjects for destroying developmental gains during electoral processes (Matyszack 2012). This was after supporters of both the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and ZANU-PF destroyed community health facilities as they clashed. Other traditional leaders have even defended their subjects by firmly ruling that they would not tolerate political interference in development projects in their chiefdoms. Such developments bring a glimmer of hope that traditional leaders might have embarked on a new journey to regain their independence, that is, to operate as traditional leaders and not as the ruling party’s mere mouthpiece. Depending on what happens over the next few years, traditional leaders might have a future not devoid of control by ZANU-PF but operating with a level of autonomy. Should this happen, traditional leaders will regain, if only in a modest way, their people-focused identity and credibility.

7 Conclusion Across Africa, the institution of traditional leadership has shown significant resilience. Even where the post-colonial political leadership sought to undermine it, it has shown steadfastness and even a resurgence. Political leaders make indefatigable efforts to co-opt and subdue traditional leaders. Some comply, while others resist any form of exclusion, domination and coercion. The Zimbabwean experience discussed in this chapter falls within this broader African context. Specifically, this chapter argues that despite claims of a “Second Republic” and “new dispensation”, the Mnangagwa regime has adopted and pursued the same corporatist forms of bargains and compromise that were part of the Mugabe regime’s political strategy vis-à-vis traditional leadership. In this respect, while the regime has “changed”, there have been continuities in the ways in which the role of traditional leaders has remained captive to political interests, with rural development administered as part of the ruling party’s clientelist politics. The new dispensation continues to use traditional leaders as agents to administer rural development and to also discipline and placate the rural poor to cement and stabilise a precarious transition from the Mugabe to the post-Mugabe regime. At the same time, Mnangagwa’s “open for business mantra” (as central to the formative project) implies the possibility of a strengthened statecorporate alliance which lessens the dependence of his regime and its legitimacy on traditional leaders and the interests of the rural populace, leading to possible tensions which the Mnangagwa administration will need to balance.

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Finally, programmatically, this chapter reveals that traditional leadership remains relevant and important in rural community development in Zimbabwe. However, without any financial muscle to help it fulfil this mandate, the institution of traditional leadership remains ill-equipped and prone to abuse. The Zimbabwean government should make considerable budgetary allocations to help the institution in this regard. Given that an act of parliament to detail the institution’s operations is being contemplated, this might encompass a framework that could help put in place a budget to enable the institution of traditional leadership to function correctly.

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Koeble T (2005) Democracy, traditional leadership and the international economy in South Africa. CSSR Working Paper No 114. Centre for Social Science Research. University of Cape Town. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.537.7751&rep=rep1&type=pdf Kurebwa J (2015) A review of rural local government system in Zimbabwe from 1980 to 2014. IOSR J Human Soc Sci (IOSR-JHSS) 20(2):94–108 (Ver. V, Feb 2015). http://www.iosrjourn als.org/iosr-jhss/papers/Vol20-issue2/Version-5/P0202594108.pdf Kriger N (1985) Struggles for independence: rural conflicts in Zimbabwe’s War of liberation. Doctoral dissertation. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Political Science, Boston. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057078808708176 Lan D (1985) Guns and Rain: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe. University of California Press, Los Angeles. https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520055896/guns-and-rain Makumbe J (2010) Local authorities and traditional leadership. In: De Visser J, Steytler N, Machingauta N (eds) Local Government reform in Zimbabwe: a policy dialogue. Community Law Centre (University of Cape Town), Bellville (South Africa), pp 87– 99. https://dullahomarinstitute.org.za/multilevel-govt/publications/de-visser-steytler-and-mac hingauta-the-future-of-local-government-in-zimbabwe-a-policy-dialogue.pdf Mamdani M (1996) Citizens and subjects; contemporary Africa and the legitimacy of colonialism. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. https://www.amazon.com/Citizen-Subject-Contem porary-Colonialism-Princeton/dp/0691027935 Matyszak D (2012) Formal structures of power in rural Zimbabwe. Research and Advocacy Unit. Harare. https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/23984334/formal-structures-of-power-inrural-zimbabwe-sw-radio-africa Matabeleland Institute for Human Rights (2018) Matabeleland North Chief confirms attack. https://matabelelandinstituteforhumanrights.org/2019/05/16/matabeleland-north-chiefconfirms-attack/ Newsday, 31 January 2018. https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/01/eu-unamused-partisan-tradit ional-chiefs Newsday, 17 April 2018. Partisan Traditional leaders rile community. https://www.newsday.co.zw/ 2018/04/partisan-traditional-leaders-rile-communities Ntsebeza L (2006) Democracy compromised…… Cape Town. HSRC Press. https://www.hsrcpr ess.ac.za/books/democracy-compromised Oomen B (2005) Chiefs in South Africa: law, power & culture in the post-apartheid era. James Currey, Oxford; UKZN Press, Pietermaritzburg; Palgrave, New York. https://www.amazon.com/ Chiefs-South-Africa-Culture-Post-Apartheid/dp/0852558805 Ranger T (1983) Tradition and travesty: chiefs and the administration of Makoni district, Zimbabwe, 1960–80. In: Peel JDY, Ranger T (eds) Past and present in Zimbabwe. Manchester University Press, Manchester. https://books.google.co.zw/books/about/Past_and_Present_in_Zimbabwe. html?id=mOdRAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y Ranger T (1985) Peasant consciousness and guerrilla war in Zimbabwe: a comparative study. James Currey, London. http://psimg.jstor.org/fsi/img/pdf/t0/10.5555/al.sff.document.crp2b2 0037_final.pdf Ranger OT (2001) Democracy and traditional political structures in Zimbabwe 1890–1999. In: Bhebe N, Ranger T (eds) The historical dimensions of democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe, volume one: pre-colonial and colonial legacies. University of Zimbabwe Publications, Harare, pp 31–52. https://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/the-historical-dimens ions-of-democracy-and-human-rights-in-zimbabwe-vol.-1 Reliefweb (2008) Zimbabwe; Traditional Leaders Mugabes Trump Card. https://reliefweb.int/rep ort/zimbabwe/zimbabwe-traditional-leaders-mugabes-trump-cards Shumba N (2013) Problems associated with community share ownership trusts in rural development. BA thesis. Lupine State University Sibanda S (2016) An analysis of traditional leadership, customary law and access to justice in Zimbabwe. A paper presented at the national symposium on the promise of the declaration of

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rights under the constitution of Zimbabwe. http://zimlii.org/content/analysis-traditional-leader ship-customary-law-and-access-justice-zimbabwe%E2%80%99s-constitutional The Chronicle, 1 May 2019. https://www.chronicle.co.zw/ed-to-meet-chiefs-in-cyclone-idai-hitareas/. Accessed 4 June 2019 The Chronicle, 28 June 2019. https://www.chronicle.co.zw/president-meets-13-chimanimani-chi pinge-chiefs/. Accessed 10 May 2019 The Chronicle, 29 June 2019. https://www.chronicle.co.zw/president-to-meet-chiefs/. Accessed 29 June 2019 The Chronicle, 26 October 2018. https://www.chronicle.co.zw/zna-appeals-to-traditional-leadersto-help-end-gold-wars/. Accessed 26 Oct 2018 The Herald, 29 June (2012) Community share ownership trusts. The Herald. https://www.herald. co.zw/govt-probes-community-share-ownership-trusts/ The Herald, 30 January 2019. https://www.herald.co.zw/chadzamira-warns-traditional-leaders-aga inst-selling-land/. Accessed 24 Feb 2019 The Herald, 17 August 2019. https://www.herald.co.zw/chief-ndiweni-jailed/. Accessed 17 Aug 2019 The Herald, 17 October 2018. https://www.herald.co.zw/chimonyo-hails-traditional-leaders-rolein-development/. Accessed 18 Oct 2018 The Herald, 9 January 2019. https://www.herald.co.zw/da-warns-rogue-traditional-leaders/. Accessed 1 Jan 2019 The Constitution of the Republic of Zimbabwe, 2013 VOA, 1 March (2013, March 1) Zimbabwe sets up 50 community share owership trusts. The Voice of America Weber M (1978) Economy and society: an outline of interpretive sociology. University of Califonia Press, Los Angeles. https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520280021/economy-and-society Weinrich AK (1971) Chiefs and councils in Rhodesia. Transition from Patriarchal to bureaucratic power. London, Heinemann Zamchiya P (2011) A synopsis of land and Agrarian change in Chipinge District, Zimbabwe. J Peasant Stud 38(5):1093–1122. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2011.633703 Zimbabwe Peace Project (2022) Politics ruling the law in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe Peace Project report. https://data.zimpeaceproject.com/api/files/1663135878106mpsqb25trhp.pdf

Rodrick Fayayo holds a Ph.D. in Political Studies from the University of Western Cape in South Africa. He also holds various degrees in Political Science, Development Studies, Disaster Management, and Monitoring and Evaluation. Dr. Fayayo has published a number of papers nationally and internationally. He is also a part-time Lecturer at Lupane State University in Zimbabwe. Dr. Fayayo has more than 12 years experience in civic society and chairs a number of Advisory Boards that include the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) and Ibhetshu likaZulu. He is currently the head of Governance and Democracy at the Public Policy and Research Institute of Zimbabwe. McDonald Lewanika holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and a master’s degree in Research from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He also holds a master’s in International Development from the University of Manchester. At the LSE, Dr. Lewanika taught undergraduate and Master students in the Government and International Development departments. He is a regular media interlocutor and a technical resource to global civil society on creative advocacy and campaigning for activists in Tunisia, Serbia, Ukraine, Zimbabwe and other countries in Southern Africa. He is currently the Chief of the Party at Accountability Lab Zimbabwe. Bheki R. Mngomezulu is Full Professor of Political Science at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. He holds seven degrees in history, political science and education. Professor

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Mngomezulu is widely published, with a number of books, book chapters, journal articles and various presentations under his name. He is the external examiner for ten universities and has been a Visiting Professor in Romania and Sweden. Previously, Professor Mngomezulu was the CEO of Mzala Nxumalo Centre, Senior Lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, among others.

Devolution in Zimbabwe’s ‘Second Republic’: A Myth or Reality? Mbuso Moyo and Ray Motsi

Abstract This chapter plots progress in the implementation of devolution in Zimbabwe, with a particular focus on post-Mugabe Zimbabwe. It identifies and discusses the actual actions and interventions by the state for the realisation of a devolved political system in Zimbabwe. While the new Constitution of Zimbabwe was adopted under his tutelage in 2013, Mugabe had taken an unambiguous aversion to devolution. Instead of giving effect to constitutional provisions on devolution, Mugabe continued to implement the old clauses of Zimbabwe’s 1979 Lancaster House Constitution. For example, he appointed Ministers of State for Provincial Affairs, not Provincial and Metropolitan Councils as stipulated by the Constitution. President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s ascension to power in November 2017 and his promise of a ‘Second Republic’ posited a departure from Mugabe’s dictatorial and centralist system to a more open, accountable and devolved system of government, as part of a broader formative project. The transition though has been elusive and progress disappointing. Mnangagwa has not only continued the actions that are ultra vires Zimbabwe’s new Constitution but has exhibited reticence to supporting meaningful actions that give effect to a devolved political system in Zimbabwe. If the actions of Mnangagwa’s government are anything to go by, devolution will remain a chimera for the longest time to come in Zimbabwe.

1 Introduction The last few decades of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twentyfirst century have been characterised by a growing global demand for ‘decentralisation’ justified on grounds of a supposed ‘economic dividend’ (Keating 1998; M. Moyo (B) Centre for Sociological Research and Practice, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] R. Motsi Theological College of Zimbabwe, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Moyo and K. Helliker (eds.), Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic, Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30129-2_8

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Morgan 2002; Rodríguez-Pose and Gill 2003; Rodriguez-Pose and Gill 2005; Olum 2014). By legislating ‘devolution’ in its new Constitution, Zimbabwe joined other countries around the globe whose constitutions provide for a devolved governance system. The adoption of ‘devolution’ in Zimbabwe was achieved after a protracted constitution-making process which was characterised by serious disagreements, between the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), then led by the now late former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) then led by the late former President Robert Mugabe (Muchadenyika 2015), on issues which mainly pertained to the character and form of Zimbabwe’s devolved political system. Despite serious objections from ZANU-PF, ‘devolution’ found its way into Zimbabwe’s Constitution which came into effect in 2013. This was an expression of the aspirations of the majority of Zimbabweans, 66% of whom, according to the Afrobarometer (2012) survey, were in favour of ‘devolution’. Yet, up until his forced abdication of office, Mugabe’s government had done nothing to indicate its appetite to adopt a devolved political system. The former president’s aversion to devolution sums up the ZANU-PF-led government’s stance to a devolved political system: Zimbabwe is one entity and shall never be separated into different entities. It’s impossible. I am saying this because there are some people who are saying let’s do what Lesotho did. There is no Lesotho here. There is one Zimbabwe and one Zimbabwe only. (Robert Mugabe, The Sunday Mail, 20 November 2005 cited by Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2008: 28)

In Mugabe’s view, devolution is divisive, which is a misleading and false claim (Juma et al. 2014). Sadly, Mugabe’s characterisation of ‘devolution’ has had an intoxicating effect on the entire ZANU-PF party whose behaviour during the making of Zimbabwe’s current Constitution was that of seeking to scupper it and prevent the birth of progressive constitutional provisions such as ‘devolution’ (Muchadenyika 2015). Just as Mugabe was openly averse to devolution, the sad reality is that President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government does not bequeath any hope that meaningful ‘devolution’ will be forthcoming. On his ascension to power after the military coup deposed Mugabe from power in November 2017, President Mnangagwa promised a ‘new dispensation’ and a Zimbabwe ‘open for business’. Despite his admiration of Mugabe as a father, a mentor, a comrade-in-arms and a leader (Meredith 2018: 138), his proclamation for a ‘new Zimbabwe’ engendered a groundswell of hope for a discontinuation of several trappings of Mugabe’s authoritarian and centrist politics. The implementation of ‘devolution’ as envisioned in the new Constitution formed one of a gamut of promises which President Mnangagwa made to the people of Zimbabwe, as part of a supposedly far-reaching and inclusive formative project. In a foreword to the Devolution and Decentralisation Policy framework, he said that ‘the […] launch of the Devolution and Decentralisation Policy is a sign of a deep commitment by my Government, to implement devolution, as enshrined in the Constitution and in Vision 2030’ (Government of Zimbabwe [GoZ] 2020: vi). Mnangagwa’s proclamation of ‘deep commitment’ remains a political slogan rather than reality, as progress is elusive and limitations to devolution as a set of practices abound. Hence, Conyers (2002:115) is apt in positing that ‘as is often the

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case with decentralisation policies, there has been a major gap between rhetoric and reality’. Musekiwa (2020: 595) concurs that one of the perennial challenges is that ‘decentralisation is well provided in law but severely lacking in practice’. The only tangible progress registered so far has been budgetary allocations for local governments since 2019 in terms of Sect. 301 of the 2013 Constitution (Musekiwa 2020: 595). This lack of progress has been attributed to several factors. The widely shared consensus is that implementing a devolved system is encumbered by ambiguous legislative provisions and the sluggish pace by which the ZANU-PF-led government has harmonised Zimbabwe’s acts of parliament to bring them in tandem with the constitutional provisions on ‘devolution’. Overall, there is no political will to harmonise the country’s laws to give effect to a devolved political system. This lack of political will by Mnangagwa’s government to align the country’s laws with provisions of Zimbabwe’s Constitution has been claimed by several commentators in public and academic fora. Nyathi and Ncube (2017), for instance, speak of the ‘myth of devolution in Zimbabwe’. They argue that, while the adoption of the new Constitution in 2013 represents a departure from the 1979 Lancaster House or Independence Constitution which did not provide for the devolution of power, in reality, there has not been any marked difference because ‘Weak and unsatisfactory legal and constitutional provisions on governance at national, provincial and local government levels, combined with the antidevolution stance of the current ZANU-PF government, have conspired to make devolution of power nothing but a mirage’ (Nyathi and Ncube 2017: 27). Chikwawawa (2019) augments this position by arguing that: Generally, events on the ground have not been in tandem with Section 264 of Chap. 14 of the Constitution in Zimbabwe, which provides for devolution, since the government has not taken time to implement that section of the constitution. The so called ‘New Constitution’, which was adopted in 2013, is now five years old, but very little has been done in terms of implementation of devolution (Chikwawawa 2019:22).

While Chap. 14 of Zimbabwe’s new Constitution outlines the constitutionally defined three tiers of government as well as some of their powers and responsibilities, there is a ‘devolution’ caveat in it ‘which allows one to begin to question the substance, breadth and depth of Zimbabwe’s devolution legal framework’ (Moyo and Ncube 2014: 299). The Constitution says that ‘whenever appropriate, governmental powers and responsibilities must be devolved to provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities which are competent to carry out those responsibilities efficiently and effectively’ (Constitution of Zimbabwe 2013). This caveat (‘whenever appropriate’ and the question of competence) has serious implications for an anti-devolutionist ZANU-PF-led central government which, as the supreme tier of government, can determine whether a particular province has the appropriate competence to efficiently and effectively govern local affairs and institute locally relevant socio-economic development interventions for the benefit of the majority of the local citizens (Chikwawawa 2019: 23). As Moyo and Ncube (2014:300) observe: Such enormous statutory power given to national government over provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities means that their initial constitution and survival

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thereafter will always be at the mercy of a ZANU-PF national government which retains oversight power and authority.

Mapuva (2015a) laments the state’s lack of political will to expedite the alignment, reconciliation and harmonisation of existing local government legislation to the new Constitution. This has seriously impeded progress in the implementation of devolution. Mapuva explains that this realignment principally requires the promulgation of acts of parliament to (1) facilitate the coordination between central government, provincial/metropolitan councils and local authorities; (2) establish and provide for the functions of provincial/metropolitan councils; and (3) establish and confer powers and functions upon local authorities. This view is shared by Nyathi and Ncube (2017) who posit that constitutional amendments establishing realistic subnational tiers of governments are the only plausible predicate for a devolved system of government. Chikwawawa (2019: 21) also amplifies Mapuva’s lamentation and argues that the delays in the implementation of devolution due to the state’s reticence to the ‘alignment of various pieces of local government legislation to the constitution’ has had the effect of ‘hindering efficiency, effectiveness and accountability in local governance as participation and resource sharing are key to effective governance, since they ensure buy-in of programmes by local communities’. According to Chikwawawa (2019: 21): … the government is stuck with the centralised approach to local government, which is generally discredited as it does not empower local communities through the equitable sharing of national and local resources and effective participation in decision-making in matters affecting them.

Confronted by a state that is palpably attached to political centralism, ‘devolution’ remains a chimera in Zimbabwe. One key challenge is the ambiguously couched language in relation to whether the state is prescriptively obliged to implement devolution or whether it has the latitude to choose when and how it can do so, as scholars such as Chikwawawa (2019) posit. While this ambiguity exists, we do not agree with Chikwawawa’s conclusion that, because the state could choose to read the Constitution as meaning that it has the leverage to discretionarily determine as to when it is ‘appropriate’ to devolve power and responsibility to Matabeleland or any other region, this provides the basis for letting the state gyrate away from the responsibility to implement ‘devolution’. Rather, the ZANU-PF state simply has no will to do so, and it is amenable to use any excuse there is to drag its feet. This chapter unfolds by way of three sections. The first section elucidates the theoretical and practical desirability of ‘devolution’. Two arguments are presented in terms of this, namely: the ‘democratic dividend’ or ‘deontological’ argument which claims that a democratic system of government is best poised to advance citizen participation in human development (Moyo and Ncube 2014: 289–290; Kay 2003: 51–52); and the ‘economic dividend’ or ‘consequentialist’ argument which borrows from Musgrave’s (1959) position that devolving power and responsibilities to the lower rungs of government has inherently ‘desirable effects’ and is beneficial in economic terms (Kay 2003: 51).

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The following section outlines the legislative or constitutional provisions of devolution in Zimbabwe. As Mitchell (2011) argues, a legislative constitutionally enshrined policy of ‘devolution’ is pivotal because laws and policies have concrete and symbolic dimensions. In the context of Zimbabwe, the new Constitution, and in particular Chap. 14 of the Constitution provides the symbolic and legal predicate for the ‘devolution’ framework. The concrete pertains to the translation of the symbolic or the legal framework of ‘devolution’ to its implementation and the realisation of its anticipated benefits (Moyo and Ncube 2014). We argue that, while the Constitution of Zimbabwe provides broad parameters, it is not a fait accompli that devolution to local authorities is fully enshrined in law in Zimbabwe. This is because an Act of Parliament has not been passed to determine the scope and depth of ‘devolution’. This is aggravated by the fact that the functions assigned to local governments and the ways in which devolution will work are not stated in their entirety in the new Constitution (Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights 2013). This is followed by a section that is the nucleus of the chapter and examines the progress towards the implementation of ‘devolution’ in Zimbabwe under President Mnangagwa’s ‘Second Republic’. It plots the key landmarks along the ‘decentralisation’ path, in terms of legislation, policies, programmes, decisions, actors, and implementation. It will be shown that implementing ‘devolution’ in Zimbabwe has been encumbered by uncertainties, an endorsement of Bogdanor’s (1999: 193) characterisation of implementing this political system as a ‘mystery tour’. We identify five factors that underpin the sluggish realisation of a devolved political system in Zimbabwe, that is: (1) the lack of a devolution Act of Parliament several years after this system was enshrined in the Constitution; (2) the devolution councillors who are yet to be sworn in four years after the harmonised elections of 2018; (3) provincial councils that are yet to be constituted; (4) devolution funds that are disbursed without any structures of devolution; and (5) the use of ‘devolution’ funds by Ministers of State for Provincial Affairs and not Provincial and Metropolitan Councils as stipulated by the Constitution. In the end, we argue that it is one thing to posit that there is no political will on the part of political elites in Zimbabwe to implement ‘devolution’, but it is another to adduce the evidence about the lack thereof.

2 Devolution: Towards a Theoretical Enunciation It is important to begin with a disambiguation of the terms ‘decentralisation’ and ‘devolution’ and then briefly outline the theoretical and practical justifications for using these in general and for Zimbabwe in particular. ‘Decentralisation’ is broad and multi-faceted (Rondinelli and Cheema 1983: 13), making it impossible to carve out a universally applicable typology of this concept (Leonard 1982). The complex and multi-faceted nature of this concept has inspired several scholars not only to disambiguate it (Moyo and Ncube 2014: 290–291) but to also articulate its constituent elements. Rondinelli (1981), one of the protagonists of ‘decentralisation’, defines it as the transfer of responsibility for planning, management and resource raising

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and allocation from the central government and its agencies to (a) field units of central government ministries or agencies, (b) subordinate units or levels of government, (c) semi-autonomous public authorities or corporations, (d) area-wide regional or functional authorities, or (e) non-governmental private or voluntary organisations. ‘Devolution’ is one of the four categories of decentralisation; the other three being deconcentration, delegation and privatisation (Rondinelli 1981; Rondinelli and Cheema 1983). The categories within this typology of decentralisation are distinguished based on the degree of responsibility and decision-making autonomy arrogated by the national government to the lower rungs of governance such as provincial and local government tiers (Rondinelli 1981). The concern of this chapter, however, is political decentralisation, also referred to as ‘devolution’. Mhlanga (2010: 109) calibrates ‘devolution’ as both a reform strategy and a political strategy at the locus of which is transference of authority from the centre to the periphery or areas of ‘lesser concentration in terms of resource distribution’. Yilmaz et al. (2008) define ‘devolution’ as the delegation or transfer of administrative and financial decision-making authority to local government with clearly demarcated and recognised juridical roles within which they are expected to provide services. This definition resonates with Elcock and Minogue’s (2001:1015) earlier position that devolution involves the ‘transfer from centre to locality of decision-making powers and associated resources’. At the locus of devolution is the delegation of administrative and financial responsibilities with a view to create and strengthen the levels of local government in such a way that they are responsive to local needs. Part of doing so involves the creation of subnational entities and their assumption of power and functional responsibilities which would otherwise be discharged by central governments (Prud’homme 1994). As Elcock and Minogue (2001) posit, the central element of devolution is the exercise of discretionary authority by local government despite its operation within the confines of national policies. In this context, the central government plays a supervisory rather than a prescriptive role. Devolution has a wide conceptual and theoretical appeal. As a result, its political and economic utilitarian value is widely traversed in the academic field. The theoretical arguments for and against devolution can broadly be categorised into two schools of thought, namely, the ‘democratic dividend’ or deontological argument and the ‘consequentialist’ perspective. The proposition of the deontological theory has had wide support among advocates of political decentralisation (Leonardi et al. 1981; Yilmaz et al. 2008; Putnam 1993; Klugman 1994; Azfar et al. 1999; Ebel and Yilmaz 2002; Rodriguez and Bwire 2004; Dalfovo et al. 2002; Keating 2005, 2010; Greer 2007; Treisman 2007; Mitchell 2009; Polverari 2015). Principally, devolution is said to facilitate the attainment of a ‘democratic dividend’ in that it creates new centres of power or separate political wills better placed to represent the interests of the people in different regions (Bogdanor 1999: 185). This is so because devolution constitutes the transfer of power and autonomy to sub-governments so that they can discretionarily make fundamental policy decisions without interference from the central government (Leonardi et al. 1981: 97). Polverari (2015:1,4) argues that devolution increases accountability on the basis that it brings ‘the design and delivery of policy “closer to the people”’ arguing that there are both ‘both intersections and parallelisms

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between … devolution and … accountability’. In decoupling policies made at central government level from those designed on the ground (or more locally) and encouraging the participation of local citizens in decision-making processes, devolution not only improves democratic quality (Klugman 1994; Keating 2005, 2010; Greer 2007) but also widens the parameters of transparency of these processes and deepens the accountability of those who drive them (Putnam 1993; Azfar et al. 1999; Ebel and Yilmaz 2002). In David Miliband’s terms, this leads to what is called ‘double devolution’ where power and responsibilities are devolved to the localities and people in the localities are empowered to take advantage of the opportunities availed by such devolution (Jordan 2007). As an alternative, the consequentialist perspective on devolution focuses on the economic benefits of this reform strategy and political process. Articulated around the works of Tiebout and Musgrave among others, the consequentialist theory contends that devolution improves economic performance (Hamlin 1991; Ashcroft 1998; Rodríguez-Pose and Bwire 2004; Pike et al. 2012) because devolved systems wield greater autonomous powers to tailor policies to local preferences, to design innovative policies for public services provision and to encourage greater grassroots participation and public servants’ accountability (Rodriguez-Pose and Bwire 2004). Being close to the people enables local government entities to understand better the preferences of the people and thus maximise their individual and collective welfare, as well as the supply of public goods and services more efficiently (Tiebout 1956). Moyo and Ncube (2014) pose a question about how, from a consequentialist perspective, an ‘economic dividend’ is supposed to be achieved by devolution. Morgan (2006: 194) responds that the economic dividends of devolution largely derive from the latitude given, in policy design and implementation, by local technocrats to the preferences of the local people for whom development policies are tailored. Policymakers operating within a devolved system are best placed to respond to individual developmental priorities because their proximity to the people accrues to them what Bardhan (2002: 191) calls ‘informational advantage’. Further, Moyo and Ncube (2014:298) indicate that the other advantage of devolution is that it decongests central governments, thus ‘lowering the risk of meddling in local issues’ and facilitating efficient coordination and speedy implementation of policy at the local level. In Zimbabwe, the deontological and consequentialist value of devolution has long been established by several scholars (Mhlanga 2010, 2012; Moyo and Ncube 2014; Moyo et al. 2015; Muchadenyika 2015). In deontological terms, scholars have argued that devolution has practical relevance in a context in which ZANU-PF’s authoritarian politics have constricted the democratic space and seen the deployment of the state as an instrument of primitive accumulation by ZANU-PF and its supporters, leaving the majority of the country’s citizens in abject poverty (MacLean 2002; Kriger 2006; Raftopoulos 2010; Bracking 2005; Muchadenyika 2015). As Muchadenyika (2015:115) quips, ‘[w]hen a state fails in its functions for a long stretch of time, its reconfiguration becomes essential’ in order to build a strong and effective developmental state. This view is shared by Moyo et al. (2015) who posit that devolution and the construction of a developmental state are organically linked in both practice and theory like Siamese twins.

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The argument that, from a consequentialist point of view, Zimbabwe can derive several economic benefits from devolution is well grounded (Mhlanga 2010; Moyo 2013; Moyo and Ncube 2014). This argument is premised on the theoretical contributions of Morgan (2006: 203) according to whom devolution could be used to attain territorial justice, a concept about which there is no consensus but which, applying Harvey’s (1973) (cited by Morgan 2006: 201) restatement of Rawlsian Theory, means ‘a just distribution justly achieved’. This theoretical prescription has a practical relevance to Zimbabwe given that the country is seriously blighted by acute spatially differentiated intra-and inter-provincial patterns of development. Mhlanga (2010: 106–108, 2012), Moyo (2013: 140), Moyo and Ncube (2014: 296–297) and others have argued that the differentiated patterns of development have engendered serious socio-political grievances in different parts of the country which feel left out of the development grid. In Manicaland, Midlands and Matabeleland regions (provinces that strongly advocated for devolution during the constitution-making process and its eventual inclusion in the Constitution), these grievances are widely articulated in the academy (Moyo 2013: 140; Mhlanga 2010: 106, 2012: 214–218). They ossify around inter-regional deployment of civil servants, and the ‘differentiated patterns of income and unemployment to poor infrastructure and low business or economic activity’ (Moyo and Ncube 2014: 296) in the Matabeleland and Midlands regions. These territorially expressed socio-economic grievances have led to resentment of the central state as an instrument for the fulfilment of partisan political, regional and ethnic interests. Because their quest for inclusion seems to have fallen on deaf ears, these regions have long clamoured for a detachment from the Zimbabwean nation state (Mhlanga 2010). To extinguish the ‘irredentist’ impulses informed by feelings of exclusion, Bogdanor prescribes devolution because ‘… the best way to strengthen national unity is to give away to [powerful centrifugal forces] a little so as to disarm them’ (Bogdanor 1999: 194). Bardhan (2002: 185) concurs that devolution is useful in ‘diffusing social and political tensions and ensuring local cultural and political autonomy’ (Bardhan 2002: 185) because it enables sub-governments to mobilise local consent and cooperation in the implementation of national policies (Moyo and Ncube 2014). Citing Jonathan Bradbury (2007), Moyo and Ncube (2014) argue that affording the people an opportunity to control their own resources and to use them in ways germane to their well-being, cultivates a sense of local patriotism that remains predicated on the loyalty of overarching framework of the unitary state. By diffusing social and political tensions (Bardhan 2002: 185), the argument continues that, for Zimbabwe, devolution has the potential to elevate economic nationalism over ethno-regional nationalism. Concurring, Moyo et al. (2015: 55) highlight that devolution can be viewed as an ‘opportunity to reinvigorate democracy in Zimbabwe by engaging local officials and ordinary citizens in the stewardship of natural resources, and by spurring a more thoughtful and less partisan policy dialogue’. So, contrary to the position of the anti-devolutionists in ZANU-PF who have taken the posture that devolution is a threat to the unitary character of the state because it encourages regional secessionist politics, especially in Matabeleland (Moyo 2013: 140), Moyo and Ncube (2014:298) argue the following: that the ‘territorial grievances

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of people from Matabeleland’ which underpin their strong attachment to a devolved system of governance, ‘despite being peppered with demands for “political voice”, have largely been of a consequentialist nature, i.e.; seeking a share of the country’s economic dividend’. This view was earlier advanced by Mhlanga (2010:109) who argued that contrary to the belief that devolution is divisive and that it might engender irredentism, it can, among people in such regions as Matabeleland, inspire a patriotic spirit by ‘creating feelings of existential responsibility; thereby encouraging citizens to be answerable for their actions and in line with different policies that may be formulated from their regions’. Morgan (2001) argues that in order for devolution to achieve territorial justice, there must be a rethink on the modus operandi of public funding disbursements to provincial and local authorities. The ideal, Morgan proposes, is that public expenditure to sub-governments should be based on a needs-based assessment by region and not by population. Achieving territorial justice using the instrument of funding expenditure allocations is a tricky business in Zimbabwe because of palpable spatial disparities in development. To bring certain regions up to speed with the rest in development terms would require a deliberate policy of preferential treatment of some regions. While positive discrimination of sub-governments through the skewed allocation of public expenditure to underdeveloped regions such as Matabeleland would be ideal, it can simultaneously engender a view that devolution is inefficacious due to perceptions of favouritism, even where none exists (Moyo and Ncube 2014:301). The paradox of devolution, the argument continues, is that it would place regions lagging in development at the same level as those that are well ahead. Yet, as Morgan (2006: 196) argues, ‘treating unequals equally is not a strategy for promoting equality’. Morgan (2001:347) proffers a solution to this devolution conundrum in which expenditure allocations to provinces are based on locally derived policies and programmes and locally expressed development aspirations (Moyo and Ncube 2014). A legislative mechanism must allow for revenue raised locally through, for example, local service rates and taxes, to be used for locally derived developmental needs for, as Morgan (2001: 347) puts it, ‘it is people not places which are poor’. This section has argued that the case for devolution in Zimbabwe is well articulated both in theoretical and practical terms. Two theories have been deployed to enunciate the theoretical and practical relevance of devolution in general and for Zimbabwe in particular, namely: the deontological perspective or democratic dividend perspective and the consequentialist and the economic dividend perspective.

3 Constitution of Zimbabwe and Devolution It is important to answer the question of whether there is a legal basis for devolution in Zimbabwe. Indeed, there is. This basis came about after a protracted squabble between the two main political contenders, the MDC and ZANU-PF, which culminated in the adoption of Zimbabwe’s new Constitution in 2013. This Constitution

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recognises devolution as one of the country’s founding values and principles. It defines the objectives of devolution as follows: (a) to give powers of local governance to the people and enhance their participation in the exercise of the powers of the State and in making decisions affecting them; (b) to promote democratic, effective, transparent, accountable and coherent government of Zimbabwe as a whole; (c) to preserve and foster peace, national unity and individuality in Zimbabwe; (d) to recognise the right of communities to manage their own affairs and to further their development; (e) to ensure the equitable sharing of local and national resources; and (f) to transfer responsibilities and resources from the national government in order to establish a sound financial base for each provincial and metropolitan council and local authority. Article 264 of the Zimbabwean Constitution specifically states that devolution is meant to preserve and foster peace and national unity in Zimbabwe, to recognise the right of communities to manage their own affairs and to further their development and ensure the equitable sharing of local and national resources (Constitution of Zimbabwe 2013). Section 265 further elucidates on the general principles of provincial and local government, which are as follows: ● Ensuring good governance through effectiveness, transparency, accountability and institutional coherence of provincial and local governments; ● Cooperation between tiers of government; ● Avoiding performing functions that encroach in other tiers of government; ● Public welfare security; ● Preservation of peace, national unity and indivisibility of Zimbabwe; and ● Fair and equitable representation of people. In this respect, a coordination mechanism between central governments, provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities is to be set out in an Act of Parliament. The Constitution of Zimbabwe clarifies that provincial and local government should be pursued through the devolution of power and responsibilities to lower tiers of government. The devolved structures entail eight provincial councils, two Metropolitan councils and several urban and rural local authorities. Section 270 of the Constitution outlines the functions of provincial and metropolitan councils, with socio-economic development as the key function. Other functions include: ● Planning and implementing social and economic development activities in its province; ● Coordinating and implementing governmental programmes in its province; ● Planning and implementing measures for the conservation, improvement and management of natural resources in its province; ● Promoting tourism in its province and developing facilities for that purpose; ● Monitoring and evaluating the use of resources in its province; and

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● Exercising any other functions, including legislative functions, that may be conferred or imposed on it by or under an Act of Parliament. Section 276 details the functions of Local Authorities, but it is not very elaborate on the powers that should be arrogated to these authorities because the expectation is that such clarity will be provided by an Act of Parliament that establishes the powers of local authorities. However, it reveals that local authority powers shall include making by-laws and other regulations for effective local authority administration and taxation and revenue-raising powers. Even though the new Constitution of Zimbabwe recognises local authorities (rural and urban), provincial and metropolitan Councils, Parliament (National Assembly and Senate) and central government (executive, Ministries, Government departments, etc.), it is not a fait accompli that devolution to local authorities is law in Zimbabwe because the required Act of Parliament has not been passed to determine the scope and depth of this system of governance. This is aggravated by the fact that, as shown in the foregoing, the functions assigned to local governments and the ways in which devolution will work, are not stated in entirety in the new Constitution (Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights 2013). While constitutional provisions provide a promising starting point (Muchedanyika 2015), Constitutional Amendment No. 2 of the Zimbabwean Constitution represents a retreat from devolution. According to Section 268(1) of the Constitution, the provincial councils are composed of a chairperson of the council; senators; two senator chiefs; president and deputy president of the National Council of Chiefs; all members of the National Assembly; the mayors and chairpersons and ten persons elected by proportional representation. The composition of metropolitan councils for Harare and Bulawayo is outlined in Section 269 of the Constitution. The Constitution provides that these shall be composed of the mayor (who is the chairperson of the council); all members of the National Assembly; Senators elected from the metropolitan province; the mayors and deputy mayors and the chairpersons and deputy chairpersons (by whatever title they are called) of all local authorities in the metropolitan province concerned (Chigumira et al. 2019: 11–12). However, Clause 20 of Constitutional Amendment No. 2 proposes to alter and align the membership of provincial and metropolitan councils under Chap. 14 of the Constitution so that both types of councils will consist of (1) a chairperson elected from a list put forward by the political party which gained the highest number of National Assembly seats in the province; (2) mayors and chairpersons of local authorities in the province and (3) ten members elected at a general election on a party-list system of proportional representation. The ensuing changes for the membership of councils would be: ● Senators (including senator chiefs) and members of the National Assembly will no longer be council members ex officio. If they are elected to a council, they will lose their parliamentary seats; and ● The two metropolitan councils will no longer be chaired by the mayors of Bulawayo and Harare, but by a chairperson elected from a party-list as described above.

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While Constitutional Amendment No. 2 is supposedly aimed at improving the efficiency of the Provincial Councils by reducing their size—by providing that members of Parliament will no longer be council members—the net effect of this is that it will make the councils less representative of the political leadership of their provinces. By voiding the councils of their political teeth and influence, the amendment will correspondingly increase the influence and power of central government. Admittedly, it is difficult to pass a verdict on the presumption that making the council smaller will increase its efficiency because it has never been constituted. As Veritas (2020) notes: The councils may become more efficient through being smaller, but they will be less representative of the political leadership in their provinces and so less likely to counter the overwhelming influence of central government…While a reduction in councils’ membership may make provincial councils function more smoothly, it will not do the same for the metropolitan councils which comprise the areas of greater Harare and Bulawayo. At present those councils are chaired by the mayors of Harare and Bulawayo respectively, but under the proposed amendments they will have separate chairpersons. This means that the metropolitan areas will be governed by two separate councils with different members and different chairpersons but overlapping functions. It will be a recipe for confusion, buck-passing, inaction and overall incompetence. Even for provincial councils the effect of the proposed amendments may not be wholly beneficial.

For Veritas, Amendment No. 2 shows lack of commitment on the part of central government to the ideal of devolution and decentralisation expressed in Section 3(2)(l) of the Constitution. Amendment No. 2 in relation to devolution is badly drafted, and so is the whole of Chap. 14 of the Constitution. During the constitutional negotiations, neither ZANU-PF nor the main wing of the MDC was particularly keen on devolution and the result was a vague compromise with a cosmetic commitment to it with no clear articulation of what powers will be devolved and to whom. Chapter 14 vaguely demarcates the functions and responsibilities of the central government, provincial councils and local authorities. It does not even mention provincial Ministers, which raises doubts about the validity of their appointment (Veritas 2020). What is needed is a wholesale revision of Chap. 14 rather than the minor tinkering which the Constitutional Amendment No. 2 proposes. The fact that Constitutional Amendment No. 2 with its retrogressive provisions on devolution is made under President Mnangagwa’s government belies his rhetoric and commitment to implementing a devolved system. President Mnangagwa explained why a ‘Devolution and Decentralisation Policy’ (hereafter, the ‘Document’) framework is important by saying that: Although the Constitution provides broad parameters on the Zimbabwe Devolution Agenda, a policy is needed to guide the process of removing ambiguities, gaps, inadequacies and impractical provisions, which might be inherent in the Constitution, particularly with regard to the modus operandi of Provincial and Metropolitan Councils (GoZ 2020: v).

Accordingly, the Document (formulated in 2020) spells out the constitutional requirements and the implementation framework, as well as local government structures, devolved functions, citizen participation, devolution and Vision 2030. It also articulates that the strategies for the successful implementation of the national agenda

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must promote balanced development across the country’s 10 provinces. The Document explains that the modus operandi for the implementation of the devolution agenda will be broad-based and inclusive of civil society and ordinary members of society who will actively participate in the design of the devolution implementation rubric. This is key because, as the document reads: Local democracy can only be protected by citizens who are capable of effectively articulating their demands to elected officials. They should also be capable of acting or demanding appropriate information which enables them to perform a watchdog role over elected and employed officials. Hence, the devolution policy provides for separate capacity building initiatives targeted at local citizens, in order to empower them to hold local officials accountable over the implementation of approved regional development plans (GoZ 2020: 11).

Crucially, the Document acknowledges the fiscal limitations of implementing the Government’s devolution agenda for provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities, and it enjoins the central government to build the financial capacities of these councils and authorities to provide services devolved by the Government to them. In this context, the Document notes, it would be pivotal for the central Government to disburse resources to the provincial, metropolitan and local authorities to bolster their ability to provide critical services which require funding, such as water provision, sanitation, health and education. These treasury disbursements to metropolitan provincial councils and local authorities will complement, rather than replace, their own resources mobilised to finance service delivery at a local level. This means that local authorities will have scope to develop their own revenue streams, including leveraging their local natural resource endowments which would target funding for specific purposes. The Document provides thus: Treasury disbursements to Metropolitan and Provincial Councils and Local Authorities will complement own mobilised resources to fund service delivery across various communities. Central Government official transfers including grants for supplementary funding of devolved functions would be through Local Authorities budgets (GoZ 2020: 13)

While the Devolution and Decentralisation policy framework has a number of important aspirations, it is silent on the structural issues regarding the Provincial Councils. More so, it is very weak on the power issues which are the real enablers of the effective implementation of devolution (Moyo 2021). The following section confronts the question of whether the constitutional provisions enunciated above are sufficient for the actualisation of devolution. As Olum (2014) puts it, the success of devolution predicates on satisfying the preconditions for this political system which include institutional mechanisms, capacity development and the creation of spaces for participation and engagement by diverse policy actors. The question is whether these preconditions for successful implementation are in place in Zimbabwe given the hegemonic position of devolution as a key pillar in achieving Vision 2030.

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4 Progress in Implementing Devolution in Zimbabwe’s: Continuities or Discontinuities? The pace at which devolution processes will be implemented, going forward, draws impetus from the advent of the Second Republic in November 2017. This marked the beginning of a serious commitment by Government towards the implementation of the devolution policy in line with the 2013 Constitutional Amendments (GoZ 2020: 6).

The agenda of devolution in Zimbabwe has evolved in a non-linear fashion and has been fraught by ‘contradictory interests, perspectives, and possibilities at specific historical junctures’ (Musekiwa 2020: 587–588). This makes any attempt to pass a verdict on its implementation a difficult one. Despite this, it is possible to sketch the evolution of this agenda and its operationalisation through critical ‘shifts’ and ‘moments’, that engendered this political system’s current shape and practices (Musekiwa 2020). One of these moments is the advent of President Mnangagwa’s ‘Second Republic’ which celebrates the purported birth of a ‘new politics’ and a positive attitude towards devolution as implied by the epigraph at the beginning of this section. Paradoxically, the Mnangagwa epoch is characterised by crises and erosion of progress in devolution (Musekiwa 2020: 593) underpinned by the ambiguous legislative provisions and the sluggish pace by which the ZANU-PF-led government has led the harmonisation of Zimbabwe’s acts of parliament to bring them in tandem with the constitutional provisions on devolution. Thus, there are significant limitations to devolution-in-reality as part of the Second Republic’s formative project. This section takes stock on the progress in implementing devolution under President Mnangagwa’s regime. The subject about the progress on the implementation of devolution is a welltrodden academic terrain in Zimbabwe (Conyers 2002; Nyathi and Ncube 2017; Muchadenyika 2015; Mapuva 2015a; Musekiwa 2020). Much of the focus (see, for example, Mudau and Nyane 2022) has been on articulating the factors that have stymied the implementation of devolution, rather than an outline of what has been and/or has not been achieved. Admittedly, the constraints to, and the progress on, devolution are umbilically connected; but this chapter seeks to amplify the importance of plotting progress on the ground and/or lack thereof and indeed explain this ‘progress’ as well. In his foreword to the Document, President Mnangagwa said that. … appropriate amendments to both the Constitution and other Acts of Parliament will be undertaken with a view of aligning the spirit of the Constitution and other legislated laws to practical realities demanded by the new policy, whose main thrust is to uphold existing constitutional standards in the exercise of local governance powers (GoZ 2020: viii).

Even though progress has been slow, there are promising offshoots as demonstrated by new amendment bills—the Provincial Councils Amendment Bill, Urban Councils Amendment Bill, Rural District Councils Amendment Bill, Regional Town and Country Planning Amendment Bill and Traditional Leaders Amendment Bill— which President Mnangagwa announced in his State of the Nation address during

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the opening of the fourth session of the Ninth Parliament of Zimbabwe in October 2021.1 These bills, the President said, were expected to be debated in the fourth session of the Ninth Parliament and are envisaged to breathe life into the already-devolved structures, i.e., the provincial, district, and urban councils, and traditional councils. This is because the amendments will outline the actual roles of these lower structures and the expectations placed upon them to facilitate the implementation of devolution and the development of their juridical areas. Currently, the Provincial Councils Act, Rural District Councils Act, Urban Councils Act, and Traditional Leaders Act provide little guidance on devolution implementation. Hence, the amendments mentioned are of some significance. While this is possible progress in the right direction, a more critical position might highlight that, when juxtaposed to the central state’s disposition to (and actions on) devolution, these amendments are cosmetic. Arguably, the proposed Bill amendments may not undo the regression occasioned by the amendments (such as Constitutional Amendment No. 2) which have already been promulgated and have eroded rather than aided progress towards a devolved system of governance in Zimbabwe. The failure of the ZANU-PF-led government to enact the Devolution Act has hamstrung the implementation of constitutionally enshrined and critical elements of devolution (Musekiwa 2020: 594). A Devolution Act is key to ensure that: local authorities are paid their share of national revenue on time and account for all the resources allocated to them (through external auditing); there is full consultation within each Province and each Local Authority; and standard procedures on development projects spending is put in place (Moyo 2021). It is plausible that devolution is enshrined in the Constitution of Zimbabwe. However, as Fombad (2016) observes, that is not sufficient because the Constitution is not a self-enforcing piece of legislation. It is couched in broad terms and, thus, arrogates powers to parliament to promulgate, and constitute, the enabling legislation and institutions. Section 301(3) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 20) Act 2013 provides that a budget of at least 5% of the national revenue raised in any financial year should be allocated to the provinces and local authorities as their share in that fiscal year. These funds must be for the provision of basic services, including educational and health facilities, water, roads, social amenities and electricity to marginalised areas. No such act exists currently in line with the constitutional obligation. Yet, devolution funds have already been allocated with a budget of ZW$703 million provided for in the 2019 fiscal year to kick start the devolution process (Chigumira et al. 2019: vi; GoZ 2019). In addition to the Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers (IGFT) done in compliance with the Constitution of Zimbabwe, the transfer of Devolution Funds and Constituency Development Funds to Provinces and Local Authorities has taken place. Between 2019 and May 2021, the Government of Zimbabwe 1

Address by the president, His Excellency Dr E. D. Mnangagwa on the occasion of The State of the Nation Address and the Opening of the Fourth Session of the Ninth Parliament of Zimbabwe, 7 October 2021. Available: http://www.veritaszim.net/sites/veritas_d/files/2021%20SONA%20O CTOBER.pdf, accessed on 21 October 2022.

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disbursed a total of ZW$2.2 billion to Local Councils as Devolution Funds without any legal, monitoring or evaluating structures in place (Moyo 2021). Similarly, since the era of the Government of National Unity (GNU), the Parliament of Zimbabwe has also been disbursing Constituency Development Funds (CDFs). The CDFs are funding arrangements that channel money from the central government directly to electoral constituencies for local infrastructure projects (van Zyl 2010). The functions of CDFs and those of the Devolution Funds are symbiotic. However, the use of the CDFs is guided by the CDF constitution (not the National Constitution) which provides that the funds shall be used for construction, repairs and maintenance of boreholes and wells; repairs and maintenance of schools and clinics; repairs and maintenance of market stalls and related infrastructure; purchase of electrical generators for use at schools, clinics and related institutions; community income generating projects; rehabilitation and maintenance of dip tanks; repair and maintenance of roads; establishment of community libraries, among others (Dingani 2018, cited by Moyo 2021). Moreover, the absence of a Devolution Act is problematic given its centrality in the setting up of devolution structures to oversee spending as well as to criminalise abuse of public funds (ZEPARU 2020). Despite the absence of a Devolution Act, there is an ominous development in which Devolution Funds and Constituency Development Funds are being disbursed without monitoring structures (Moyo 2021). The Constitution states that Provincial Councils must be established and yet, eight years after the Constitution came into force, these devolution structures are yet to be established. In fact, some 80 Provincial Councillors (40 of whom are women) who were elected in 2018 across the country are yet to be sworn in. Curiously, some of these Provincial Councillors are receiving monthly salaries from the government without formally assuming duty (Moyo 2021). So, while the government has been commended for embarking on the implementation of devolution through disbursing funds to provinces and local authorities, the fact that it has done so without putting measures in place to guard against their abuse (ZEPARU 2020), means that the Devolution Funds and the CDFs have become a source of controversy and subject to abuse by parliamentarians and local councillors (Moyo 2021). What Moyo (2021) points to is an endemic problem facing local authorities in Zimbabwe, a finding echoed by the Office of the Auditor General (2019) which, in its audit of the local authorities in 2018, found weaknesses in governance structures and challenges relating to revenue collection, debt recovery, employment costs and procurement of goods and services in local authorities. These challenges are underpinned by the absence of professional auditors among councillors in local government council audit committees to review local authority books and ensure financial statements are prepared timeously (Chigumira et al. 2019: 13). We submit that Zimbabwe is facing crises and the erosion of progress in decentralisation. This erosion began in the Mugabe era, meaning that what we are experiencing in the ‘Second Republic’ (under Mnangagwa) are continuities rather than a disjuncture from the old system. One such continuity is ZANU-PF’s unrelenting implementation of clauses of the old constitution by appointing Provincial Governors, which have now been renamed Ministers of State for Provincial Affairs. It was

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Mugabe’s anti-devolutionist ZANU-PF that set the tone on this issue in violation of the constitutional provisions (Moyo and Ncube 2014). For example, in appointing the new Cabinet (after the GNU), President Mugabe picked ten ZANU-PF members and appointed them Ministers of State for Provincial Affairs responsible for each of the country’s ten provinces. The appointment of these Ministers of State for Provincial Affairs raised fears that they will effectively suppress the devolution of power. As the International Crisis Group’s Trevor Maisiri, quoted in Bhebhe (2013), noted: The appointment of Ministers of State for Provincial Affairs has dashed hopes of decentralising power. These provincial ministers will report directly to the President, hence their interaction with provincial councils or mayors of respective areas will be superficial. They will override every programme set to be taken in their respective provinces.

In line with the fears expressed in this statement, Mnangagwa’s current government consists of Ministers of State for Provincial Affairs, all of whom are exclusively ZANU-PF members. Their appointment is ultra vires the Constitution because the Constitution makes no provision for the appointment of Ministers for Provincial Affairs or Provincial Governors. Rather, it provides for devolution of governmental powers and responsibilities to provincial and metropolitan councils (PMCs), constituted by a province’s Members of Parliament, the mayors and chairpersons of the province’s local authorities and, in the case of the eight provincial councils, ten persons elected to the council by a system of proportional representation as part of every general election (Veritas 2017). These councils should be responsible for provincial affairs and not managed by ministers appointed by the President. Being appointed by the President means that the Ministers of State for Provincial Affairs can only carry out whatever functions are arrogated to them by the President. This defeats the letter and spirit of devolution. Moreover, the appointment of these Ministers creates a leadership hierarchy and operational challenges in the provinces (Moyo and Ncube 2014). Having the provincial councils led by Provincial Council Chairpersons and Ministers of State for Provincial Affairs in one province raises the question of who, between the two of these, is the political and administrative head of a province. This opaque leadership structure created by the anti-devolutionist ZANU-PF is inimical to effective local policy-making, service delivery and local development (Moyo and Ncube 2014: 300). This indicates that, even though the adoption of the new Constitution pushed the frontiers of devolution through the recognition of local government, decentralisation remains advanced in law and policy and very wanting in its implementation strategies (Musekiwa 2020: 594). We do not seek to belabour the Mugabe era impulses to devolution and the moments, events and political practicalities which eroded the development towards a decentralised system. Scholars such as Musekiwa (2020) have traversed this terrain. Rather, our focus is to emphasise the point that the Mnangagwa government represents a continuity rather than a discontinuation of the old anti-devolutionist order. The pertinent question is why the concrete dimension of the devolution implementation process is faced with uncertainties and crises as articulated in the foregoing.

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The common argument is that there is a lack of political will to implement a devolved political system on the part of ZANU-PF. Rondinelli (1982) notes that political commitment to decentralisation is the sine qua non of this strategy’s implementation. Yet, it is often an element that is frequently missing especially in developing countries (Olum 2014: 29). As a result, there have been several court cases in which the Zimbabwean state has been challenged to implement devolution. Paul Siwela, a member of Mthwakazi, a political pressure group cum pseudo-political party, lodged a Constitutional Court challenge in 2014 demanding the implementation of devolution (Mapuva 2015b). In 2015, Sipepa Nkomo, a former opposition politician, lodged his application in the Constitutional Court challenging the government to expeditiously enact an Act of Parliament to give effect to the full operationalisation of a devolved government (Mapuva 2015b; Zimbabwe Independent 2014). For some commentators, these court cases illustrate the problematic nature of the ambiguously couched language of devolution, especially in regard to the obligations imposed on the central government to implement a devolved system of government; while, for others, these cases indicate non-compliance with the constitutional provisions for devolution. For even others, however, the fact that these challenges were lodged by politicians from Matabeleland exposes their secessionist connotations and that their intentions are manifestly ultra vires the spirit and letter of Section 264 of Zimbabwe’s Constitution for fostering national unity, peace and stability (Chikwawawa 2019: 22). In this, the government has found apostles in the academy such as Chikwawawa (2019) who argues that. […], the fact that the clamour for devolution incidentally came from Matabeleland shows that it had trappings of tribalism, besides the apparent political connotations. Of course, this can be interpreted as indicating that the region is lagging behind others in the country in terms of development, as has been alleged in many political and academic fora. However, it is patently evident that there are many other regions of the country, which are underdeveloped, but have not demanded devolution. This clearly shows that the demand for devolution is in a way a manifestation of ethnic or tribal dynamics, besides being a legitimate demand for good governance and empowerment of communities (Chikwawawa 2019: 23).

The state’s characterisation of the calls for devolution as ‘disguised tribalism’ or ‘irredentist forms of succession’ is problematic because this represents an erroneous conflation of the clamouring for devolution with secession and thus, ‘blindly stigmatise[s] and emotionally label[s] it as ‘disguised tribalism” (Mhlanga 2010: 105, 110). We agree with Moyo and Ncube (2014) who argue that, contrary to Chikwawawa’s (2019) contention, the clamouring for devolution from Matabeleland demonstrates the long-standing grievance of economic neglect rather than the desire for secession. What Chikwawawa (2019) helps to show, however, is that devolution remains an emotive subject in Zimbabwe. As Mhlanga (2012: 214) colloquially posits, it remains ‘ticklish’ and is ‘often fraught with emotions’. The foregoing illustrates that continuities rather than discontinuities characterise the attitude towards devolution during the late President Mugabe’s regime and that of President Mnangagwa’s current ‘new dispensation’. This continuity is largely underpinned by the lack of political will. The lack of political will explains why a Devolution Act remains unenacted even though disbursement of funds to provincial

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and local authorities are already taking place. Moyo and Ncube (2014), though, caution about placing too much hope on an Act of Parliament. They argue that due to ZANU-PF’s preference for a centralised unitary state (as opposed to a devolved unitary state), ‘it is likely that Zimbabwe’s new Act of Parliament to define devolution mechanisms and procedures will confer mere administrative delegation of functions of the central government to [provincial and metropolitan councils]’ (Moyo and Ncube 2014:301). Such a scenario would give the ZANU-PF central government the opportunity to ride roughshod over provincial councils whose decisions would often be either ignored or overruled by the former (Moyo and Ncube 2014: 301). In this sense, a deep devolution process poses risks to ZANU-PF’s ongoing commitment to a centralised unitary state as a basis for ongoing political hegemony at the national level. Citing Bogdanor (1999: 188), who argues for the necessity of ‘a court to police the division’ between various tiers of a devolved government, Moyo and Ncube (2014) posit that the roles of government institutions must be unambiguously demarcated so as to avert friction in a devolved system. In the instance of a discord between provincial and metropolitan councils and respective state-sector ministries, Bogdanor’s (1999: 188) ‘court’ could be called upon to be the final arbiter (Moyo and Ncube 2014: 301). The point we are making here is that, while the disbursement of a 5% transfer is commendable, the lack of an Act of Parliament which clearly stipulates the criteria of disbursement and to which structures of devolution (since none of them have been set up as per the provision of the Constitution) is a major impediment. However, it must be noted that the macro-level environment, both economic and political, has had a major impact on the extent to which decentralisation has been implemented in Zimbabwe and achieved its intended objectives (Conyers 2002: 123). While, historically, local governments in Zimbabwe have received minimal fiscal transfers from the central government so that they must meet most of their expenditure from local revenue, the post-2000 economic and political challenges, and international isolation, reduced central government and local authority’s ability to leverage external finance at a time when the economy was weak and local revenues had declined dramatically. At the height of economic decline between 2000 and 2008, Zimbabwe experienced severe macro-economic challenges, with inflation reaching an all-time high of 230,000,000% per annum in July 2008 (Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe 2011). In such an environment, service delivery by local authorities declined correspondingly and, in 2008–09, dirty drinking water caused a cholera epidemic that tragically coincided with a collapsed health delivery system, leading to ‘98,592 reported cases and 4,288 deaths’ (GoZ 2010: 36). Even though the socioeconomic crisis subsided in 2009 following the creation of an inclusive government, the recovery in basic services has taken a long time (Chatiza et al. 2013), and local authorities face service delivery deficits as a result. These experiences bring to the fore the eroded capacity of local authorities to deliver services, which engendered the birth of, and a spike in, residents’ associations demanding and often appropriating powers to make decisions at the local level (Musekiwa and Chatiza 2015). Bad political choices by the ZANU-PF central government have also hamstrung local authorities over the years. One such a choice was made on the eve of the 2013

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general elections when the Minister of local government wrote off all debts owed to councils—a measure that was to financially cripple most councils for the next five years (Musekiwa 2020: 594).

5 Conclusion This chapter concludes that while President Mnangagwa’s government promised much in terms of devolution as part of its formative project, it has delivered little. This is due to its anti-devolutionist stance, a position which also underpinned President Mugabe’s government. This stance is manifested in the government’s reticence in crafting all the necessary legislation to make the new local government system work. The proposed legislative amendment bills are a step in the right direction. However, until these bills are passed into law, the legislation which carves out the procedures of devolved structures and how they exercise their powers remains absent. The necessity of such laws is crucial especially for the provincial and metropolitan councils because there is already fiscal disbursements to these structures, without guidance on how they should be utilised and accounted for. Moreover, no provision and place of meeting has been made for staff of these structures. Although their members have been elected, they have never met and have never been able to do anything by which their performance can be judged. It seems then that, instead of moving forward, the devolution drive is receding under Mnangagwa. The state is taking its time because the pressure under which it had acceded to a devolved political system during the Government of National Unity has since receded. Moreover, taking advantage of the fact that Section 264 of the Constitution does not sufficiently compel it to implement devolution, the state has simply assumed a posture of taking its time in relation to this issue. The state reads the Constitution as meaning that it has the discretion to decide whether or not to implement devolution and in what format. Coupled with the state’s narrow reading of the constitutional provisions, the absence of detailed policy guidelines and subsidiary legislation that provide details on how devolution will be rolled out (including the mandates that will be devolved to lower levels) remains a missing link for the effective implementation of devolution. The state’s anti-devolutionist stance is bolstered by ZANU-PF’s attachment to a centralised system. This system is the primary lever by which ZANU-PF continues to cling to power and to pervasively use the state to dispense patronage for political survival. For Mnangagwa, it appears that the risks entailed in pursuing devolution vigorously are too many. The fact that the state has had to be taken to court to expedite the enactment of the Devolution Act and that, despite this, this act remains to be passed, is a clear indication of its aversion to this political system. Given the lack of political will, any pronouncements and actions in relation to implementing devolution by the ZANU-PF government are cosmetic endeavours to fulfil constitutional provisions. The Constitutional Amendment No. 2 (with its retrogressive provisions on devolution) is a classic pointer to the fact that, for President Mnangagwa, devolution is

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just a political gimmick. Coupled with this is the continued implementation of the provisions of Zimbabwe’s Lancaster House Constitution in contravention of the new Constitution. A poignant example of this is the appointment of Provincial Governors who have now been renamed Ministers of State for Provincial Affairs. Thus, there are more continuities than discontinuities in ZANU-PF’s aversion to devolution. Acknowledgements This work is based on research supported by the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

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Mbuso Moyo is a development economist whose research interests include Africa’s labour markets and the disadvantageous position of youth in the continent’s macro economies, and the impact of mining activities on mining host communities. He holds a Ph.D. in Development Studies from the University of Johannesburg. His Ph.D. thesis explores the lived experiences of unemployed youth in the Royal Bafokeng Nation (North West Province) in South Africa. Moyo is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at the Centre for Sociological Research and Practice, University of Johannesburg. This position is sponsored by the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Ray Motsi is a Zimbabwean Baptist minister. Currently, he is the president of the Theological College of Zimbabwe (TCZ). He initially studied at Wales in the United Kingdom. He then did his post graduate studies in South Africa at Pretoria University where he obtained an MA in Old Testament and Hebrew Language and a Ph.D. in Peace Studies and Conflict Transformation. His research areas include peace, conflict transformation and trauma healing. He is the coordinator of the Africa Peace Institute (API) as well as the thematic leader on Memorialisation under the National Transitional Justice Working Group (NTJWG) in Zimbabwe.

Prospects of Implementing Devolution in the Post-Mugabe Era Didmus Dewa

Abstract This chapter looks at the constraints and prospects of devolution implementation in Zimbabwe in the Mnangagwa era. Zimbabwe’s quest for devolution in the post-third wave era of democratisation and good governance is evident through ongoing civil society organisations and opposition politics advocacy themes. The desire for devolution saw the light of the day through the Constitutional Parliamentary Committee-led constitution of 2013. Since 2013, significant political events took place that ushered in a second republic in 2017. The purpose of this chapter is to offer a critical analysis of the devolution initiative since 2013 when it became a constitutional obligation. To comprehend the political economy of devolution in Zimbabwe, prevailing literature and authoritative government data is interrogated. The chapter traces devolution in history and looks at the strides made before discussing the current challenges and steps that have been taken post the Mugabe era. It also considers several conceptual issues around devolution before dwelling more fully on policy and legislative issues around devolution in Zimbabwe. In focusing on variations in the scope, form and political dynamics of devolution, the chapter concludes that there are certain important steps taken in the Second Republic though there are also significant stumbling blocks to implementing devolution in Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe. In this light, like other dimensions of Mnangagwa’s formative project, there seems to be a hesitancy to pursue devolution with maximum vigour.

D. Dewa (B) Zimbabwe Open University, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Moyo and K. Helliker (eds.), Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic, Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30129-2_9

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1 Introduction This chapter looks at the constraints and prospects of devolution implementation in Zimbabwe in the Mnangagwa era. Zimbabwe’s quest for devolution in the post-third wave era of democratisation and good governance is evident through ongoing civil society organisations and opposition politics advocacy themes. The desire for devolution saw the light of the day through the Constitutional Parliamentary Committee-led constitution of 2013. Since 2013, significant political events took place that ushered in a second republic in 2017. The purpose of this chapter is to offer a critical analysis of the devolution initiative since 2013 when it became a constitutional obligation. To comprehend the political economy of devolution in Zimbabwe, prevailing literature and authoritative government data is interrogated. The chapter traces devolution in history and looks at the strides made before discussing the current challenges and steps that have been taken post the Mugabe era. It also considers a few conceptual issues around devolution before dwelling more fully on policy and legislative issues around devolution in Zimbabwe. In focusing on variations in the scope, form and political dynamics of devolution, the chapter concludes that there are certain important steps taken in the Second Republic though there are also significant stumbling blocks to implementing devolution in Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe. Like other dimensions of Mnangagwa’s formative project, there seems to be a hesitancy to pursue devolution with maximum vigour, though significant strides around decentralisation are apparent.

2 Devolution in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe As with the character of Rhodesian society more broadly, local government was deeply racialised and consisted of, in rural areas, “white” councils and “black” local authorities. The new Zimbabwean government sought to overcome this racial legacy through a process of integration and consolidation, with the 1988 Rural District Councils Act leading to the formation of rural district councils (RDCs). Alongside the introduction at the same time of village and district level development committees, these RDCs were meant to become the platform for broad-based and inclusive rural development, and with a pronounced decentralising thrust. At a policy and institutional level, this entailed a progressive shift from the colonial setup. However, in practice, a series of challenges soon emerged, relating to shortfalls around budgetary funds and experienced personnel, as well as outright central state intrusions in the affairs of the decentralised institutions (Muchadenyika 2015: 109).

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In the 1990s, the objective of the Zimbabwean government’s seemingly stalled decentralisation programme shifted to promoting democracy, with the focus of attention turning to elected local authorities and democratising local governments (Conyers 2003). An important vehicle in facilitating and promoting democratisation was the introduction of elections, which started in 1993 in rural district councils and in 1995 in urban councils. The introduction of local government elections was a landmark development as citizens became active agents in deciding who administers rural and urban councils. The introduction of a directly elected executive mayor in 1995 marked a key change in urban governance. This was aimed at strengthening representative democracy as urban residents were given a chance to elect the political and administrative head of urban councils. The executive mayoral position became controversial as it caused political problems in cases where the mayor was not from the ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). These mayors were castigated by the central government of ZANU-PF for pursuing parallel policies to the government’s policy agenda (Muchadenyika 2015). The executive mayoral system also resulted in a tug-of-war between the mayor and town clerk, with overlapping roles and responsibilities being a major trigger of conflict. Despite the government’s idealistic rhetoric, decentralisation continued to run into several practical challenges. As Rondinelli and Nellis (1983) point out, most decentralisation policies are undertaken primarily for political reasons, and how the policy works out in practice will depend on political struggles. The post-2000 era in Zimbabwe reveals how high the political stakes of decentralisation were when, to the consternation of ZANU-PF, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) took control of various urban councils, including in the capital city of Harare. Central government reacted by interfering heavily in local government which, of course, defeated the very purpose of decentralisation. Various pieces of legislation were put in place to protect the interests of the ZANU-PF government in local governance structures, which included the Urban Councils Acts, Rural District Act and Provincial Councils and Administration Act. In line with this legislation, of central importance was the granting of extensive powers to the minister of Local Government (Sims 2013). A strong belief in centralised planning and staffing by the ruling party, along with technical and financial inadequacies and lack of political will, compromised what could have been an effective decentralisation programme. In effect, the government’s actions and interventions can be understood as entailing contradictory processes of decentralisation and re-centralisation. Because of this, local governance structures became the battlefield for political control between the ZANU-PF and MDC parties. Not surprisingly, service delivery deteriorated in most local urban authorities as political struggles took centre stage, with corruption and bad governance also becoming the order of the day (Dewa et al. 2014).

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The signing of the Global Political Agreement in 2008 between MDC and ZANUPF and the formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU) gave birth to the 2013 Zimbabwean constitution—importantly, the new constitution entrenched devolution in the very structures of government in Zimbabwe. This is notwithstanding the fact that ZANU-PF and MDC differed on devolution, and that there were heated debates and contestations on devolution prior to the agreement about the 2013 constitution (Muchadenyika 2015; Dewa et al. 2014). Compromises were reached prior to the end of the GNU, paving way for fresh elections in 2013. After the elections, and from 2013 to 2017, no meaningful steps were taken by the ZANU-PF government still fronted by Mugabe as president. Devolution remained a constitutional obligation but without any practical action or meaningful political support for pursuing it. From late 2017 onwards, however, devolution became a key message of the “New Dispensation” (or “Second Republic”) under the ZANU-PF government of Emmerson Mnangagwa.

3 Devolution Progress Under the Second Republic Following the political transition from Mugabe to Mnangagwa in November 2017 via the military’s intervention, there were high hopes of political reforms in Zimbabwe. The Mnangagwa administration initially brought with it significant enthusiasm from Zimbabwe citizens and, in apparently indicating its intention to construct a formative project, it signalled a departure from the anti-devolution or half-hearted devolution stance of the previous administration of Mugabe. The first political test for the legitimacy of Mnangagwa’s government was the July 2018 elections and there was reasonable freedom of speech and association during this period. Further, all the main political parties promised the electorate that they were committed to devolution as a strategy of governance. After the electoral victory of Mnangagwa’s ZANU-PF in the 2018 elections, devolution became a clear government priority as evidenced by budget allocations by the finance minister Mthuli Ncube. Financial commitment and allocation to devolution entail merely the first steps in a long and complicated process towards meaningful devolution, but it is a necessary step. On this note, there have been significant strides in pursuing the devolution agenda by the Mnangagwa administration. Unlike in the so-called First Republic of Mugabe, the following points represent important devolution steps in the history of Zimbabwe: ● Presidential speech and policy guidelines on Zimbabwe Devolution and Decentralisation adopted by Cabinet and hence Cabinet commitments. ● The Transitional Stabilisation Document National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) Document; ● Various pronouncements by ministers and senior government officials; ● Ongoing stakeholder engagement forums aimed at bringing to up speed key players in the implementation of the devolution programme;

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● The provincial Ministers for the ten provinces are expected to drive economic devolution; ● The national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to be disaggregated to the provincial level for competitiveness purposes; and ● The 2019 and 2020 national budgets echoed that the economic dimension of devolution is to be implemented at the provincial level. It must be highlighted that the Second Republic’s policy documents and its Vision 2030 Agenda have devolution as a central component. The first national development document called the Stabilisation and Transitional Programme (ZTSP) set out the following: While Zimbabwe remains a unitary State, the implementation of the country’s development programmes will allow for devolution to achieve fair and balanced development, spearheaded by Provincial Councils which will initiate development programmes for their respective Provinces, consistent with Section 264 of the Constitution. (Government of Zimbabwe’s Transitional Stabilisation Programme 2018: 82)

In this context, Mnangagwa’s government has engaged in a wide set of consultations with all stakeholders in the devolution agenda. There have been public meetings, workshops, trainings and dialogues around devolution across the country, with the government becoming more familiar with citizens’ views on devolution. Civic society organisations (CSOs) have also organised devolution-focused meetings. A change in provincial ministers’ nomenclature (in 2020) shows the seriousness and commitment of the Second Republic to the devolution agenda. This entailed a change in the name given to provincial heads, from Ministers of State in the provinces to Ministers of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution. Intriguingly, the 2013 constitution does not provide for these new positions or designations. Despite this anomaly, the Ministers or provincial heads in the various provinces, as outlined in Section 264 of the Zimbabwean constitution, are expected to be involved significantly in actioning devolution, as are the Provincial Councils more broadly (again, as set out in the constitution). The Provincial Councils refer to the elected Legislative Assembly at the provincial level. As well, the provinces have been directed to plan economic growth and development by factoring in their own provincial resources, to enhance financial strength and autonomy. The provincial data generated is expected to indicate productive capacity, revenue generation, markets, employment capacity, and possible up and down stream benefits including foreign currency generation and/or import substitution capacity. The data is seen as critical for programmatic formulation and measuring performance of provincial government development plans, as well as for alerting provincial and local authorities of revenue sources and the span of control of their responsibilities. This has since been done. This road map for devolution in Zimbabwe was published by the Ministry of Local Government and there has been significant progress along the road. In this respect, there appears to be significant government commitment to devolution under Mnangagwa’s ZANU-PF government.

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Critical economic activities relevant to devolution have been set out for each province. The following screenshots (Table 1) show critical economic activities’ information about devolution for a select number of Zimbabwe’s provinces, which government collected in 2020. These detailed economic activities provide the foundation of the revenue sources, levies, and taxes for the Provincial Councils, as well as forming the basis upon which provincial-level devolution activities will be carried out. The management of these economic activities will be the key responsibility of the Provincial Councils. Central government funding and allocation of resources to local authorities from 2019 to 2021 suggest that there are deliberate efforts to support devolution in Zimbabwe by the New Dispensation. Regarding financial resources allocation, the 2019 National Budget operationalised support to provinces based on Section 264 of the Constitution pertaining to the provision of five per cent of government revenues to provincial and metropolitan councils. An estimated US$310 million in fiscal transfers was earmarked for support to Provincial Councils for 2019. This US$310 million amount allocated to devolution in the 2019 budget is likely a game-changer in the context of Zimbabwe’s devolution drive (Zinyamna and Chimanikire 2020). Local authorities received considerable allocations from central government in the 2020 budget as well. Table 2 details the provincial allocations as per the budget statement. These financial commitments to devolution by the Second Republic indicate that the devolution programme is being prioritised by the current ZANU-PF government, and increasingly so given the rise in the budgeted amount from the 2019–2020 to the 2020–2021 financial year. The Minister of Finance proposed in the 2021–2022 Table 1 Devolution economic activities per province

(continued)

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Table 1 (continued)

Source Ministry of Local Government (2021)

Table 2 Devolution disbursements per province for 2020

Source Zimbabwe Minister of Finance Budget Statement for 2020

budget to allocate more funds to ensure that devolution implementation structures and systems are put properly in place. The Budget Statement of 2021 notes: In 2021, an allocation of ZWL$19.5 billion [Zimbabwean dollars] is being proposed, consistent with the Constitution to be allocated to Provincial Councils and Local Authorities and respective authorities are urged to prioritise water and sanitation, health services, education

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and road infrastructure, in view of challenges in these areas. For efficient management of resources, accountability and transparency, as well as effective implementation of projects, Government is building capacities of the local authorities including strengthening of financial and project management systems. Furthermore, Government is finalising the establishment of appropriate structures to ensure that devolution resources are efficiently utilised with accountability. (2021 National Budget Statement by Minister M Ncube)

3.1 Constitutional and Legal Landscape Chapter 14, Section 267 of the new constitution demarcates provinces into which Zimbabwe is divided and whose boundaries are fixed under an Act of Parliament. The devolved structures include eight provincial councils and metropolitan councils comprising urban and rural local authorities. Sections 268 and 269 of Chapter 14 of the new constitution provide for the composition of Provincial and Metropolitan Councils. In brief, provincial councils are composed of the following: the chairperson of the provincial council (the person submitted by the political party which gained the highest number of National Assembly seats in the province concerned, or the person from the party which received the highest number of votes cast in the province for national assembly seats); elected senators; all members of Parliament from the province concerned; two senator chiefs; mayors and chairpersons of all urban and rural local authorities in the province concerned; and ten elected councillors. Metropolitan councils consist of mayor as chairpersons of the council; all members of the National Assembly whose constituencies fall within the metropolitan province; all women members of the national assembly elected under the proportional representation provision; elected senators from the metropolitan province; and Mayor and Deputy mayor, chairpersons and deputy chairpersons of all local authorities in the metropolitan province. Unlike provincial councils, metropolitan councils do not include chiefs. Section 270 of the new constitution outlines the functions of provincial and metropolitan councils, with socio-economic development as the key function. Other broad functions of provincial councils involve coordination and implementation of government programmes; natural resources planning and management; tourism promotion and development; and provincial resources monitoring and evaluation. Section 276 details the functions of local authorities falling within the provincial council and metropolitan jurisdictions, though not on an elaborate basis—as the constitution provides for an Act of Parliament to set out more fully the powers of local authorities. Nevertheless, these powers would include making by-laws and other regulations for effective local authority administration and engaging in generating taxation and revenue.

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4 Challenges and Constraints to Devolution in Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe The process of turning symbolic devolution statutory articulations into concrete implementation dimensions is fraught with uncertainties and constraints, which is why Bogdanor (2014) equates devolution to a “mystery tour”. In particular, which type of devolution being pursued by the Second Republic is a big question. The following discussion considers the challenges and constraints that the new Zimbabwe government faces regarding pursuing and implementing devolution, including from an analytical perspective. Devolution is part of broader decentralisation strategies. Political decentralisation (specifically, devolution of power) aims to statutorily transfer some political power, policy making and administrative responsibilities and resources from central government to citizens at least via their democratically elected regional, provincial or local authorities (Chikulo 1998). It therefore refers to a situation where central government shifts a degree of legislative, executive, administrative and financial decision-making authority to sub-national governments that have clear and legally recognised jurisdictions within which they provide public services to constituents to whom they are accountable (Yilmaz et al. 2008). As Elcock and Minogue (2001) put it, devolution involves the “transfer from centre to locality of decision-making powers and associated resources”. This would require the presence of mechanisms for transparency and accountability under the rule of law (Barnett et al. 1997). Overall, the purpose of devolution is to create and strengthen independent levels of government that are mandated to perform defined functions for the benefit of the public. All these tenets demonstrate that devolution endeavours to cultivate and solidify a culture of “good governance” local political processes as a central element of democratisation. These tenets of devolution are contained in Kenya’s and Uganda’s constitutions, and are replicated in Zimbabwe’s new constitution which states that, while the country remains unitary, governmental power and functions are devolved through a three-tier co-operative governance system that includes the national government, provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities. Zimbabweans voted, or at least showed their support, for devolution during the Constitution outreach programme which took place prior to the finalisation of the constitution. The devolution principle became entrenched in the 2013 constitution, Chapter 14. While the provision for devolution of power to the provinces is in the constitution, the actual specificities of this remain undefined and subject to an Act of Parliament yet to be crafted and passed. The Act will presumably grant effective power to the provinces thus providing a stronger foundation for the success of devolution in Zimbabwe. In this light, there is a serious problem pertaining to devolution in Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe. The ZANU-PF Second Republic government seems to follow a devolution strategy that gives little or no power to citizens at the local level, as such an approach might entail significant risks to ZANU-PF hegemony. Certainly, devolution is not organic or led from the grassroots, as it is state driven by the ZANU-PF government. This is much to the disgruntlement of many CSOs (like Bulawayo Agenda,

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and the National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations—NANGO) and communities themselves. What the constitution gives seems to be taken away by those driving the devolution agenda from above. As it stands, already there are central, provincial and local power contestations appearing. This is because the exact role of central government in Zimbabwe’s devolution process is not clearly defined, nor are the operational scope, powers and functional space of the three tiers of government. Besides, there are constitutional issues affecting Zimbabwe’s devolution legal framework. The constitution reads that “whenever appropriate, governmental powers and responsibilities must be devolved to provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities that are competent to carry out those responsibilities efficiently and effectively” (Section 264, Zimbabwean Constitution). Since the national government remains the supreme tier of government, this means that the constitution guarantees it the power to determine whether a particular province has the appropriate competence to govern local affairs and institute locally relevant socio-economic development interventions efficiently and effectively for the benefit of most of the local citizens. Such enormous statutory power given to central government over provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities means that their initial constitution and survival thereafter will always be at the mercy of a political party that forms the government of the day. It is thus problematic for devolution to be left to the central government which retains oversight power and authority. As well, the current ruling party’s political philosophy (whether under Mugabe or Mnangagwa) is fundamentally antithetical to constitutional forms of devolution. Because of this, and given that ZANU-PF dominates the 2018 legislative assembly, it is likely that Zimbabwe’s new Act of Parliament to define and delimit devolution mechanisms and procedures will confer or delegate mere administrative functions of the ZANU-PF central government to provincial and metropolitan councils. If this happens, the danger is that many policy decisions of the provincial councils will be ignored or overruled by the ZANU-PF central government and its line ministries. It may even bulldoze through policy issues that in law are the prerogative of provincial and metropolitan governments. The appointment of Ministers of State for Provincial Affairs has also dashed hopes of decentralising power. These provincial ministers report directly to the state president, hence their interaction with provincial councils or mayors of their respective areas may be superficial. At the same time, they may override programmes formulated in their respective provinces. Furthermore, the appointment of these Ministers will create leadership and hierarchy challenges in the provinces, since the provinces will have provincial councils led by provincial council chairpersons. As a result, the political and administrative head of a province becomes unclear. The office of provincial ministers and Provincial Development Coordinators as well as District Development Coordinators may duplicate the roles of provincial councils; indeed, their very existence and appointment interferes with proper devolution structures and systems. There have been structural blockages to the effective implementation of devolution, including serious misalignment of the laws related to provincial and metropolitan governance. Major changes must be affected to critical provincial and local government legislation such as the Provincial Councils and Administration Act,

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Urban Councils Act and Rural District Councils Act. These acts have been used in the past to centralise power and make local governance an appendage of the ruling ZANU-PF government. Additionally, despite the collection of economic activity data for the provinces, there are still no statements of account detailing clearly and fully all the available resources in all the ten provinces of Zimbabwe where provincial councils are to be established. Some provinces boast of huge pieces of agricultural arable land, mineral deposits and tourist-recreational facilities. There is a need for these claims to be verified and substantiated through scientific research into the amounts attached to suitable activities. Researchers, universities, CSOs, communities and government need to partner to establish the resource-account of each province for devolution to work. Devolution is about utilising local resources and, therefore, knowing what it is there, how much, and how best can be utilised is a primary preliminary event that has been so far overlooked. A public expenditure allocation system must be in place, and this must be transparent, equitable and accountable. As Moyo and Ncube (2014: 301) ably put it: [I]n order for devolution to achieve territorial justice, allocation of public expenditure to sub-governments should be based on a needs based assessment by region and not by population. Because devolution does not imply discrimination against or preferential treatment of regions, as may be the case in a targeted regional economic policy, narrowing regional disparities in Zimbabwe may remain an elusive dream. This may fuel the criticism that devolution is not working or may even exacerbate perceptions of favouritism, even where none exists. Positive discrimination of sub-governments through skewed allocation of public expenditure to underdeveloped regions like Matabeleland would prove problematic. Herein lies the paradox of devolution: it would treat unequals as equal thus defeating the notion of equality or territorial justice. The solution would be to proceed on the basis of the dictum that “it is people not places which are poor” and devise a transparent and equal public expenditure allocation system across provincial governments for nationally derived policies with different provincial governments funding locally derived policy choices from revenue raised locally through, for example, local service rates and taxes.

As well, there is a need for capacity building to strengthen the technical expertise of staff in all provincial and metropolitan councils regarding policy formulation and implementation. Institutions of democracy and mechanisms of political accountability at these sub-government levels would have to be equally strengthened. Policy formulation institutions and research supporting think tanks such as the Public Policy Research Institute of Zimbabwe (PPRIZ) need to be setup in each province. As Bardhan (2002) argues, where these institutions and mechanisms are weak, delivery of public services may be captured by elite groups in all three tiers of government, resulting in decentralised authoritarianism and despotism. This also means that all the legislative assembly structures need to be trained and capacitated on an agreed devolution system for Zimbabwe, including councillors, members of parliament, senators and cabinet ministers. This might help to guard against duplication of roles, financial systems and accounting procedures and to minimise conflicts and resistance. Who does what, when and how need to be tackled. Devolution centred programmes and activities need to be run to build capacity among key players in the equation.

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Three possible setbacks can occur in the name of devolution (whether in Zimbabwe or elsewhere): namely, rising inequality, macro-economic instability and the risk of local capture. The gap between regions may widen and marginalisation according to ethnic origin can spark civil unrest. If devolved governments lack fiscal discipline, central government may be forced to bail them out. This bailing out may make the central government loose grip on the national macro-economic policy. Local governments may be captured by local elites with political power in the pursuit of their own selfish interests and at the expense of the ordinary citizens.

5 Envisaged Devolution Road Map and Legislative Shifts All this implies that there needs to be a strategic shift regarding the formulation, planning and implementation of devolution in Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe, despite the positive initiatives of the Second Republic detailed earlier. It is paramount to note that the devolution of power from central government to sub-national levels is not an event, but a process which must be carefully managed and implemented through various stages. To facilitate the process by way of feedback mechanisms, and to ensure cooperation between the three tiers of government (without the central state imposing itself on other tiers), it is necessary to setup a specialist agency or Intergovernmental Coordination Agency—which could be called, for instance, the Intergovernmental Affairs Agency. The intergovernmental Agency could help in providing incentives that stimulate institutions to be responsive and accountable in the provision of various services, such as water and roads in the case of local governments. A mechanism to reprimand each tier if it fails to deliver on an official mandate should be in place as well. Other ways of further promoting democratic practices include fostering political accountability through the electorate having the power to recall failed governments, and by engaging in transparent and participatory budgeting processes as a critical link between communities and governments. The Agency would assist in the proper distribution of funding resources to provincial and local governments. Shifting the tax base to provincial and local governments through intergovernmental transfers is an important issue for a devolved system to work in practice, and the Agency would provide oversight to this process to minimise the prospects of competition, intolerance and tension between government tiers, thereby preventing political instability. Within this broad institutional framework, the Parliament of Zimbabwe should immediately but carefully debate and the required legislation in the devolution exercise. The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Local Government is central in this regard. The constitution clearly outlines where the Parliament of Zimbabwe is required to enact legislation. These include: ● Conferring functions of provincial, metropolitan and local authorities (Section 265);

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● Providing appropriate mechanisms and procedures to facilitate coordination between central government, provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities (Section 265.3); ● Provision to ensure political neutrality of employees of the lower tiers of government (Section 255.4); ● Fixing boundaries of provinces and division of provinces into districts (Section 267); ● Conferring legislative functions and other functions on provincial and metropolitan councils (Section 270.1f); ● Provision for establishment, structure and staff of provincial and metropolitan councils and the way they exercise their functions (Section 270.2); ● Provision for the establishment of the Independent Tribunal to exercise the function of removing chairpersons of provincial councils from office (Section 272.7); ● Provision for establishment and functions of provincial and metropolitan councils and for their procedures, functions of their chairpersons, conditions of service for the chairpersons, appointment, conditions of service and removal of employees in these councils (Section 273.1a–d); ● Conferring executive powers on Mayors or chairpersons of urban local authorities (Section 274.5); ● Provision for establishment of rural local authorities, election of councils, election of chairpersons, qualifications of members of the councils (Section 275.2a–d); ● Conferring on local authorities the right to govern on their own initiative the local affairs of the people within their area; ● Conferring functions on local authorities including the power to make by-laws, regulations and rules for effective administration; the power to levy rates and taxes and generally to raise sufficient revenue for them to carry out their objects and responsibilities (Section 276.2 a–b); and ● Provision for the procedure to be followed by councils and local authorities (Section 279). The above parliamentary Acts are a priority even for the initial stages of the devolution policy direction, and hence they are urgent matters. Further, it is necessary to realign key laws pertaining to devolution considering the old and new constitution, to operationalise devolution without inconsistencies or confusion. There must be a full re-alignment of the laws related to provincial and metropolitan governance, vis-àvis the constitution and between themselves. Some of the major changes required with regard to critical provincial and local government legislation involve the three acts mentioned earlier: the Provincial Councils and Administration Act [Chapter 29:11], Urban Councils Act [Chapter 29:15] and Rural District Councils Act [29:13]. In terms of Section 3 of the Provincial Councils and Administration Act, it is the president who establishes provinces. This provision is no longer in line with the constitution as the constitution itself now establishes the provinces, and hence it would need to be repealed. The same applies to the establishment of provincial councils. In terms of Section 11 of the Provincial Councils and Administration Act, the President establishes provincial councils, “whenever he considers it desirable”;

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this likewise must be repealed. In terms of the changes ushered in by the new constitution, the President no longer has a role to play in the establishment of provinces, provincial councils and metropolitan councils. Under the old constitutional order, provincial and metropolitan councils comprised of a combination of officials appointed by the President, indirectly elected officials and traditional leaders. The new constitution has changed this, as detailed earlier. The existing rules for the election of chairpersons of provincial and metropolitan councils will also have to change. Right now, Section 4 of the Provincial Councils and Administration Act provides that provincial governors, who chair provincial councils, are appointed by the President. In terms of the new constitution, the chairperson of the provincial council is elected by members of the provincial council. In the metropolitan councils of Harare and Bulawayo, the mayors of those cities chair the metropolitan council. The new constitution also stipulates the various roles of the provincial and metropolitan councils (outlined above), which involves a more expansive role than currently. Significantly, the current constitution provides no role for the president in the removal from office of the chairpersons of provincial and metropolitan councils. Instead, it requires the establishment of an independent tribunal to exercise the function of removing chairpersons of provincial or metropolitan councils from office. Chairpersons of provincial or metropolitan councils can also be removed by their own councils when removal is supported by two-thirds of the total membership of the council. The Provincial Councils and Administration Act must be amended to align with this constitutional provision. The new Constitution will have significant consequences for the local government system as well. Again, some of the provisions require immediate amendment to statutes, and others will have to be considered in a broader policy process about the future of local government in Zimbabwe. Thus, besides the provincial tier of government, legislative changes are also required in local government. For instance, in terms of Section 278(1) of the new constitution: “The seat of a mayor, chairperson or councillor of a local authority becomes vacant in the circumstances set out in Section 129 [of the constitution], as if he or she were a Member of Parliament”. If a mayor, chairperson or councillor does not vacate office in terms of this section, he or she may only be removed from office by an independent tribunal. In terms of Section 278(2) of the constitution, an Act of Parliament must establish an independent tribunal which will exercise the function of removing mayors, chairpersons and councillors from their position. The section further provides that any such removal must be solely based on “inability to perform the functions of their office due to mental or physical incapacity”; “gross incompetence”; “gross misconduct”; “conviction of an offence involving dishonesty, corruption or abuse of office”; or “wilful violation of the law, including a local authority by-law”. This will require changes to Section 114 of the Urban Councils Act which empowers the Minister to suspend and dismiss councillors, mayors and chairpersons. The Constitution regulates the dismissal of councillors, mayors and chairpersons and the role of an independent tribunal will go a long way in protecting locally elected officials from arbitrary dismissals by officials of the national government.

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The new constitution now makes it abundantly clear that all urban councillors will be directly elected. This means that the Minister responsible for local government should no longer be permitted to appoint special interest councillors. In a similar vein, the Urban Councils Act currently provides that the council, and not the voter, elects mayors and chairpersons and their deputies. These mayors and chairpersons are not, however, “executive mayors”. Executive mayors were removed in 2008 and replaced with ceremonial mayors. Section 274(5) of the new constitution may bring the executive mayor back. It provides that an Act of Parliament may confer executive decision-making powers on mayors and chairpersons of urban local authorities. It further requires that all mayors and chairpersons “must be” directly elected if they have an executive status. The direct election of executive mayors and chairpersons, while controversial, has the potential to engender accountability of such mayors and chairpersons to local citizens and facilitate efficient decision-making in local authorities. Governments the world over have considered the advantages and disadvantages of directly elected individualised executive leadership at the local level. In large urban local governments in particular, the introduction of executive mayors could have the advantage of strong and visible leadership, capable of efficient decisionmaking. When South Africa debated the introduction of its new local government system during the Green and White Paper processes, it devoted specific attention to the merits and demerits of executive mayors and set the scene for legislation ushering in executive mayors in specific local authorities. Regarding rural local government, Section 275(3) of the new constitution indicates that “different classes of local authorities may be established for different rural areas, and two or more different areas may be placed under the management of a single local authority”. This, therefore, means that the Rural District Act must give effect to this constitutional provision by providing for the establishment of different classes of local authorities in rural areas, and the placement of two or more areas under the management of a single rural local authority. The significance of this change is that, in those rural districts where a dedicated rural local authority would not be viable, these districts can be placed under the management of other local authorities. The benefits of such an arrangement may include improved revenue-raising potential, enhanced delivery of services and maximisation of economies of scale.

6 Conclusion This chapter commenced by situating the reader in relation to the history of local government and attempts at decentralisation of local governance throughout Zimbabwe’s history. It then discussed the devolution architecture as set out in the Zimbabwean constitution of 2013. In relation to the Second Republic specifically, undoubtedly there have significant strides taken towards devolution under Emmerson Mnangagwa, through major challenges exist in actioning devolution in Zimbabwe. While there was a lack of political will in the First Republic under Mugabe, the

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Second Republic has been preaching the devolution gospel wide and far. The constitutional provision for devolution of power is a governance milestone in Zimbabwe. What needs to be done, as argued in this chapter, is to align the pertinent laws to the constitution and implement devolution sequentially. At the same time, the model of devolution pursued under Mnangagwa’s government has the trappings of past models under Mugabe, in that Mnangagwa seems unwilling to decentralise in any radical sense, to ensure that the centre of power (ZANU-PF) holds. In this way, devolution demonstrates quite vividly the limitations and risks of Mnangagwa’s formative project since he took power in 2017.

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Didmus Dewa is currently studying towards a Doctor of Philosophy in Development at the Free State University of South Africa. He is a holder of a master’s degree in Development Studies, a postgraduate Diploma in Tertiary and Higher Education, and a B.A. Honours in History and Development Studies. He is a Programme Coordinator of the Master of Science in Development Studies, the postgraduate Diploma in Development Studies and the undergraduate B.Sc. Honours Development Studies (Zimbabwe Open University). He has attended conferences as a guest, presenter and facilitator. His research interests are governance, peace, sustainable development, and climate change.

Stimulating Socio-Economic Development

The Right to Development in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic Kucaca Ivumile Phulu and Serges Djoyou Kamga

Abstract The emergence of the post-Mugabe government sparked a frenzy of speculation about whether it heralds the beginning of a new era or simply more of the same. Against the “open for business” slogan and positive language around rights implementation, we assess if the new administration genuinely understands and is committed to implement Zimbabwe’s right to development. The Zimbabwean Constitution recognises a distinct right to development, following the spirit of the African Charter. The right to development is therefore more than just a social or political demand; it is also a legal right with enforceable legal responsibilities on governments to promote, defend, and fulfil the right to development. The Second Republic’s shortcoming has been in failing to deliver on its promises. This is seen in its reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic. While it sought to establish a suitable legislative framework for dealing with the pandemic, it failed horribly in putting its policies into action. For example, Zimbabwe’s government has failed to show transparency in how it handled millions of dollars of donated funds for the pandemic. Corruption was allowed to run helter-skelter and the Minister of Health was implicated in swindling almost, if not, all the donations. All this was taking place while lives were at stake. Further, the opposition contends that the government’s democratic rhetoric is not matching with what is obtained on the ground and cites the persecution of opposition leaders, labour leaders and civil society activists, among other issues. This exemplifies the typical government practice of failing to live up to the constitutional obligation of ensuring the right to development on a consistent basis. The Mnangagwa government has failed to implement the right to development in practice, despite putting in place policy and legislation consistent with the right to development. In this respect, even on what would seem like a safe and risk-free policy initiative (after all, who would argue against the right to development), the Mnangagwa’s government’s formative project falls short. K. I. Phulu (B) University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] S. D. Kamga Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Moyo and K. Helliker (eds.), Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic, Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30129-2_10

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1 Introduction The advent of the post-Mugabe regime, self-styled as the “Second Republic” and “New Dispensation,” brought to the fore a flurry of questions as to whether it was the beginning of a progressive era for Zimbabwe or simply signalled more of the same. With the “open for business” mantra and the positive language regarding the implementation of rights (and in particular the promise to implement devolution), it is timely to ask if the post-Mugabe government fully recognises and is prepared to implement the right to development in Zimbabwe. The notion of a right to development has been the subject of significant controversy by various legal scholars (Donnelly 1985; Vandenbogaerde 2013). But, currently, there is a recognition that the right to development exists, and the discourse on the right to development has moved from merely recognising the existence of the right to development to considering how it can be implemented at international and national levels (Phulu and Kamga 2018). The right to development is not only a social or political demand, as it is also an actual legal right from which enforceable legal obligations flow in terms of governments promoting, protecting and fulfilling the right to development. It is now up to individual states like Zimbabwe to fully recognise and implement this right. In particular, the coming forth of a new regime, whatever its political orientation, presents an opportunity to pursue the right to development. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a background to the right to development in general, to establish whether this right exists in Zimbabwe, and to examine whether the post-Mugabe government (i.e. Mnangagwa government) in Zimbabwe is gravitating towards taking steps to advance the right to development in the context of the new Constitution (from 2013). This will entail a focus not only on the individual’s right to development but also on group rights to development. The new Constitution of Zimbabwe includes a wide variety of economic, social, and cultural rights, and it may be argued that it is not necessary to make explicit provision for a right to development because of this bundle of rights. At the same time, national development is embraced in Zimbabwe’s Constitution (notably, Chapters 2 and 14) as one of the country’s national objectives (Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment No. 20), and the constitution makes reference to such notions as “development priorities,” “to further their development,” “social and economic development activities,” and “facilitate development” (Phulu and Kamga 2018). However, the mere appearance of these words in the text of the Constitution does not mean that there is automatically a right to development (recognised in the Constitution) as there is no specific wording referring directly to a right to development. It is thus necessary to analyse, as this chapter does, the Constitution and to interrogate whether there is indeed a right to development in Zimbabwe, and whether the Mnangagwa government is prepared to pursue it as part of its formative project. On 24 September 2018, President Emmerson Mnangagwa outlined his government’s Legislative Agenda for 2018–2019 (Veritas 2018). The legislative agenda gives an indication of the legislative programme of the government and thus it is possible to consider whether this statement of intent has any elements that show that it will significantly advance

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the cause of the right to development. The first port of call must be, however, to understand the meaning of the right to development, its content and its history.

2 The Logic of the Right to Development The first proposition of development as a right in international law is attributed to the Senegalese jurist, Kéba M’baye, in his argument in 1972 that “every person should enjoy in just measure the goods and services produced thanks to the effort of solidarity of the members of the community” (Ozoemena and Hansungule 2014, p. 503). African political leaders accepted this idea, resulting in the Organisation of African Unity (later, African Union) including the right to development in the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (African Charter) which was adopted on 27 June 1981 and entered into force on 21 October 1986. According to Viljoen (2012: 226), the African Charter (in Article 22) is the first (and only) binding human rights instrument to provide for the right to development. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACPHR) also spoke about the rights of “peoples” (or collectives) and their right to bring claims about development under the African Charter, in the Ogoni Case (Social and Economic Rights Action Centre and Centre for Economic and Social Rights v Nigeria, 1996). The Commission stated that the importance of community and collective identity in African culture is recognised throughout the ACHPR. Also relevant to the right to development is the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development (UNDRD) in 1986. The UNDRD is a declaration as opposed to a treaty and, despite its non-binding character, it highlights the importance of the right to development as a human right (Ozoemina and Hansungule 2014). Article 1 of the UNDRD recognises that the right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which all individual humans (and all groups of people, or collectives) are entitled to participate in and enjoy economic, social and cultural rights (ESCRs). The 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, reaffirmed the right to development at where it adopted the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action on 25 June 1993 thus emphasising a call to move beyond rhetoric towards actual implementation (Paragraph 9, 10 and 11). While ESCRs and the right to development are mutually supportive, ESCRs cannot take the place of the right to development as it is a distinct stand-alone right. The content of the right to development is a bundle of rights (civil and political as well as economic, social and cultural) which should be understood in their interdependency and interconnectedness (Kamga 2011: 388). There is a general consensus that the right to development is characteristically quite set apart from the other rights and it cannot be collapsed into civil and political rights as well as the ESCRs. In fact, the UNDRD highlights that the right to development is the basis on which all other rights can be realised. Phulu and Kamga (2018) attempt to unpack the content of the right to development as can be discerned from the literature on the right to development and, in particular, decisions of the African Commission and the African Court. A key feature of the right

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to development is that it has unique components that permit the bundle of rights to be applied to whole communities as collective rights (Kamga 2011: 390). Important in this regard is also a decision of the African Commission, namely, Centre for Minority Rights Development (Kenya) and Minority Rights Group International on behalf of Endorois Welfare Council v Kenya (Communication 266/03, 2009, AHLR 75) (the Endorois case). The right to development is an entitlement that is due to “peoples” as opposed to “individuals” in terms of the Article 22 of the ACHPR. However, a claim that there is a right to development for individuals emanating from the African Charter maybe possible to sustain if the UNDRD is used as an interpretative aid as it makes the human person the central subject of development. To emphasise, though, the Endorois decision emphasises the rights of “peoples” as opposed to individuals, and it uses the terminology of collectives and communities, providing general principles that can be adapted and used to identify groups to whom this right applies in Zimbabwe and elsewhere. Similar points about the right to development also appear in the latest judgement of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights (African Commission on Human and People’s Rights v The Republic of Kenya 2017) (Ogiek case). These points can also be read in the context of equity and choice as the overarching themes of the right to development (Sen 2000). In focusing on the Endorois decision, the burden for creating conditions favourable to a people’s development lies with the state. This is an important principle, which should be read into every provision that concerns the right to development. This means that the state cannot argue that it is for communities to take care of their development requirements. In the Endorois case, the African Commission stated that “[i]t is certainly not the responsibility of the Endorois themselves to find alternate places to graze their cattle or partake in religious ceremonies” (Endorois 2009: para. 298). The Commission emphasised that the state is obligated to ensure that the Endorois people are not left out of the development process or benefits arising from it. The Endorois recommendation also states that the right to obtain just compensation is a right of people to reasonably share in any benefits of development made because of a restriction or deprivation of their right to the use and enjoyment of their traditional lands and of those natural resources necessary for their survival. In the Endorois case, the African Commission established that the right to development is a two-pronged test in that it is both constitutive and instrumental, coupled with the fact that it is useful as both a means and an end. The Commission went on to note that a violation of either the procedural or the substantive element constitutes a violation of the right to development. Recognising the right to development also requires fulfilling of criteria such as equitability, non-discrimination, participation, accountability, and transparency. In this light, the following responsibilities lie with the state regarding the right to development: meaningful participation, entitlement to choices and capabilities, benefit sharing and the burden for creating conditions favourable to a people’s development (Phulu and Kamga 2018). The identification of these components of the right to development by the African Commission is in line with Article 2(3) of the United Nations Declaration on Development which states that the right to development includes active, free and meaningful participation in development. Meaningful

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and effective participation means that a government has a duty to consult with local peoples (including indigenous peoples), especially when dealing with sensitive issues such as land (Phulu and Kamga 2018). Consultations with communities cannot be a fait accompli, and community members must be given an opportunity to shape the policies or their role in matters affecting them, especially where natural resources are concerned. The concept of benefit sharing is similar to the concept of compensation for acquired land but goes beyond it in that it allows communities in which development takes place to participate in the ventures and share in the profits. There is no requirement on the part of the communities to prove ownership in terms of the common law or statutory requirements but ownership can be proved in terms of constitutional property law as amplified by the right to development. Overall, the government of the “Second Republic” in Zimbabwe would need to do more than pay lip-service to the right to development, including to the notion of consultation, in order for it to be seen as making genuine attempts at implementing the right to development. For example, one of the niggling issues that arose as a result of land resettlement programmes is whether there has been sufficient consultations with local peoples in the allocation of land and if in fact local peoples (along with their customs) have not been displaced by new populations under the guise of resettlement. This is a question that the post-Mugabe dispensation will have to handle, taking into account that people have a right to have their customs respected. The right to development requires that community representatives, as much as possible, must be placed in an equal bargaining position with the authorities where negotiations are conducted on development-related matters. It is against this background that the framers of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, which was developed during the Government of National Unity (GNU) from 2009 to 2013, considered the notion of the right to development in the Constitution, clearly adopting the spirit of the African Charter of fully recognising that there is and should be a separate right to development in the Constitution. The courts in Zimbabwe have not yet had the opportunity to pronounce on the right to development (either as an individual or collective right) as a legally enforceable right and it is one of the opportunities that present itself in the post-Mugabe era. The government should make it a priority to preserve the independence of the judiciary and enhance its capacity to lead the way in pronouncing rights in accordance with the Constitution, drawing from international and regional trends in doing so. On this basis, the chapter now turns more specifically to Zimbabwe and the right to development in general.

3 Right to Development and Zimbabwe’s Constitution The 2013 Constitution was conceived and finalised in the time of the Government of National Unity. Section 13(1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe enjoins the state and all institutions and agencies of government at every level to endeavour to facilitate development. In particular, the state must take measures to inter alia promote private initiative and self-reliance, and bring about balanced development to different areas

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of Zimbabwe, including a proper balance in the development of rural and urban areas. The Constitution also requires that people be involved in the formulation and implementation of development plans and programmes that affect them. Constitutionally, the state must ensure that local communities benefit from the resources in their areas, and that it protects and enhances the right of people, particularly women, to equal opportunities in development. The formulation of Section 13, which is targeted towards local communities, shows that there is a right to development in Zimbabwe, which the Constitution recognises (Moyo 2019; Phulu and Kamga 2018). The five main criteria for recognising the right to development in the form of “equitability,” “non-discrimination,” “participation,” “accountability” and “transparency,” feature very strongly and are directly addressed by reference to equitable development in Section 13(1), participation in Section 13(2)(3), as well as equal opportunities and gender mainstreaming in Section 13(3). In this respect, a reading of Section 13 meets all the criteria set out in Endorois for recognising the right to development. Section 13(3) is similar to the wording of Article 22 of the African Charter, which illustrates that a text enacting the right to development is always coupled with the element of equality. Therefore, the “right to equal opportunities in development” in the section is similar to the phrasing of Article 22, which makes for the “equal enjoyment of the common heritage of mankind,” the raison d’être of the right to development. Thus, it is argued that the right to development is provided for very strongly and explicitly by Section 13 of the Constitution. Above this, Section 13 provides for all the elements by which the right to development may be recognised. Section 13(2) goes on to enact the participatory element of the right to development. Section 13(3) and (4) address the aspect of benefit sharing directly as a duty imposed on the state to ensure that everyone has equal opportunities in development and that local communities benefit from the resources in their area. Benefit sharing is an important element of the right to development, particularly when developments take place in lands belonging to certain communities. Benefit sharing is vital both in relation to the right to development and, by extension, the right to own and control property (including land) by communities. The African Charter for Popular Participation in Development and Transformation (African Union 1990) is an important instrument in understanding benefit sharing in the development process. The African Commission states that the concept of benefit sharing “also serves as an important indicator of compliance for property rights; failure to duly compensate, even if the other important criteria of legitimate aim and proportionality are satisfied, will result in a violation of the right to property” (Endorois 2009). Decreasing the well-being of community members violates the right to development. The onus is placed on the Zimbabwean state to ensure the realisation of the right to development, which reflects the strong correlation between the indicators of the right to development and all the elements contained in Section 13 of the Constitution. The elements of equitability, non-discrimination, participation, accountability and transparency are recognised in Section 9(1) and (2), and these must be recognised by the state in the implementation of policies and legislation. Other sections in the Constitution also provide elements of the right to development. Sections 9 and 11, for instance, focus on good governance and enjoin the state to adopt and implement

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legislation to develop efficiency, competence, accountability, transparency, personal integrity and financial probity in all government institutions and agencies.

3.1 Justiciability of the Right to Development The Zimbabwean state and all its institutions and agencies at every level must endeavour to facilitate rapid and equitable development generally (Constitution of Zimbabwe 2013, Section 13(1)). In particular, the state must take measures to ensure specific development benchmarks (Sections 13(1) (a)(b)(c)(d)). This places a duty on the state to promote and respect the right to development. In fact, the words “promote” and “protect” are used specifically in Section 13. The justiciability of these rights is framed in a similar manner to the socio-economic rights in the Declaration of Rights. For example, in Section 75(4), the state is obligated to “take reasonable legislative and other measures, within the limits of the resources available to it, to achieve the progressive realisation of the right.” Additionally, the right to development is enforceable in the African Charter and thus all state parties must not interpret their laws in a way that does violence to the Charter (Attorney General of Botswana v Unity Dow 1992). As such, Section 13 read alongside Article 22 of the African Charter imposes a binding on Zimbabwe as a state party. The justiciability of the right to development is both direct and indirect. Indirect application means that, where it is “reasonably possible” (Currie and de Waal 2005: 66), a court must first read a provision or policy that is challenged in a way that conforms to the right to development before it can resort to direct application or to striking down the policy or provision (Govender v Minister of Safety and Security, 2001). The Zimbabwean government must promote this approach in order to ensure that government actions to initiate and implement development policies and legislation are consistent and comply with the requirements of the right to development as far as is practicable. It must also ensure that resources and facilities are provided to enable officials implementing policies and legislation do their work efficiently, fairly, honesty and conscientiously. All the Sections in Chapter 2 of the constitution, taken together, require that all programmes, policies and legislation must be interpreted in such a way that furthers the right to development. Where state officials fail to adhere to the Constitution, duty holders may approach the court for relief as the right to development is a justiciable right. The powers of the courts to declare constitutional invalidity in terms of Section 175(1)–(5) of the Constitution or to make any order that is just and equitable among other powers is applicable with equal force to the right to development as to any other constitutional issue (see Section 175(6)). The right to development must be taken into account in the development of the common law or customary law by the courts in terms of Section 176 of the Constitution. It is progressive that the right to development is provided for in the Zimbabwean Constitution, although the courts are yet to make a specific finding on the meaning and scope of the right to development. The courts will have to rely on the lead given

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by the African Commission and the African court in the Ogiek Case (2017) and Endorois Case (2009) in order to give content to the right to development. In the meantime, the government must up the tempo to incorporate the implementation of the right to development into its policy and legislative agenda. The right to development’s entire history in the African context is basically the fight to restore the African’s dignity in the post-colonial era. Perhaps the most important issue that needs to happen in the post-Mugabe era, regarding the right to development, is a pronouncement by the courts recognising it as a justiciable constitutional right. Thereafter, the development of the jurisprudence around the right to development should be allowed to unfold as jurists find ways of applying the right to the myriad of situations and the many ways in which it can be applied.

4 The Post-Mugabe Era From 1980s, Zimbabwe has always had a development framework in the form of legislation and policies addressing a multiplicity of priority areas. There was no legislative agenda aimed specifically at development in Zimbabwe. However, numerous acts of parliament indirectly deal with aspects of development in different cluster areas. An example of such clusters is the legislation dealing with local authorities such as the Urban Councils Act [Chapter 29:15], Rural District Councils Act [Chapter 29:13], Provincial Councils and Administration Act [Chapter 29:11], among others. The pieces of legislation that constitute the development framework were so numerous and diverse that they could not be described as a coherent legal framework around development. This lack of a co-ordinated legislative framework often led to contradictions in policies and between government agencies competing for space and resources (Phulu and Kamga 2018). The right to development means that this whole morass of legislation must now be read to conform with the right to development as provided for in the new Constitution and interpreted by the courts. The implementation of the right to development in the post-Mugabe era will not be achieved by empty pronouncements and compulsive legislation but by: firstly, a commitment to uphold the rule of law and implement the Constitution and, secondly, infusing into statecraft, the Constitutional requirement that all programmes, policies and legislation must be interpreted in such a way that furthers the right to development. A third point is that the courts in Zimbabwe must be willing to boldly confirm that there is a right to development and unpack its contents. Only time will tell whether the current Mnangagwa-led government has the political will to implement the right to development. At the same time, it is not too early to measure the government’s progress in implementing the right to development, as there are tell-tale signs about government commitment under Mnangagwa to promote, protect and fulfil the right to development. This can be pursued by looking mainly at what has been proposed in the law-making arena, i.e. in terms of analysing the legislative agenda and comparing it to the key elements of the right to development. Early on in its legislative agenda,

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the Mnangagwa government had indicated that it would be making efforts to align existing legislation to the 2013 Constitution, including an act to implement devolution. Progress in the enactment, amendment and repealing of laws to bring them in line with the Constitution would be conducive to the implementation of the right to development, since the Constitution contains many provisions that, if implemented, would lead to the enhanced promotion, protection and fulfilment of the right to development. Post-2013 legislation in Zimbabwe, when it comes to human rights and the right to development, must be framed and shaped by the constitution rather than solely by Mnangagwa’s regime. The priorities in the legislative agenda of the postMugabe regime remain significant in determining what happens over the next few years. In this respect, a few examples of some policy and legislation in the government’s agenda are discussed as an indication of whether there is a trajectory towards the implementation of the right to development. Nothing exposed the lack of commitment to development and the right to development than the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Zimbabwe has experienced the pandemic ramifications in a significant way and was compelled both by the declaration of the pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the fear, panic and desperation that gripped its population and its institutions, to come up with a raft of responses. Those responses had to draw on existing legislation, policies and institutions as there was no time to formulate special laws, institutions and policies to deal with a rapidly spreading and horrendous threat posed by the pandemic. It drew upon existing legal instruments to implement the actions that constitute its response to the Covid-19 crisis. This Covid-19 legal framework consists mainly of the Public Health Act [15:17], and a raft of new regulations and orders all made in terms of the Public Health Act. These legal instruments show that the New Dispensation has paid attention to the notion of group rights by emphasising the restriction of individual rights for the common good in certain circumstances. The right to development, as espoused in the constitution in its focus on “good governance” entails that the Zimbabwean state must adopt and implement legislation to develop efficiency, competence, accountability, equitability, non-discrimination, participation, transparency, personal integrity and financial probity in all government institutions and agencies. It is perhaps here, in particular, where the risk to Mnangagwa’s regime appears in relation to seeking to pursue the right to development as part of a genuine formative project. Constitutionally, the right to development is framed simultaneously as a right to democratic accountability. This sets limits to Mnangagwa’s disposition to enact the right to development as it threatens the fundamental character of the Zimbabwean state, a state which abounds with democratic deficiencies which act as enablers for power retention. The Public Health Act is a good example of legislation that is in tandem with the right to development, in that it embraces these elements. As Act number 11 from 2018, the Public Health Act is a post-2013 piece of legislation, which explains why it explicitly recognises the declaration of rights and the right to development principles. The Public Health Act empowers the Minister of Health and Child Care to mobilise and allocate adequate funding and other resources from public and private sources to accomplish the objects of the Act. The Minister of Health is also given powers to

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prepare and publish reports and statistics or other information related to public health; and, with other state authorities, to enforce laws and regulations that protect public health and safety. The Minister has a mandatory obligation to report to Parliament annually on progress made on the implementation of the rights in relation to public health set out in the Constitution. The Public Health Act explicitly requires that the following principles, among others, must guide public health policy and practice: (a) respect for human rights and adherence to both rights and responsibilities… (b) transparency, accountability and sustainability; (c) precaution and protection of public health when there is uncertainty or incomplete information about a public health risk; (d) promotion of partnership between state and non-state actors and community;… (e) community participation role in decisions and actions affecting their health… (f) promotion of access to information and education for public health; and (g) respect for international commitments in public health. (Section 32, Public Health Act: 2018) Quite clearly, homage is properly paid to the key elements of the right to development, such as respect for human rights and adherence to both rights and responsibilities. The element of responsibilities comes straight from the ACHPR and illustrates Zimbabwe’s commitment to a Southern conception of human rights. The emphasis on transparency, accountability and sustainability as well as the promotion of partnerships between state and non-state actors, and the role of community participation in issues affecting their health, are a hallmark of the right to development. The encouragement to promote access to information and education for public health in the Public Health Act as well as the duty to respect international commitments in public health, show that there is a clear embrace of the right to development in the public health landscape. Another example relates to the Tripartite Negotiating Forum Act (TNF) (2019), which was introduced to Parliament as part of the government’s legislative agenda. This legislation may be an indicator that the government wishes to level the ground in negotiating with partners, as it seeks to facilitate participatory development by fostering greater collaboration between all social partners. The government should extend the spirit behind this to platforms relating to development in order to ensure that community representatives are serious partners in development. In doing so, consultations must take into account the customs and traditions of the community and the principle of good faith through culturally appropriate procedures, as these are key attributes of participation in a development context. Importantly, the government must be careful not to undermine this progressive legislation by using it for what it was not enacted to do, that is, to suppress the right to strike by its partners. Cabinet in welcoming the passing of the TNF Act on 23 May 2019 indicated its intention to draw upon the act to bring stability to the issue of commodity prices through broad stakeholders’ collaboration in turning around the economy (The Chronicle, 20 June 2019). Consistent with this, Cabinet also committed to “continue to strengthen and deepen social safety nets so as to cushion

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consumers from the adverse effects of the ongoing austerity measures that are meant to reposition the economy on a sustainable path” (The Chronicle, 20 June 2019). Currently, though, in terms of ensuring a viable social contract, the tone of voice from senior government officials seems to indicate that government will not brook any criticism from the political opposition or labour unions. The Deputy Minister of Defence in July 2019 threatened that soldiers would be unleashed to crush opposition protests, warning: “They are trained to kill” (News 24 2019). The Minister of Home Affairs followed suit by threatening the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and the political opposition for planning protests due to the tough economic conditions (Sunday News 2019). There is a tendency towards indicating left and turning right, and this is not conducive to the implementation of the right to development, particularly as this right has been closely related to freedoms (Sen 2000). A further example of legislation relates to devolution. The implementation of successful devolution, all the way down to local levels, will ensure that government will be able to achieve acceptable levels of active, free and meaningful participation in development. The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning gazetted a bill to amend the Public Finance Management Act [Chapter 22:19] on 31st March 2021, 2 years after the Cabinet Committee on legislation approved this bill at the end of May 2019 (CALR 2021). In crafting this bill, the government noted that there is a need to pay attention to principles based on aspects relating to devolution that have emerged, in particular to properly finance the provincial and metropolitan councils as required by the Constitution and the government’s policy of devolution (Government of Zimbabwe 2020). The Provincial Councils and Administration Act (PCAT) [Chapter 29:11], as well as legislation pertaining to rural and urban government, also needs to be amended: in the case of the PCAT, in order to action the formation of provincial councils which remained in limbo under the Mugabe government (Government of Zimbabwe 2020). The Provincial Councils and Administration Amendment Bill were approved by Cabinet at the end of November 2018 and the Bill was submitted to Parliament in March 2021 and was gazetted on 1 April 2021 (CALR 2021). This legislative revision will enhance the drive to implement devolution which will, in turn, improve transparency and public participation in governance. The provision of funds through the Public Finance Management Amendment Bill will deepen the capacity of provincial governments. Another example, and a litmus test for the Mnangagwa government, is the need to for a Traditional Leaders Amendment Bill to bring the Traditional Leaders Act into line with the Constitution. The principles for the Traditional Leaders Amendment Bill were approved by the Cabinet Committee on Legislation in June 2020 (CALR 2021). Again, this area remained stagnant during Mugabe’s era, as there was absolutely no effort to align the Traditional Leaders Act to the Constitution. Lessons learnt from the Endorois and Ogiek cases show that, at the core of this issue in relation to the right to development, is the preservation of the way of life, tradition and customs of peoples including those that are considered to be a minority. The 2013 Constitution provides for the rights and structures of traditional chiefs, and for the respect and usage of multiple languages. Although traditional leaders are not a tier of government, nor are

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they part of local government, it is recognised that they are an important rural local governance institution in Zimbabwe and their interface with national government has had an enduring effect on broader governance practices and policy (Chatiza et al. 2016). Because the institution of traditional leadership is not democratically elected, it could be taken to be in conflict with the expectations and practices of a constitutional democracy. Before the 2013 Constitution, traditional leaders were not provided for constitutionally and they had existed at the benevolence and pleasure of legislation as passed by the governments of the day in both the colonial and post-colonial era. The constitutional right of local peoples to their traditional institutions was not recognised. As a result, although these institutions were in existence, they were subject to abuse and manipulation by governments and their independence severely compromised. This was compounded by the fact that their roles and responsibilities often overlapped and clashed with those of civil local authorities. This state of affairs was a violation of the right to development, as the role of traditional leadership remained tenuously hanging in the air. The proposed Traditional Leaders Amendment Bill to ensure that the Traditional Leaders Act [29:17] is consistent with the Constitution, is a move in the right direction. A concrete example of the potency of traditional leaders to deal with mainstream political and development issues is provided with reference to consultations between Mnangagwa (as President) and chiefs in 2019 (Chiefs from Matabeleland and Midlands 2019). The hopes that this signifies preparedness to lend an ear to the Chief’s grievances is a small signal that was quickly dashed by reports that affected chiefs were not invited to the meeting and it was decried as a sham process (Pindula News 2021). This shows that there is no political will to listen and address the grievances of traditional leaders on contentious issues such as Gukurahundi, among other political demands. This is quite incredible given that the late Chief Maduna had earlier raised this matter in a sharply written letter where allegations of state harassment of the Chief were reported (Maduna et al. 2018). In the end, strengthening the institution of the traditional leaders by putting forward legislation to implement their constitutional protections is urgent and is lacking. Another closely related issue pertains to languages, a matter also raised by the Chiefs and whose importance cannot be quickly passed over (Chiefs from Matabeleland and Midlands 2019). Bills such as the Education Amendment Bill, and Companies and Other Entities Bill provide for the use of the many officially recognised languages established in the Constitution. This is an indication of a commitment by the Mnangagwa government to comply with the Constitution and facilitate as well as fulfil the right to development. The use of home languages cannot be separated out from key elements of the right to development such as effective and meaningful participation, entitlement to choices, and enhancing capabilities. But, more still needs to be done—in particular, a separate language bill needs to feature in the government’s legislative agenda. A discussion paper for the Languages Bill has been prepared by the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education. Languages are at the core of the right to development and the absence of a languages bill is a chink in the armour of the government’s legislative agenda.

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The Endorois case and the Ogiek case, the first case by the African Court of Peoples and Human Rights to pronounce on the right to development, emphasised that one of the crucial elements of indigenous people’s culture was their language which, in each case, was found to be dying out. African regional jurisprudence is clear that there can be no meaningful development or, at least, there can be no access to the right to development without communities accessing the use of their own language. What can be identified as positive so far regarding the Mnangagwa government’s handling of the issue of languages is merely the intention to deal with it. There is still a major need for the government to come up with a clear policy on how the language clause in the Constitution will be fully implemented. In addition to the above examples, a number of other bills have implications for the right to development, such as the Mines and Minerals Act [Chapter 21:05], which has stalled in Parliament and seems unlikely to be passed in this 9th Parliament which ends in 2023. As well, there are various other laws on the government’s legislative agenda that could contribute towards enhancing the right to development. Ultimately, however, the enhancement of the implementation of the right to development will depend on the ability of the legislators and policy makers to unpack the right to development and understand the key indicators to measure the implementation of the right to development. So far, there are positive indications of a willingness to fulfil the rights to development in the Zimbabwean Constitution. However, the measure of progress lies ultimately in the content of the laws that Parliament will pass and the policy measures of the government as evaluated over time. In time, it should be possible to measure whether the different pieces of legislation and the policies of Zimbabwe’s government respect the rights to development as applied to whole communities (Kamga 2011), including the level of meaningful participations by these communities, their entitlement to choices and capabilities, and benefit sharing, and whether the government is discharging its burden by creating conditions favourable to the development of communities. The political will to ensure the right to development is the sum total of a range of factors, including contestations within electoral democracy and the intent of political actors more broadly in Zimbabwe to implement the right to development (Munyai and Agbor 2018). These actors go beyond the ruling party to include the political opposition, civil society, watchdog organisations and other stakeholder groups. The government has the obligation, constitutionally, to ensure that all are pulling together to achieve an acceptable level of protection of development rights. Presently, the weaponisation of Covid-19 to act against the said stakeholder groups as observed by Moyo and Phulu (2021) is another example of the Second Republic’s tendency to use the cover of well intentioned laws to achieve political purposes rather than the development that the laws are intended to enhance. The March 2019 disaster in Chimanimani and Chipinge caused by Cyclone Idai illustrates the point made by Phulu and Kamga (2018) that the end result of the right to development should be empowerment of communities. It is not sufficient for the authorities to merely provide food aid and safety nets as humanitarian actions. The Endorois case highlighted the importance of entitlements for people in terms of choices and capabilities as a key element of the right to development. Hence, there

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must be a concerted effort at improving the capabilities and choices of communities in order for the right to development to be realised. This means that communities will have the capacity to prevent or mitigate disasters by having the mandate and resources to address and deal with development issues that they face. If the government adopts this approach, it becomes apparent that one of the key omissions from the legislative agenda is an opportunity to re-imagine disaster risk management by aligning the Civil Protection Act [Chapter 10:06] to the Constitution of Zimbabwe, with an emphasis on empowerment of local communities through devolving this important function of development. As the post-Mugabe state pushes for massive investments in all sectors of the economy and attempts to rationalise multiple land ownership and other issues arising from the land reform process, it will be key to prioritise local communities from a benefit sharing point of view (Mazwi et al. 2018). Indeed, this principle has a strong interrelationship with ensuring that, in land resettlement, those from elsewhere do not supplant local communities. The current Mines and Minerals Act [Chapter 21:05] is an example of the continuation of colonial thinking that mineral rights and the rights of mining capital to extract minerals trump the surface rights of local people settled in a particular area. To enhance the right to development, laws should now balance the interests of local communities and mining rights in Zimbabwe. This should be central to any discussions in the parliament about a new mining act. The Community Share Ownership Scheme attempted an approach similar to benefit sharing; however, it was based on regulations to the now repealed Indigenisation Act and was not predicated on rights that communities could claim as a human rights. Further, it was subject to the whims of the minister in charge. That the Indigenisation Act perished is testimony to the weaknesses of prescriptions that are not rights-based, no matter how noble they are. The right to development, if recognised, offers a more solid avenue for rightsholders to claim their rights than half-hearted legislative or policy measures that are divorced from human rights. So far, the failing of the Second Republic has been in not doing what it says it will do. Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than in its response to the Covid-19 pandemic. While it provided a conducive legislative framework, and reasonable, it floundered quite spectacularly in executing its policies. Mnangagwa’s government has failed to show transparency in how it handled millions of donated funds for the pandemic. Corruption was allowed to run helter-skelter and the Minister of Health was implicated in swindling almost, if not, all the donations (Aljazeera 2020). NonGovernmental Organisations have had to take the government to court in order to obtain the distribution matrix for the donations (Muvundusi 2020). All this was taking place while lives were at stake. This exemplifies the typical government practice of failing to live up to the constitutional obligation of ensuring the right to development on a consistent basis.

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5 Conclusion The multi-layered crisis that Zimbabwe is presently experiencing will no doubt continue to affect the implementation of the right to development. Notwithstanding a number of areas where there has been some progress, there is a range of political and economic issues that may render such progressive tendencies rather isolated events. At the centre of the crisis in Zimbabwe is a crisis of government legitimacy, born out of a disputed electoral process that is viewed by international observers as not credible. For example, the European Union Delegation observed in its final report that the figures presented by the ZEC contained many anomalies and inaccuracies, and it raised enough questions to lead them to doubts as to the accuracy and reliability of the numbers presented. This legitimacy question exists, together with the lingering accusations by the opposition that the government of Zimbabwe is selling a hollow new dispensation narrative to the international community in efforts to unlock international financing to rescue the tanking economy. Further, the opposition contends that the government’s rhetoric about change is not matching with what is obtaining on the ground and it cites the persecution of opposition leaders, labour leaders and the broader civil society among other issues. The government has simply failed to implement the right to development in practice, despite facilitating the introduction of policy and legislation consistent with the right to development. In this respect, like other dimensions of Mnangagwa’s formative project, the Zimbabwean government is failing to enact in practice the right to development in any meaningful way, if only because this would entail a process of democratic transition and consolidation. The failure to live up to the development ethos was sharply exposed by the Mnangagwa government’s handling of Covid-19 funds and its willingness to risk the lives of its people on the altar of corruption and greed. A constitutional framework for the right to development means that legislative and policy agendas must operate within the parameters of this framework. The procedural aspects of the reform processes and the substantive content of this reform must be loyal to the requirements of the constitution. Over time, we will be able to see more clearly whether this government or indeed successive governments in Zimbabwe will be committed to that standard.

References African Union (1990). African union African charter for popular participation in development. African Union, Arusha, Tanzania Aljazeera (2020) aljazeera. June 20. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/zimbabwe-healthminister-granted-bail-60m-corruption-case-200620190428039.html. Accessed 29 June 2020 Attorney General of Botswana v Unity Dow (1992) Const 623 ( Court of Appeal Botswana) CALR (2021) CALR-IMT Bill Tracker—March 2021. http://www.ca-lr.org/download/imt-bill-tra cker/. Accessed 24 May 2021 Centre for Minority Rights Development (Kenya) and Minority Rights Group International on behalf of Endorois Welfare Council v Kenya (2009) Communication 75AHLR, 266/03 (African Commission on peoples and Human Rights, March)

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Chatiza K, Nkala P, Phulu KI (2016) The constitution of Zimbabwe—Amendment No. 20 of 2013 and local authorities. LACEP, Harare Chiefs from Matabeleland and Midlands (2019) Compilation of submissions by chiefs from Matebeleland and Midlands. June 28. https://img.bulawayo24.com/pdf/Compilation.pdf Currie I, de Waal J (2005) The bill of rights handbook, 5th edn. Juta and Co (Ltd) Donnelly J (1985) In search of the unicorn: the jurisprudence and politics of the right to development. Calif West Int Law J 15(3):473–509 Govender v Minister of Safety and Security (2001) (SCA) Government of Zimbabwe (2020) Devolution and decetrailsation policy. Fidelity Printers, Harare, August 31 Kamga S (2011) Human rights in Africa: prospects for the realisation of the right to development under the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. Dissertation. University of Pretoria, Pretoria Maduna C, Jahana C, Sibasa C (2018) Ndebele Chiefs’ letter to President Emmerson Mnangagwa— fulltext. Bulawayo24.com. November 13. https://bulawayo24.com/index-id-opinion-sc-lettersbyo-149593.html. Accessed 1 July 2019 Mazwi F, Tekwa N, Chambati W, Mudimu GT (2018) Locating the position of peasants under the “New Dispensation”: a focus on land tenure issues. Kubatana.net. August. http://kubatana.net/ 2018/08/17/locating-position-peasants-new-dispensation-focus-land-tenure-issues/. Accessed 23 Apr 2019 Moyo K (2019) Iplementing the right to development at the domestic level: a critique of the Zimbabwean Constitution. In: Ngang CC, Kamga SD, Gumede V (eds) Perspectives on the right to development. Pretoria University Law Press (PULP), pp 225–272 Moyo G, Phulu KI (2021) The Weaponisation of the coronavirus crisis in Zimbabwe: legal and extra-legal instruments. iBusiness, pp 48–66 Munyai A, Agbor AA (2018) The implact of corruption on the right to development in Africa. In: Ngang CC, Kanga SD, Gumede V (eds) Perspectives of the right to development. Pretoria University Law Press (PULP), pp 70–96 Muvundusi J (2020). dailynews. April 13. https://dailynews.co.zw/tiz-demands-covid-19-transpare ncy/. Accessed 29 June 2020 News 24 (2019) Bulawayo News 24. July 31. https://bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-nationalbyo-167149.html. Accessed 8 Aug 2019 Ozoemena R, Hansungule M (2014) Development as a human right in Africa: changing attitude for the realisation of woman’s substantive citizenship. Law Democr Dev 18:224 Phulu KI, Kamga SD (2018) ‘Towards a happy prosperous and fulfilling life’: recognising the right to development in the in the Zimbabwean Constitution. In: Ngang CC, Kamga SD, Gumede V (eds) Persectives of the right to development. Pretoria University Law Press, pp 233–254 Pindula News (2021) Mnangagwa meeting with matabeleland chiefs on gukurahundi is meaningless: chief. https://news.pindula.co.zw/. August 22. https://news.pindula.co.zw/2021/08/22/mnanga gwa-meeting-with-matabeleland-chiefs-on-gukurahundi-is-meaningless-chief/. Accessed 10 Sep 2021 Sen A (2000) Development as freedom. Oxford University Press Sunday News (2019) Police on high alert as MDC plots demos. Zimpapers Vandenbogaerde A (2013) The right to development in international human rights law: a call for its dissolution. Neth Q Hum Rights 31(2):187–209 Veritas (2018) Bill Watch 26/2018. Veritas, Harare Viljoen F (2012) International human rights law in Africa, 2nd edn. Oxford University Press

Kucaca Ivumile Phulu is an Advocate of the Superior Courts of Zimbabwe, and a member of The Temple Bar in Harare. He is also a Member of Parliament representing Nkulumane Constituency.

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He holds an LLB (University of Zimbabwe), MSc in Development Studies (National University of Science and Technology), and LLM (Midlands State University) and, as well, is an LLD Candidate at the University of South Africa (UNISA). Serges Djoyou Kamga is a Full Professor of Human Rights Law at the Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs (TM-SCHOOL), University of South Africa (UNISA). He is a member of the Building Committee of the Cross Cultural Human Rights Centre. His research over the years demonstrates a profound and sustained commitment to advancing knowledge about human rights in Africa, especially on the right to development in the African human rights system, human rights from cross cultural perspectives, and disability rights. He is the author/editor/co-editor of ten books. Professor Kamga has received several research grants and awards including the prestigious Ali Mazrui Award for Scholarship and Research Excellence for 2021.

China’s Expanding Footprint and Deepening Debt Crisis in Zimbabwe—From Robert Mugabe to Emmerson Mnangagwa Gorden Moyo

Abstract This chapter discusses the controversial Chinese development finance in the post-Mugabe era in Zimbabwe. It argues that President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who succeeded Robert Mugabe in 2017, has continued to depend on the opaque Chinese financing models despite promising the nation a new chapter of transparency, accountability and openness in his inauguration speech. It further argues that, while the Mnangagwa presidency has been celebrating the Chinese funding, the country has remained engrossed in a morass of a debilitating debt trap and has been struggling to extricate itself from the debt peonage for over two decades now. Instead of contributing towards social and economic development, the Chinese loans to Zimbabwe under President Mnangagwa are implicated in the deepening of debt sustainability problems in the country. This is mainly because some of the loans are shrouded in secrecy while others are resource-backed loans that have left the country mortgaged to Beijing. This chapter therefore sets out to unpack the notion of ‘continuity and change’ through examining China’s expanding geo-economic footprint and the implications of this for debt sustainability in the post-Mugabe era in Zimbabwe. It concludes that, although Mugabe’s rule formally ended in November 2017, the Chinese debt diplomacy which started during his era has continued to define the debt landscape of Mnangagwa’s Second Republic.

1 Introduction The fall of Robert Mugabe’s government and the inauguration of Emmerson Mnangagwa as president of Zimbabwe in November 2017 were positively received at home and abroad as a welcome opportunity for change. Domestically, the Mnangagwa presidency promised a break from Mugabe’s long reign of terror, impunity, and economic mismanagement among many other political and economic ills. On the international G. Moyo (B) Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Lupane State University, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Moyo and K. Helliker (eds.), Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic, Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30129-2_11

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stage, it was cautiously welcomed as an opportunity to alter Mugabe’s acerbic international relations. In his inaugural speech, President Mnangagwa committed his government to implement a raft of political and economic reforms. He also promised to usher in a more nuanced approach to foreign policy while tackling pressing economic and political reforms at home. Thus, to many people, Mnangagwa’s ‘Second Republic’ was received as a new beginning and an end to what Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2015) has termed ‘Mugabeism’ and its anachronistic descriptors including intimidation, personalisation of power, egoism, nativism, chauvinism, debauchery, sycophancy, and Afro-radical narrow nationalism. However, today, many Zimbabweans who initially supported the ousting of Robert Mugabe are now agitated by Mnangagwa’s ineptitude and failure to address the political and economic maladies that the country is currently facing (Moyo and Phulu 2021). Some members of the international community are equally dismayed, disappointed, and distraught by the lack of political will to implement the promised reforms. Noyes (2020) was right when he noted that there is a global consensus that Mnangagwa government is not doing enough on the economic, electoral, and political reform front. To be precise, the Mnangagwa presidency has not ushered in any significant shift from his predecessor. Contrary to expectations that his ascendancy could signal a significant change in state-society relations, government critics continue to be silenced through arbitrary arrest, and corruption and human rights violations continue unabated. More importantly for this chapter, government has continued to secretly contract loans from China and other authoritarian states such as Russia and Belarus without the knowledge of parliament. Thus, contrary to the expectations that the Mnangagwa presidency would herald a new age of transparency, rule of law, and democratic governance, the reality thus far seems to suggest continuity of the old order rather than change. It is against this backdrop that this chapter seeks to unpack the notion of ‘continuity and change’ through examining China’s expanding geoeconomic footprint and the implications of this for debt sustainability in the postMugabe era. In recent years, Zimbabwe has witnessed an influx of Chinese investors and entrepreneurs in almost all the key sectors of the economy including mining, agriculture, infrastructure, and construction among others. There are claims that Zimbabwe has contracted huge amounts of debts from China during the short years of Mnangagwa’s rule, although the problem started during the Mugabe era (AFRODAD 2020). Unfortunately, the subject of Chinese development finance in Zimbabwe, as is the case elsewhere in the world, is shrouded in secrecy. Unlike traditional lenders and creditors, the Chinese Government does not release data on its lending activities abroad. Similarly, the corrupt government of Robert Mugabe was accused of hiding its debts particularly those contracted from Beijing, the Kremlin, and other authoritarian regimes. As will become clear in the rest of this chapter, the Mnangagwa presidency seems to have simply continued the same pattern of mortgaging the country to the Chinese and other autocratic states from the South (Moyo 2020a). This chapter raises five fundamental questions on Sino-Zimbabwe relations in the post-Mugabe era: If Zimbabwe is open for business, how come the Chinese are the

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only or at least the most visible investors/creditors/lenders/entrepreneurs in the postMugabe era in the country? How much has Zimbabwe borrowed from China? What is known about the terms and conditions of this borrowing? What is known about what this borrowing has been used to invest in? And, is Mnangagwa’s approach to Chinese lending, trade and investment different from Mugabe’s approach? All these questions are screaming for responses. However, for reasons of brevity, some of these questions will not receive adequate attention here, and, yet, posing them on its own is important as we reflect on the notion of ‘change and continuity’ in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic. The rest of the chapter is structured as follows: an overview of China’s forays into Africa followed by a brief history of Zimbabwe’s debt crisis; an examination of the Chinese loans under the Mugabe and Mnangagwa administrations; and, before concluding, the implications of the resource-backed loans to the future of Zimbabwe.

2 Overview of Beijing’s Geo-economic Interest To fully understand Sino-Zimbabwe relations in the post-Mugabe era, it is important that we begin with an overview of Beijing’s global standing. In the first instance, it should be noted that China is a rising global player that is undeniably shaping the twenty-first century in very significant and profound ways. This is particularly true with its ‘generous’ financial largesse extended to countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa among others. It is common knowledge that China’s ‘Going Global Policy’ is driven by its appetite for natural resources, energy security, and new export markets as well as geostrategic interest. In recent years, China has replaced the traditional Euro-American lenders as Africa’s single largest bilateral creditor accounting for approximately 20% of Africa’s total debt stock (Were 2018; Moyo 2020a). At the same time, it has surpassed the United States of America as Africa’s largest trading partner while having the second largest economy globally. To be clear, China and Africa have a long historical bond which predates the Beijing’s recent forays on the African continent and the coronavirus diplomacy which began in 2020. The subtext of the Sino-Africa ties is informed and influenced by their shared experiences of colonialism and their statuses as developing regions, as well as their impulse against Euro-American hegemonism, neoimperialism, and the alleged bullying tendencies against the countries of the global South in general (Moyo et al. 2020). China’s expanding presence in Africa is a topic that arouses both concern and fascination. On the one hand, China is welcome on the continent as a development financier that is loaded with some kind of ‘redemptive’ funding for Africa’s development agenda after years of what Amin (2017) termed ‘development of underdevelopment’. Those in support of China’s forays in Africa argue that its development finance has sparked an ‘infrastructural revolution’ in countries such as Angola, Ethiopia, and Kenya among others (Moyo 2020a, 2021). On the other hand, those with a contrary view note that Beijing is an ‘economic hawk’, a ‘resource colonialist’, ‘a resource grabber’, a ‘land grabber’, a ‘new scrambler’, a

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‘new-imperialist’, a ‘sub-imperialist’, a ‘rogue donor’, a ‘rogue creditor’, a ‘predatory lender’, an ‘anti-democracy’ and an ‘anti-liberal’ country—the list is endless (Moyo 2021; Bond 2013, 2017, 2018). It is, however, important to keep in mind that whether China is spurred by a race for natural resources, access to export markets, a quest for geo-economic control, or its mercantile interest, or even by aspirations to create a new Sinocentric world order, few of these motives are new in Africa (Moyo 2021). It has long been observed that the Euro-American powers came to Africa with their own hidden agendas as well. Indeed, Africa is still struggling from the historical legacies of slavery, colonialism, imperialism, neo-imperialism, globalisation, and globalism, all of which were and continue to be driven by the Euro-Western powers and their economic and financial organisations, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organisation, and the World Economic Forum. Decolonial thinkers ala Aime Cesare, Adebayo Adedeji, Adebayo Olukoshi, Albert Memmi, Anibal Quijano, Arturo Escobar, Enrique Dussel, Frantz Fanon, Issa Shivji, Kwame Nkrumah, Ngugi Wa-Thiong’o, Romano Grosfoguel, Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Samir Amin, Steve Biko, Thandika Mkandawire, and Walter Mignolo among others, have long raised concerns about the neo-imperial impulses of the West, which are not dissimilar to the recent activities of Beijing in Africa. By many measures, China’s current engagement blitz with the Second Republic of Zimbabwe has made it the most significant foreign actor in the country’s economic spheres. As previously noted, its presence is ubiquitous and its interests are widespread with its footprint in mining, agriculture, infrastructural development, power generation, construction, communications technology, and retailing. Along with these investments, it has been providing interest-free loans and concessional loans offered by the China Export–Import Bank and other policy banks. This has left Zimbabwe engrossed in a morass of a debilitating debt crisis which has since deepened during the short years of the Mnangagwa presidency.

3 Evolution of Debt Crisis in Zimbabwe The discussion on sovereign debt in Zimbabwe will be incomplete if it does not start where it all began. It is common knowledge that Zimbabwe has been in debt distress since the year 2000 when the country first defaulted on its external debt service obligations to the duo of the Bretton Woods Institutions—the World Bank and the IMF. Since then, the country has not been able to access funding from the EuroAmerican financiers, be they bilateral or multilateral creditors and lenders. To date, the country’s external debt stock position remains unsustainable with additional debt servicing pressures coming from the escalating domestic debt borrowing amid fiscal space contraction and expansive Chinese lending (Moyo 2020a, b, c, 2021). As at the end of July 2022, Zimbabwe’s public debt is approximately US$13.2 billion (external debt) plus ZWL1.3 trillion (domestic debt). The roots of Zimbabwe’s current debt crisis are traceable back to the colonial debt of over US$700 million inherited from

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the Rhodesian Government in 1980 (Zimcodd 2018; Bracking and Sachikonye 2009; Bond and Manyanya 2003). Much of this debt was condemnedas illegal and racist by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) which, at the time, had imposed sanctions on Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa. Yet, in spite of these globally recognised sanctions against the colonial government, large amounts of loans were extended to Rhodesia by some unscrupulous and predatory foreign banks, financiers, loan sharks, and global capitalists. Such loans and transactions were shielded from public scrutiny and were obviously omitted from the Schedule of National Debt and yet, surprisingly, these were passed on to the new Zimbabwe rulers in 1980 without much contention or resistance from the nationalists. The colonial debt signified Zimbabwe’s bad economic birthmark. It was an immoral, unjust, odious, and illegitimate debt contracted by a racist regime in pursuit of its racial interest and global coloniality. A pantheon of decolonial thinkers such as Anibal Quijano, Ramon Grosfoguel, Madina Tlostanova, Enrique Dussel, Walter Mignolo, and Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni view this not as a happenstance but as a carefully designed strategy of colonial impulses beyond the expiry date of colonial administration. It is indeed reasonable to argue that the colonial debt was deployed by global capitalists as one of the technologies of subjectivation, subalternisation, and control of the newly independent state of Zimbabwe. Thus, like most post-liberation governments across Africa, Zimbabwe was impelled from its very inception to go on a borrowing spree from its ex-colonisers and their juridical economic institutions, thereby permanently entrenching a dependency syndrome and aid addiction as part of its future. Consequently, just ten years into its juridical political independence, Zimbabwe was mired in a combination of high debt service obligations, low industrial and export competitiveness, rising levels of capital flight, depressed investor confidence, fiscal deficits, stunted growth, high unemployment, increasing levels of social poverty, and constrained access to new external financing, culminating in a net outflow of resources and ultimately in debt vulnerability which has persisted to this day (Moyo 2018; Saungweme and Odhiambo 2018). Regrettably, this was further compounded by the new state-managers of Zimbabwe who orchestrated a senseless ethnic cleansing exercise on the defenceless peoples of Matabeleland and Midlands Provinces between 1982 and 1987 in which over 20,000 innocent lives were deemed killable and dispensable (Moyo 2017). The financial implications of this callous, cruel and criminal chapter in the history of Zimbabwe remain a closely guarded state secret. In addition to the colonial debt, the IMF and the World Bank pushed large amounts of loans to Zimbabwe and to many other African countries in pursuit of their neoliberal policy agenda in the early 1990s. It is widely known that these imperially inspired structural adjustment loans were provided on the condition that Zimbabwe adopted a menu of orthodox Washington Consensus policy prescriptions including but not limited to dramatic cuts in social spending, trade liberalisation, deregulation of prices, and devaluation of the exchange rate, destatisation, desubsidisation, and downsizing of the workforce (Moyo 2021). As predicted by African luminaries such as Adebayo Adedeji, Thandika Mkandawire, and Samir Amin, these policy handouts dismally

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failed to achieve their stated objectives right across Africa. To be clear, much of the overdue debt arrears currently owed by Zimbabwe to the traditional creditors were contracted during the era of the Structural Adjustment Programmes. Again, it should be recalled that during the era of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), Zimbabwe drew large amounts for its balance of payments (BOP) support from the IMF; social development and emergency relief expenditures from the World Bank; and official development assistance (ODA) from the bilateral creditors. The Jubilee Debt Campaign estimates that US$750 million of Zimbabwe’s current debt came directly from structural adjustment loans provided by the World Bank, the IMF, and the African Development Bank (Jubilee Debt Campaign 2011). It is instructive to note that some of the structural adjustment loans were tied to the use of companies from the source countries. For example, the Jubilee Debt Campaign has established that around US$30 million of debt owed to the United Kingdom originated from loans to the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) to buy British-made Land Rovers and this was done in the interest of the British Land Rover Company and not for Zimbabwean taxpayers (Jubilee Debt Campaign 2011). Additionally, the loan of US$140 million from the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) and the Department for International Development (DFID) was tied to the use of British companies, goods and services (Zimcodd 2018). This is somewhat similar to the current Chinese tied-aid strategy which has exposed a number of African countries including Djibouti, Kenya, and Zambia to debt vulnerabilities (Moyo 2021). It can therefore be reasoned that at the time, the neoliberal institutions of IMF and the World Bank implemented a strategy of ‘loan-pushing’ to African countries without caring much about transparency, the capacity to repay, the proper governance of the funds and the due processes of lending. Again, this is somewhat similar to the approach taken by Beijing in its lending to Africa. On the heels of the structural adjustment programme was the controversial Fast Track Land Reform Programme which began in 2000. This land reform programme was radically set out to change skewed land ownership and resolve the problem of ‘foreignisation’ of land in Zimbabwe. While the land issue was a legitimate grievance of the ordinary people, the then Mugabe administration tainted it with narrow nationalism, neo-populism, reverse racism, nativism, violence, and human rights violations predicated on a Nietzschean paradigm of hate and war (Moyo 2015). At the same time, Zimbabwe Defence Forces were deployed in a complicated war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where their up-keep was approximately US$1 million per month (Moyo 2016). In response to the human rights violations, the chaotic land reform programme, and the DRC military engagement, the Euro-Western powers imposed sanctions and targeted measures against the government of Zimbabwe, denying it access to credit facilities from international financial institutions. The sanctions also suspended Zimbabwe’s Voting Rights in the IMF as well as closed access to lines of credit to Zimbabwean companies and certain individuals identified as interlocutors of human rights violations. The United States in particular passed an Act dubbed the ‘Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA)’ to give legal effect to the measures and sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe.

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Apparently the sanctions and the targeted measures imposed on Zimbabwe had an unintended effect. They pushed the late former President Mugabe and his associates in government into the open arms of the Beijing and Kremlin governments, who were ready to revive their historical ties with the ruling Zimbabwe African National Unity-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party (Moyo et al. 2020). In line with their doctrine of sovereignty, non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, mutual respect, mutual cooperation and equal partnership, the Chinese in particular heartily embraced the resource-rich southern African country. From then onwards, Zimbabwe’s trade, aid, and investment relations were largely reshaped and redirected towards the re-emerging economies of the Global South (Mukwereza 2013). It is this renewed Zimbabwe-Sino relationship of the early 2000s that has directly resulted in the Chinese debt trap in Zimbabwe. Since then, Zimbabwe has been accumulating debts from China and other Global South powers at a geometric rate, thereby growing its exposure to debt slavery which is already a bane to the government’s economic recovery efforts. It must be noted from the outset that the Chinese loans are provided to countries without conditionalities except for the non-recognition of Taiwan. Issues of human rights, rule of law, democracy, and good governance that are usually demanded by the Euro-Western powers as well as by international economic and financial institutions as conditions for funding, are not factors when it comes to Chinese financing practices. In this context, authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes like Zimbabwe and Sudan have forged very strong ties with the authoritarian regime in Beijing.

4 Chinese Debt Financing in the Mugabe Era To begin with, it must be reiterated that the relationship between China and Zimbabwe dates back more than half a century ago. At the height of the liberation struggle, Beijing provided arms and training to the freedom fighters of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), the military wing of Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF. Fast forward, between 1998 and 2008, former President Mugabe declared his Look East Policy and took substantial efforts to gain Beijing’s favour through a wide range of investment incentives. Crucially, during Mugabe’s era, Chinese companies and businesses were exempted from complying with the Indigenisation and Empowerment Regulations and they were allowed to retain 100 per cent ownership when all other foreign companies were required to comply with the 51–49% policy (Moyo 2020b). Other incentives to the Chinese businesses were in the form of tax exemptions and related incentives such as tax holidays, tax credits, reduced income tax rates, accelerated depreciation allowances, concessions in export processing zones (EPZ), and import duty waivers (Moyo et al. 2020). All this was part of Mugabe’s sanctions-busting strategy, and hence it was conducted behind the veil of secrecy including lending and tendering arrangements involving Chinese business entities. It is therefore hardly surprising that foreign direct investment (FDI) from China now has become relevant to the economy of Zimbabwe.

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While the United Kingdom and the United States were the countries with the most FDI flows into Zimbabwe’s economy during the early days of independence, this was reversed by China in the early 2000s. Simultaneously, the financial aid for development received from China has been an essential income for the Zimbabwean Government. It is estimated that, during the period between 2000 and 2019, the total amount of aid received by Zimbabwe from Beijing was approximately US$2.2 billion (Morales 2020). The chief architects of Chinese financing in Zimbabwe are Chinese policy banks, namely, the Chinese Export–Import Bank (Chinese Exim Bank) and the China Development Bank (ADB) as well as the Chinese Ministry of Commerce. These institutions work with a legion of Chinese state-owned companies and private-sector players. Among the most visible Chinese companies in Zimbabwe are the China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO), China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC), and Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Company (AFECC) (Moyo 2020e). The primary beneficiaries are the government, parastatals, stateowned enterprises, the military establishment, the ruling party (ZANU-PF), and private businesses connected to the government and ruling party officials. To be precise, Beijing has provided a variety of financial support to Zimbabwe including commercial loans; zero-interest loans; concessional loans; export buyers’ credit; preferential buyers’ credit; suppliers’ credit; and Master Facility Loans. Some of the Chinese loans and pledges have been for agricultural equipment and inputs, power generation, telecommunications, and infrastructural development while others were for unspecified reasons, probably for ZANU-PF election campaign purposes as well as for clamping down on the oppositional political actors (Moyo 2020c). As a result, Zimbabwe is currently saddled with a high debt burden to China whose actual quantum has curiously remained a matter of guess work for the public. Al Jazeera (2019) was right when it reported that Zimbabwe’s authorities have a history of quietly racking up foreign debt without the approval of parliament, and the funding discrepancy has led to questions from the critics of Mnangagwa’s administration, as they did with his predecessor. As previously mentioned, there is no publicly accessible documentation about how much debt Zimbabwe has contracted from borrowing and importing excessively from China. Yet, there is no doubt that the rapid growth of Chinese non-concessional lending, as gleaned from media reports, is contributing to the large burden of Zimbabwe’s already unsustainable debt overhang.

5 Chinese Debt Financing in the Mnangagwa Era While the Chinese forays into Zimbabwe began during the late former President Mugabe’s era, there is evidence that the incursion has deepened since his departure. It will be recollected here that, when Mnangagwa took over power in 2017, his first trip outside Africa was to Beijing where he met the Chinese President Xi Jinping. This meeting consolidated the ties between the two countries. In particular, the Chinese and the Zimbabwean governments agreed upon the establishment

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of comprehensive strategic partnership cooperation between their two countries in areas of trade, investment, technology, telecommunication, infrastructure, and people-to-people exchanges. President Xi Jinping also took the opportunity to show his country’s support to the new Zimbabwe government by calling upon the EuroWestern powers and their financial institutions to lift their economic sanctions on Zimbabwe. There is no concrete evidence to support the assertion that the coup that toppled Mugabe was blessed by China, but there is little doubt that his fall and Mnangagwa’s ascendancy were welcome in Beijing. Interestingly, the Mnangagwa presidency has sought to model Zimbabwe in the image of China. Upon assuming power, Mnangagwa restructured ZANU-PF to give more power to the Politburo. One of the informants consulted for this chapter noted that some senior members of the ZANUPF Politburo earn higher salaries and perks and have security details that are far more than those of the Cabinet Ministers. Additionally, the top members of the Politburo, including the secretary for administration, treasurer general, and legal affairs secretary, are serving as full-time members of the party and not in government and yet, together with the president and vice president, they determine the policies of government. This is a departure from the way both government and the ruling party were structured during the Mugabe era. Clearly, the Mnangagwa administration has silently adopted the Beijing model as a template for running the affairs of the state and the ruling party. Morales (2020) is probably right in arguing that the relationship between Harare and Beijing has been promoted and strengthened more during the current than in the previous administration. This is despite the fact that the same government (i.e. Mnangagwa’s government) has been keen on normalising its relations with the Euro-Western countries and international economic and financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank. As mentioned, China’s lending has dramatically increased during Mnangagwa’s presidency. Despite the shift of government in Zimbabwe, China remains a strategic partner to Harare since many of the direct investments, loans, and financial aid have been largely destined to the ‘most relevant sectors’ as established by the current administration (Morales 2020). Not surprisingly, the Mnangagwa administration has signed a number of investment and trade agreements as well as aid grants and loan contracts with China since it came to power. For example, it has received US$47 million to finance the health and agricultural sectors and emergency responses; US$153 million towards the rehabilitation of the Robert Mugabe International Airport; US$341 million in commercial loans to social infrastructures, such as the rehabilitation of Zimbabwe’s ageing water treatment and distribution network, the upgrade and expansion of the Victoria Falls airport and the expansion of the state-owned mobile network NetOne (Morales 2020). Moreover, in 2018, China provided US$1billion for the expansion of Hwange 7 and 8 power generation units; and US$100 million for the new Parliament Building, an imposing six-storey building which is expected to be completed in 2021 (Morales 2020). It should also be noted that it is difficult to differentiate between investment and aid when it comes to Chinese financing. What is, however, clear is that Beijing’s lending to Zimbabwe is severely underreported. For example, in November 2019,

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there was an embarrassing situation when China accused Zimbabwe of understating its financial help to the southern African nation, after budget figures released by the Minister of Finance and Economic Development showed that Beijing ranked poorly on the list of Harare’s foreign donors. The Chinese ambassador protested the figures much to the embarrassment of the government of Zimbabwe (Al Jazeera 2019). This was one of the rare occasions when Beijing publicly differed with Harare. Against this backdrop, a lawyer has since taken the government to court to force it to release a comprehensive report on the country’s sovereign debt. The matter is still in court. Apart from loans, there are also claims that the Mnangagwa administration has signed approximately US$16 billion worth of investment deals since coming to power in November 2017. The deals include, among others, US$300 million for platinum refinery; US$1 billion injection into ZiscoSteel; US$4.2 billion for Karo Resources platinum project; and US$2.1 billion for the Lupane coal-bed-to-methane project and smaller lithium and mining investments (Dore 2018). It is not clear though which of these deals are specifically foreign direct investments and which are developmental. The problem with Chinese investments in Zimbabwe is that there is no transparency in the bidding processes especially with regards to extractive industries. There are a large number of underhand dealings and corruption in the awarding of tenders and mining concessions. As a result, a number of Chinese investments that have taken place under the Mnangagwa presidency have been contested by the affected communities, such as those of Hwange, Chiadzwa, and Chiredzi (some of whom have been dispossessed of their land by Chinese investors). To reinforce its relations with Zimbabwe, Beijing scaled-up its material and financial support towards the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe. It is common-cause that Beijing doled out huge amounts of financial largesse, medical supplies, face masks, ventilators, and personal protective equipment to the government of Zimbabwe, not only in support of the containment of the coronavirus but also as a major show of soft power as an emerging global leader. In fact, China has become Zimbabwe’s most visible partner in the fight against Covid-19. For example, on 11 May 2020, China sent a team of 12 medical experts along with medical supplies, which included ventilators, nucleic acid testing kits, face masks, and medical protective suits, inside boxes branded ‘Good brothers battle together’—a message of solidarity to help Zimbabwe fight the Covid-19 pandemic (Moyo 2020d). Furthermore, two Chinese companies (Huawei and Sichuan PD Times) handed 50,000 medical surgical masks, 510 protective suits, and 1,000 pairs of medical goggles to enable the country to fight the coronavirus (Moyo 2020d). More importantly, China has been donating Covid-19 vaccines to the country while, in return, Zimbabwe has been buying its vaccines from the Chinese companies Sinopharm and Sinovac. There is hardly any doubt that this has increased Beijing’s footprint in Zimbabwe vis-à-vis the Euro-Western powers, which are insisting on economic, political, and electoral reforms before they fully re-engage Zimbabwe in terms of investment, trade, and finance (Moyo et al. 2020).

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6 Mortgaging the Country to China Available evidence indicates that the bulk of the funding from China to Zimbabwe is in the form of resource-backed loans (RBLs), also known as commodity-backed loans, resource for infrastructure swaps, or barter-deal trading for infrastructure (Moyo 2020e). The Chinese government prefers the use of natural resources as collateral. Because of this, fears have been expressed by observers over the possibility that parts of Zimbabwe’s economy and natural resource base have been mortgaged to the Chinese as part of debt repayment mechanisms (Durovic 2016; Imam 2019; Mutondoro et al. 2020; Mihalyi et al. 2020). For instance, the government of Zimbabwe contracted external loans on commercial terms that are collateralised by mineral exports. The government has revealed as well through its recently adopted 5 year development plan dubbed the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) for 2021–2025 that the country has been using natural resources as collateral for loans (Government of Zimbabwe 2020). Minerals such as coal, platinum, chrome, and diamonds have been used to pay Chinese debts (Moyo 2020e). Unsurprisingly, the resource backed lending has received denouncements from critics because of a lack of transparency surrounding the details of the deals and contracts that are made between Chinese investors, lenders, and financiers on the one hand, and the government of Zimbabwe, state enterprises and businesses on the other. Clearly, there is a lack of transparency on the size and terms of Chinese loans to Zimbabwe and this feeds into the anxieties, concerns, and fears that the country’s vast mineral resources have been mortgaged to China. Compared to traditional creditors including the World Bank and the IMF, detailed statistics and information on Chinese resource-backed loans to Zimbabwe are hard to obtain, and any information available is almost always sketchy (Moyo 2020e). The data available to the public is constrained by the government’s inability and unwillingness to follow the Public Debt Management Act and the Public Finance Management Act procedures in loan contraction for purposes of debt transparency. The two pieces of legislation provide that the Minister of Finance and Economic Development should give a statement to parliament regarding all the country’s obligations to its external creditors and lenders. However, there is a tendency by the Minister of Finance to provide aggregated figures which provide no details on what the loans were used for. Worse still, some of the loans from China were contracted without the consent of the people of Zimbabwe as stipulated by the Constitution. Thus, Chapter 17 Section 298 (f) of the Constitution provides that ‘public borrowing and all transactions involving the national budget must be carried out transparently and in the best interest of Zimbabwe’. Section 300 (3) further stipulates that: ‘Within sixty days after the Government has concluded a loan agreement or guarantee, the Minister responsible for finance must cause its terms to be published in the Gazette’. In the majority of the Chinese contracts, none of these provisions were respected. Undoubtedly, most of these loans were acquired for purposes that did not benefit the vast majority of people of Zimbabwe. For example, loans that have been given to government departments, state enterprises, parastatals, and local authorities have been marred

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with scandals, corruption, and abuse (Pindula News 2021). Most of the politically exposed persons who are accused of the abuse of public funds are usually caught and released under the Mnangagwa government. It is instructive to note that some of the loans were contracted by members of the military hierarchy who are major players in agriculture, forestry, and hunting. The Zimbabwe Defence Industries Company has formed a number of subsidiary companies and joint venture companies that have accessed huge Chinese loans behind the veil of state security and sanctions-busting strategies. While members of the military hierarchy have always been major actors in the governance matters of the state, the military coup of 2017 which ended Mugabe’s government and ushered in Mnangagwa’s era saw the military gaining greater clout and political power. Since 2017, Zimbabwe has been ruled by a cabal involving a military-executive alliance. The Mnangagwa government is dominated by former military generals including the former Commander of the Defence Forces (Constantino Chiwenga), now the Vice President, and other military officials in various government departments. At its formative stage, the government’s key members were the late Retired Air Marshal Perence Shiri (the Minister of Lands and Agriculture) and the late coup-announcer General Sibusiso Moyo (the Minister of Foreign Affairs), both of whom succumbed to Covid-19 (Moyo and Phulu 2021). Clearly their presence in Cabinet marked the increase of political and economic clout of the military during the Mnangagwa presidency. Apparently, the loans contracted by the military in its commercial and business transactions remain a state secret. These debts remain hidden to the public because some entail natural resource collateralisation without parliamentary authorisation. These kinds of debts are as illegitimate as they are odious. From both theoretical and practical perspectives, the fundamental problem with RBLs is that the main risk lies with the borrower: the borrowing country becomes ever more reliant on its extractive sector. If prices for the commodity fall or the agreedupon volume cannot be produced within the often very short timeframe given, the borrower has to deal with the consequences (Moyo 2020e). In the case of Zimbabwe, which is already a perennial debt defaulter, the possibility of asset seizure is imminent unless the Government of Zimbabwe comes up with a clear debt management policy and debt management legislation that will enable the country to borrow responsibly. Crucially, the Government of Zimbabwe should support an official debt audit. This should investigate how much the government has borrowed externally, how these loans were used, and how the loans and their repayment have affected or are currently affecting the economy. The Beijing model that the Mnangagwa government is pursuing is only advantageous to China. In the process, Zimbabwe simply has become a reservoir of extraction of natural resources and a dumping ground for cheap Chinese products. This exploitative model will not help Zimbabwe develop. The Mnangagwa government should formulate a national strategy regarding China in Zimbabwe. At the same time, all of Zimbabwe’s accountability institutions including civil society, media, and parliament should require transparency in the design, feasibility, selection, pricing, tendering, and management of all public investment projects in the country. They must also deepen their knowledge and understanding of the contractual agreements between the Zimbabwean government and Chinese lenders

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and creditors, in order for them to be able to hold Mnangagwa’s government to account.

7 Conclusion This chapter has demonstrated that, like the Mugabe regime, the Mnangagwa administration is not transparent on the size and terms of Chinese debt, and this feeds into the anxieties, concerns, and fears that the government has mortgaged the country to the Chinese. Contrary to expectations that Mnangagwa’s new dispensation would herald a new age of accountability, transparency, and democratic governance, as part of an authentic formative project of progressive change, the reality thus far seems to suggest continuity rather than change. More precisely, the ‘Second Republic’ has reproduced many of the social and political ills of the previous regime including the deepening of the debt crisis. Evidently, the Mnangagwa regime has been turning the volume high on rhetoric about reforms while at the same time turning the volume low on practical steps to bring about significant change from the previous administration. Thus, this chapter concludes that the Mugabe and Mnangagwa administrations are not dissimilar in their governance approaches. Although Mugabe’s rule formally ended in November 2017, the Chinese debt diplomacy which started during his era has continued to define the debt landscape of Mnangagwa’s Second Republic.

References AFRODAD (2020) The China-Zimbabwe relations: impact on debt and development in Zimbabwe. AFRODAD, Harare Al Jazeera (2019) China accuses Zimbabwe of understating financial support. https://www.aljaze era.com/economy/2019/11/19/china-accuses-zimbabwe-of-understating-financial-support Amin S (2017) Dependency pioneer in Adesina. In: Jimi (ed) Dialogues on development. ISSN 2472-6966 Bond P (2013) Crises of Neoliberalism seen from the BRICS: what we expect from the March 2013 Durban summit of subimperial powers. Third Word Quarterly, March 2013 Bond P (2017) The BRICS rescrambled Africa. A paper presented at 5th academic conference the institute of social and economic studies, September 2017, Maputo Bond P (2018) The BRICS: subimperialism, global governance, accumulation, class struggle and resource extractivism. www.intercoll.net/TheBRICS-subimperialist-global-governance-acc umulation Bond P, Manyanya M (2003) Zimbabwe’s plunge: exhausted nationalism, neoliberalism and the search for social justice. Merlin Press, London Bracking S, Sachikonye L (2009) Development finance, private and public sectors in Zimbabwe: sustainability or odious debt? BWPI Working Paper 84, Brooks World Poverty Institute, ISBN: 978-1-906518-83-7 Dore D (2018) The art of creating money: an appraisal of Zimbabwe’s economy, Southern African Report 18 (November)

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Durovic L (2016) Resource curse and curse and China’s infrastructure for resources model: case study of Angola. JCIR 4(1):67–86 Government of Zimbabwe (2020) National Development Strategy 1 (NDSI) (2021–2025). www. veritaszim.net Imam P (2019) Collateralised sovereign debt-costs and benefits, IMF Jubilee Debt Campaign (2011) Uncovering Zimbabwe’s debt: the case for a democratic solution to the unjust debt burden, Jubilee Debt Campaign ( November) Mihalyi D, Adam A, Hwang J (2020) Resource-backed loans: pitfalls and potential, Natural Resource Governance Institute (February) Morales DNC (2020) The new government of Zimbabwe: a distant relationship with China? Glob Polit Rev 6(1–2):114–124. ISSN 2464-9929 Moyo G (2015) Mugabe’s neo-Sultanist rule: beyond the veil of Pan-Africanism. In: NdlovuGatsheni SJ (ed) Mugabeism: history, politics and power in Zimbabwe. Palgrave, New York Moyo G (2016) The curse of military commercialism in state enterprises and parastatals in Zimbabwe. J South Afr Stud 42(2):351–364. https://doi.org/10.1080/0357070.2016.1145981 Moyo G (2017) The entrapment of Joshua Nkomo within global imperial snares. In: NdlovuGatsheni SJ (ed) Joshua Nkomo of Zimbabwe: politics, power and memory. Palgrave Macmillan, New York Moyo G (2018) The underside of leadership and the grammar of nationality of power in Zimbabwe. In Oloruntoba SO, Gumede V (eds) State and development in post-independent Africa. PanAfrican University Press, Ibadan Moyo G (2020a) Chinese development finance to Africa and the spectre of debt distress. In: Oloruntoba S (ed) The Palgrave handbook of African political economy, 1st edn. Springer International Publishing, ISBN-10:3033389219 Moyo G (2020b) Domestic resource mobilisation and the quest for sustainable alternative to external debt in Zimbabwe. ZIMCODD, Harare. http://zimcodd.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Dom estic-Resource-Mobilisation-and-the-Quest-for-Sustainable-Alternative.pdf Moyo G (2020c) The fetishised role of external actors in Zimbabwe’s 2018 elections: implications for future plebiscites. African Stadia, pp 141–157 Moyo G (2020d) Obstacles and opportunities for financing the fight against Covid-19 pandemic in a debt trapped Zimbabwe. iBusiness 12, vol 2, Scientific Research Publishing. ISSN Online: 2150-4083 ISSN Print: 2150-4075. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342356779_ Obstacles_and_Opportunities_for_Financing_the_Fight_against_Covid-19_in_the_Debt_Trap ped_Zimbabwe Moyo G (2020e) The bane of resource-backed loans in Zimbabwe: implications for debt sustainability. Zimcodd, Harare. Moyo G (2021) African agency, finance and developmental states. Palgrave Macmillan, New York Moyo G, Phulu KI (2021) The weaponisation of the coronavirus crisis in Zimbabwe: legal and extra-legal instruments. iBusiness 13:48–66. https://doi.org/10.4236/ib.2021.131004 Moyo G, Nhliziyo M, Fayayo R (2020) The entanglement of Zimbabwe in the US-China geoeconomic frictions: defining winners and losers. iBusiness 12:81–102. https://doi.org/10.4236/ib. 2020.123006 Mukwereza L (2013) Reviving Zimbabwe’s agriculture: the role of China and Brazil, IDS Bulletin, 44,4. www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/101111/(ISSN)1759-5436/issues Mutondoro F, Hobi A-S, Dliwayo M, Chiname J (2020) Resource-backed loans and the high risk of debt in light of the COVID-19 pandemic: a case study of Zimbabwe Ndlovu-Gatsheni S (ed) (2015). Palgrave Macmillan, New York Noyes AH (2020) A new Zimbabwe? Assessing continuity and change after Mugabe. RAND Corporation, Calif. ISBN: 978-1-9774-0434-3 Pindula News (2021) Zimbabwe debt to China. https://www.pindula.co.zw/Zimbabwe_Debt_to_C hina

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Gorden Moyo is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Lupane State University (LSU), Zimbabwe. He is also the Founder of an independent think tank—the Public Policy and Research Institute of Zimbabwe (PPRIZ). He received his PhD in African Leadership Development from the National University of Science and Technology, Zimbabwe. His research interests are in development finance, developmental states, emerging economies and African agency. His most recent book is African Agency, Finance, and Developmental States published in 2021 by Palgrave Macmillan. Previously, Moyo served as a Minister of State Enterprises and Parastatals in the Inclusive Government of Zimbabwe (2009–2013).

Financing the Social Sector in Zimbabwe’s Post-Mugabe Era—Obstacles and Opportunities Smart Manda and Admire Tarisirayi Chirume

Abstract This chapter reviews the trends in social sector outcomes in Zimbabwe and assesses the financing challenges in the post-Mugabe era. While Zimbabwe made significant progress in developing its social sectors in the post-independence era, the economic crisis experienced from 1998 to 2008 reversed some of the gains that had been achieved. When the country adopted a multiple currency system in 2009, social sector outcomes improved, driven by a favourable macroeconomic environment. From 2016, however, the country’s economic fortunes reversed as the economy began to experience renewed challenges, including falling revenues and declining fiscal space, and shortage of foreign currency to import critical drugs, among other factors. In addition, continued depreciation of the domestic currency since its introduction in 2019 presented additional challenges to the Second Republic, as people’s incomes were eroded while fiscal space continued to be squeezed. The situation was further exacerbated by the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic which affected both the education and health sectors in negative ways. These developments underlined the need for additional financing requirements to close the widening financing gap in social sectors in Zimbabwe. As this chapter shows, some of the possible financing options include broadening the tax base to unlock additional resources particularly from the informal economy, exploring contributory schemes, tapping into international financial assistance, strengthening public–private partnerships and tapping into diaspora remittances. There is also a need for strengthening public institutions to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in utilisation of public funds earmarked for social sectors.

1 Introduction Zimbabwe’s health system was considered as the leading example of health care in Africa in the 1980s and early 1990s. This was mainly due to a robust delivery S. Manda (B) · A. T. Chirume Economic Research Division, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Moyo and K. Helliker (eds.), Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic, Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30129-2_12

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system typified by adequate medical health professionals, availability of essential drugs and the presence of health institutions even at primary care level in rural areas. Similarly, the education system was one of the best in Africa due to high investment levels in the sector from the 1980s. However, Zimbabwe’s social sectors began to suffer from the mid-1990s as the economic environment deteriorated. The economic crisis experienced from 2000 to 2008 also entailed a heavy blow to the health sector as financing progressively declined. The crisis saw the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) decreasing by more than half while inflation reached hyperinflation levels, peaking at 231 million percent, in July 2008. The salaries for public servants were seriously eroded by inflation leading to a massive brain drain of professional staff particularly from the social sectors. The situation was further exacerbated by the HIV and AIDS pandemic which took its toll on professional classes including teachers. As well, Zimbabwe experienced its worst cholera outbreak in September 2008, leading to the death of a significant number of people. Resultantly, Zimbabwe failed to achieve its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as the economic crisis took its toll on social sectors including the health and education sectors. Government expenditure on the social sectors fell from above 15% of GDP prior to 2005 to below 10% at the height of the crisis between 2006 and 2008. The social sector outcomes, which were decimated during the economic crisis period, however, improved significantly during the dollarisation era from 2009 to 2015, largely driven by a favourable macroeconomic environment characterised by low inflation, improved macroeconomic performance, rising fiscal revenues and enhanced donor support. Since 2016, Zimbabwe’s economic fortunes reversed once again, as the economy experienced foreign currency shortages leading to the build-up of inflationary pressures in the economy. Prior to 2016, the multiple currency system was operating smoothly mainly on account of a cash budgeting fiscal stance which helped maintain a strong fiscal position. As the country began to experience fiscal slippages, once more partly financed through monetisation of the budget deficit, the economy began to face new challenges including foreign currency shortages and rising inflationary pressures. Government expenditure was dominated by public sector employment costs, accounting for about 80% of total government revenues. The public sector maintained a bloated workforce which left government with little room for capital and social sector expenditure. Although the Second Republic under Emmerson Mnangagwa (inaugurated on 22 November 2017) has exhibited some commitment to restore the social sectors and to meet international quality standards as well as achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), its efforts are constrained in part by the deficient state of the government’s fiscal position. Against this background, this chapter provides an overview of social sector development focusing mainly on education and health, highlighting some of the challenges and opportunities the Zimbabwean government will likely face in financing social sector development in the post-Mugabe era. The rest of the chapter discusses trends in social sector developments in Zimbabwe before considering social sector financing in the country. It then details the challenges for social sector financing and then, lastly, highlights opportunities and options for financing the social sector.

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Overall, it would seem that financing social sectors such as health and education would be less risky for Mnangagwa’s government in terms of pursuing a formative project, at least in comparison to reconciliation and transitional justice. Insofar as this is true, there may be some unevenness in the implementation of different dimensions of the formative project. At the same time, as discussed in this chapter, pursuing health and education reforms has its own set of constraints.

2 Trends in Social Sector Development Zimbabwe is placed in the low human development category at number 156 out of 189 countries and territories in the 2017 rankings (UNDP 2018). The ranking for Zimbabwe is below some of the countries in the region, which are in the medium categories: such as South Africa, Namibia, Zambia and Angola, which are ranked at 111, 128, 141 and 146, respectively. Zimbabwe’s ranking partly reflects underperformance of the health and education sectors. Life expectancy in Zimbabwe stood at 61.7 years in 2017 compared to: 63.4 years in South Africa; Namibia, 64.9 years; Zambia, 62.3 years; and Angola, 61.8 years. In terms of mean years of schooling, however, Zimbabwe performed better than some African countries in the medium category. In 2017, mean years of schooling for Zimbabwe were estimated at 8.1 years, compared to Namibia at 6.8 years, Kenya at 6.5 years, Zambia at 7 years and Angola at 5.1 years. Zimbabwe is also poorly ranked in terms of the Human Capital Index (HCI), at number 114 of out 157 countries (World Bank 2018a). African countries that are doing better than Zimbabwe in terms of HCI rankings are mostly from North Africa, notably Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia as well as Seychelles, Mauritius, Kenya and Gabon. Countries with a high per capita income also tend to be ranked high in terms of HCI, which means that supporting sustained economic growth results in improved social outcomes. This is mainly because countries with high per capita income have relatively more resources for supporting social sectors. Fragile-toconflict countries such as South Sudan and Mali performed poorly in the 2018 World Bank HCI rankings, which may imply that more resources are channelled towards conflict and that state structures are too weak to deliver basic social services. In this light, this section considers the educational and health sectors separately. Zimbabwe’s education sector was the envy of many African countries owing to its past human capital achievements in the 1980s and 1990s (World Bank 2011). However, the education sector, like all other social sectors, was negatively affected by the country’s economic crisis dating back to the late 1990s and up until 2008, as well as the HIV-related deaths of both primary and secondary school teachers. The education sector suffered from brain drain, dilapidation of infrastructure due to lack of investment, and increased school drop-outs at all levels during the crisis period. Many children have been dropping out of school at the primary level. The cumulative drop-out rate to the last grade in primary school for both sexes has been high in Zimbabwe, estimated at about 23.1% in 2012 but still lower than 44.5% for

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the sub-Saharan African region (UNESCO 2016). School drop-outs are significantly larger though at higher grades, particularly in the secondary grades. At the same time, the growing class sizes particularly of mixed-year children coupled with nonprovision of basic teaching material are also a challenge. Teacher training facilities remain underfunded while retention of rural teachers is a serious problem due to difficult working conditions. According to the World Bank’s Human Capital Index Report for 2018 (World Bank 2018a), Zimbabwe’s expected years of schooling are ten but learning adjusted years, which factors what children learn, are only 6.3 years. This results in a learning gap of 3.7 years, which reflects negatively on the quality of education. From 2009, the education sector began to improve as the economy stabilised under the Government of National Unity (2009–2013). Nonetheless, the country still boasts one of the highest literacy levels in Africa. As the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO 2016) shows, Zimbabwe has an adult literacy level of about 88.8% (2015) compared to 59.6% for the sub-Saharan African region. The Zimbabwean economy has also significant school enrolment rates by African standards, underpinned by a cultural ethos which values education. This has been declining in recent years, because of the lack of job opportunities in the formal sector. The pass rates for grade seven improved from 39% in 2009 to 52.08% in 2018, while ‘O’ level secondary school pass rates remained low for an extended period (between 20 and 30%) and only rose to 31.2% in 2018 (ZIMSEC 2019). The poor pass rates experienced prior to 2009 were mainly due to a confluence of qualityrelated factors which include high pupil ratios in schools, teacher absenteeism, and poor infrastructure including inadequate teaching and learning materials. In terms of the quality of education, as measured by the pupil-teacher ratio, Zimbabwe averaged 36 pupils per teacher for the period 2010–2015 (UNCTAD 2017). Though the figure is still high, it is somewhat lower than most African countries, which have an average pupil-teacher ratio of more than 40. The pupil-teacher ratio provides the basis for an analysis of the inputs and investments in the quality of the education system. A lower pupil-teacher ratio depicts better quality education as the teacher has relatively more time with the pupil. An additional challenge is that there are great disparities in class size, resulting in the existence of very crowded classes as well as extremely small classes, and this affects the quality of education unevenly. There are other educational problems as well. Digital skills have become important in the assessment of the quality of education. In 2017, Zimbabwe was ranked at number 93 out of 140 countries in terms of digital skills (World Bank 2018b). This implies that the country is faring well at least compared to most developing countries. In rural areas (and land reform resettlement areas in particular), there are serious deficits around basic infrastructure such as toilets, furniture, adequate classrooms and water facilities. There is a shortage of schools with children travelling to primary school facilities, from an average of 2.4–3.6 km in 2009 (World Bank 2011). As well, the education system in Zimbabwe has entrenched gender inequalities particularly at higher levels of learning (namely, secondary and tertiary level) except for teacher and nursing training institutions. The gender imparity needs to be addressed to ensure

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women participate fully in social, technological and economic development of the country. The education sector has suffered further major blows in the post-Mugabe era. A major concern is the erosion of salaries following the transition from the multiple currency system to local currency in February 2019. This was after the Mnangagwa government introduced a local currency, thus effectively ending the era in which civil servants were remunerated in United States dollars. Under the multiple currency era, teachers earned a minimum of US$400 dollars compared to the current levels of less than US$200 in local currency, at a time when the economy is facing exchange rate instability. This effectively means that salaries for civil servants have been eroded by at least 50%, thus denting the morale among civil servants and affecting the quality of education. Moreover, the Mnangagwa period has also been accompanied by a go-slow attitude on the part of teachers, thus forcing some parents to negotiate with teachers for extra lessons. The government has, however, banned extra lessons as some teachers are no longer performing at optimal standard during working hours, preferring instead to conduct extra lessons which give them additional income. With regard to the health sector, Zimbabwe’s health delivery system was arguably one of the best in sub-Saharan Africa during the pre-crisis era, marked by a robust infrastructure all the way down to village level in rural areas alongside a functioning referral system. However, the country’s economic challenges witnessed from the late 1990s to 2008 severely undermined the progress made over the years and contributed to rapid deteriorations in maternal, new born, and child health indicators. During the crisis period, the country also experienced health personnel brain drain thus impacting negatively on the health delivery system in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe Service Availability and Readiness Assessment Report of 2015 points towards inadequacies in the World Health Organisation (WHO) Health System Building Blocks, namely, human resources, medical products, vaccines and technology including infrastructure, health financing, health information, service delivery, leadership and governance, all of which are basic prerequisites for a functional health delivery system (Government of Zimbabwe [GoZ] 2015). Zimbabwe has at least two doctors per district, while every primary health care centre has at least two qualified nurses. In addition, 59% of administrative wards are serviced by an Environmental Health Technician while 60% of villages have access to a village health worker (Ministry of Health and Child Care 2014). Nonetheless, the country has a long way to go to meet the World Health Organisation’s recommendation of the minimum threshold of one doctor, and 23 nurses and midwives per 10,000 people. By 2015, Zimbabwe was at 1.6 physicians and 7.2 nurses per every 10,000 people (Chamurogwa 2021). Because of this, significant progress needs to be done to ensure that the country keeps pace with international development standards. Infant mortality per 1,000 live births increased from 76.2 in 1990 reaching a peak of 96.5 in 1997, before dropping and rising again to another peak of 95.3 in 2007. The infant mortality rate has, however, declined recently to 38.4 per 1,000 live births in 2019 (UNICEF 2021). As argued by the World Bank (2011), the causes of most child deaths are preventable with low cost measures. Similarly, life expectancy stood at 62 years in 2020, an improvement from 44 years in 2003 (UNICEF 2021). Many

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deaths have resulted from shortages of drugs, increase of transport costs to reach health institutions and buy medicines, food insecurity, and poor sanitation and water supply. In the post-Mugabe era, the health sector suffers the same fate as the education sector in terms of overall stagnation in quality improvement, in part because of the change from United States dollar salaries to local currency. As a result, the Mnangagwa period has been accompanied by a series of strikes by medical staff, which often interrupt the health delivery system. Morale among medical staff has remained very low, while the agreement between the government and health professionals on better working conditions has remained elusive. Beyond all these problems for the social sectors of Zimbabwe, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has compelled most economies across the globe to lock-down their economies as a way of containing its spread. Zimbabwe’s Second Republic emulated these restrictions, with inevitable knock-on effects in the formal and informal sectors. As a result, the Zimbabwean economy is projected to undergo major losses in economic production that will not only lead to a significant contraction in GDP but also undercut the extent of government revenue. This is notwithstanding the fact that, in the face of the pandemic, the Zimbabwean government required additional resources for the procurement of testing and protective equipment, medical drugs and setting up of dedicated medical facilities either as quarantine centres or for treatment purposes. The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic clearly poses further challenges for the Second Republic regarding the financing of health and education in Zimbabwe. The re-direction of financing towards the containment of Covid-19 means that support for primary health care, including prevention and treatment services for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), has been negatively affected. The crisis has also resulted in closure of schools, particularly in the year 2020 and early 2021 while teaching became online-based, yet government had no resources to roll out the online-based programme. More than 80% of the school-going children in the country suffer educationally because of this. Undoubtedly, both the health and education sectors required additional financing to deal with the Covid-19 outbreak. Zimbabwe, therefore, needs to adopt a financing model which does not only enhance resource mobilisation, but also guarantees value for money by ensuring that expenditure towards social sector development is effective, efficient, equitable and well targeted.

3 Social Sector Financing Financing of social sector development in Zimbabwe has been constrained on account of the knock-on effects of macroeconomic challenges the country faced between 1998 and 2008, which had a negative impact on social outcomes. The macroeconomic challenges in the country affected government revenues and, hence, social

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sector expenditures. Zimbabwe’s budget allocation to primary and secondary education fell from 19% in 1999 to 8.9% in 2007 while heath expenditures remained fairly stable at around 7%, during the same period (Government of Zimbabwe 2021). From 2009 to 2015, as indicated, the country witnessed certain improvements in social sector outcomes because of a favourable macroeconomic environment. However, from 2016, the country began to encounter new challenges including foreign currency shortages to import critical health needs (including medical drugs and health equipment), thus impacting negatively on social sector financing. In the Second Republic, the renewed challenges emanating from the macroeconomic and fiscal trends and adjustments are likely to weigh heavily on social sector financing. Moreover, the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic posed a serious problem to social sector financing for the Second Republic. The pandemic called for increased health expenditures for tests, protective equipment, treatment, and eventually vaccination. Importantly, Covid-19 has brought to the fore the need for broader investment in the healthcare system at a time when economic growth and revenues are significantly depressed and health infrastructure is dilapidated, and there is the additional challenge of poor salary levels for medical and nursing staff. The lockdown measures put in place to contain the pandemic from the second quarter of 2020 in Zimbabwe, just like in most countries across the globe, impacted on economic growth and government revenues, with obvious consequences for funding for other social sectors. The Zimbabwean government was compelled it seems to divert some of the meagre resources from the already underfunded social sector (including education) towards the containment of the pandemic. In addition, corruption existed with regard to funds meant for social sectors, leading to supplies being provided at inflated prices. In terms of sources of funding, the education sector is mainly funded by government, student fees and levies, and some income-generating activities. The private sector and donor community also support education in Zimbabwe through direct assistance and scholarships. Prior to 2000, government allocations to primary and secondary education used to be over 19% of the total budget, but this drastically declined during the economic crisis to below 8.9% in 2007. Government support for education rebounded from 2009, reaching a peak of 21.4% in 2013. The allocations to education, however, took a downward trajectory reaching 16.0% in 2018. Nonetheless, Zimbabwe generally spends relatively more on education compared to other countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Government expenditure covers administration of the education system and salaries for teaching staff in government and government-aided institutions. Private schools are not subsidised, and their funding relies on fees paid by students. Government-aided schools are allowed to increase the number of teachers to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio using resources mobilised through the School Development Association (SDA) and School Development Committee (SDC). Under this partnership, schools are authorised to complement government funding through levies and contributions from parents. Technical and vocational education is delivered by government colleges. Salaries are paid directly by the Ministry and provisions are made under different budget lines for operating and capital expenditure. Teacher colleges are government-owned or government-aided and are, therefore, funded following similar patterns to secondary schools. Public

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universities in Zimbabwe are fully autonomous and receive funds through government grants and fees paid by students. All resources are received in the university accounts and used for teaching and non-teaching staff salaries, administrative costs, services and investment. Unlike the other levels of education, staff are fully managed and paid by the university. Zimbabwe is well within the agreed threshold for Africa in terms of expenditure on education. African countries agreed to allocate at least 4–6% of national GDP, or 15–20% of total public expenditure, on education expenditure. However, when compared to developed countries, the country spends relatively less on the education sector. Donors fund a moderate portion of basic education expenses, contributing approximately US$50 million per annum since 2009 (with the support mainly going directly to schools), which is about 5–10% of the government’s education budget. For example, donors established an Education Transition Fund (ETF) in 2009 with the first phase aimed at providing core curriculum textbooks, stationery, and teaching and capacity development for primary and secondary education. The second phase was aimed at making strategic investment interventions in the education sector. The Education Development Fund (EDF), a multi-donor funding mechanism, also provided more than US$115 million in funding from 2012 to 2015 (World Bank 2017). In addition, donors provide the less privileged and economically challenged children in Zimbabwe with an equal opportunity to access basic education by way of educational scholarships and direct payment of fees to schools. The Basic Education Access Module (BEAM) run by government in conjunction with donors provides support to poor children with tuition. The BEAM programme was established in 2001, aimed at ensuring increased access to quality education for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). The programme targeted initially about 500,000 children and covers fees and levies for primary and secondary schools including examination fees. However, due to declining donor support, there were only an estimated 142,000 pupils in the programme in 2016 (World Bank 2017). Donors supported 45% of the BEAM requirements between 2009 and 2011, but they stopped supporting it from 2012 (World Bank 2017). To ensure that the majority of school-going age are in school, the BEAM programme should cover at least 300,000 children. This means that the BEAM programme is covering less than half of the children requiring assistance. In this regard, more needs to be done by both government and donors to ensure improved access to education by children from poor households. Government also introduced a decentralised education policy which transferred ownership and responsibilities of schools to the communities in 2005. The responsibility for maintenance of existing schools and expansion is now largely a function of School Development Committees and Parent-Teacher Associations. Decentralisation allowed segmentation in terms of fees and levies charged by schools which enabled disadvantaged children access to affordable fees. In turning to the health sector, this sector is one of the sensitive areas which attracts interest from both governments and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). As a result, the sector continues to receive funding from donors, households (via user fees),

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employers and NGOs in addition to government allocations. Typically, Zimbabwe has had a solid level of health funding per capita—for instance, in 2013, WHO (2013) reported a level of above US$70, which is safely above the minimum of US$44 recommended by the High-Level Task Force on Innovative Financing for Health Systems (WHO 2013). In terms of current health expenditure to GDP, the country spent about 6.1% (of its GDP) in 2018. Health expenditure grew from 5.7% in 2000 to reach a peak of 9.9% in 2013 but began to decline since 2016 as the economy slowed down. Public health expenditure as a ratio of the total annual government budget is still way below the target of 15% recommended by the Abuja Declaration, and to which all African governments committed themselves in 2001. Except for the period from 2000 to 2002, when the government health expenditure fell to around 5% of total government expenditure, the government of Zimbabwe has been spending above 7% of the budget towards health. Worrisomely, however, the country continues to rely on out-of-pocket spending (people paying for their own health care), which accounts for close to half of total health spending (World Economic Forum 2019). Health insurance is just limited to a small proportion of the population which is mainly from people in formal employment. The country’s public health institutions thus rely heavily on fees paid by the public. The co-payments required include fees for visits to public hospitals and clinics, and these cover fees for laboratory tests, in-patient days, and medicine. Given the deteriorating economic environment in the country, a large number of people cannot meet the fees. The government of Zimbabwe introduced an earmarked tax to cater for HIV and AIDS treatment. The AIDS Levy is deductible from every employee’s taxable income at 3% of Pay-As-You-Earn and from the corporate tax. The funds are earmarked for prevention, orphan care, and procurement of medicines for HIV and AIDS patients. It is also estimated that a total of 878,461 Zimbabweans are on treatment (United Nations Programme on AIDS/HIV (UNAIDS) 2016). As a result of the AIDS Levy and other interventions, the HIV prevalence rate has declined from 24.6% in 2004 to 13.3% in 2018, making Zimbabwe a success story (National Aids Council 2018). Recently, in 2017, government introduced a 5% health levy on telephone air time to cater for the procurement of drugs. External health expenditure as a percentage of current health expenditure averaged 23.6% from 2010 to 2015. The challenge is, however, that most external financing has been channelled mainly to public health programmes such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV (through the supply of drugs and medical supplies) and not to preventive health care, such as nutrition. The government needs to reduce reliance on donor funding for essential drugs and explore opportunities for increased local financing. This is mainly because donor funding is erratic due to the many global vulnerabilities affecting the economies from which most of the donor funds arrive. Supported by donors, Zimbabwe also adopted a Results Based Financing (RBF) programme in 2011, which caters for both rural and urban residents. The programme was, initially, entirely funded by the World Bank but government started contributing though the contribution was still low in 2016. The rural RBF finances health providers based on the achievement of predefined outputs and the quality of health care services

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delivered. The programme reduces the financial burden of health care access on the poor as health facilities receiving RBF do not charge user fees. The programme promotes results orientation by health providers by linking predefined results to performance-based payments to health facilities (World Bank 2017). The urban RBF uses vouchers as an innovative financing mechanism to increase access and utilisation of high quality maternal and child health services by households in urban areas. This facility finances 600,000 people in the country’s major two cities, Harare and Bulawayo. The programme has relied heavily on external financing and the challenge for government is to ensure the sustainability of the programme in the medium term, including in the absence of donor support. Additionally, there is a need to scaleup the programme to prioritise health services at primary and secondary levels and cover more low-income households in urban and peri-urban areas (World Bank 2017).

4 Challenges of Financing the Social Sector In terms of institutional sources, the social sectors in Zimbabwe are mainly financed through government tax revenues, donor funding (or Overseas Development Assistance—ODA) and humanitarian assistance. A number of factors affect the country’s ability to sustainably finance the social sectors. These factors include volatile financing sources, economic downturns, narrow tax base, huge debt overhang and high debt service ratios, infrastructure deficit, high informalisation of the economy, and dwindling diaspora funding due to external economic declines. The advent of the Covid-19 pandemic also exacerbated the volatility, as it affected some of the economies which provide donor funding. Zimbabwe has been facing macroeconomic stability challenges since 2016, when the country began to experience foreign currency shortages which led to the reemergence of a parallel market for foreign currency. Since then, the economy has been slowing down, leading to a ‘growth’ of −6.5% in 2019, the first negative trend since 2009. The slowdown in the economy and the dwindling fiscal revenues leave little room for significant increases in social spending. Furthermore, the fiscal consolidation programme by the government since 2018 under the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) means that it will be very difficult to even sustain the current financing patterns. In addition, inflation has been on the rise since October 2018, increasing the cost of provision for both education and health services. Already, there are signs that government has been failing to sustain the BEAM education programme as well as ensuring availability of drugs in hospitals. The drought and cyclone Idai also induced government financing interventions, leaving minimal funds for social development expenditures. The pandemic has further complicated and heightened funding shortfalls. The revenue to GDP ratio was 22% in 2018, which is already high and means that there is little wiggle room for further tax increases in Zimbabwe. This is compounded by the fact that the Zimbabwean economy is now largely informal (because of company closures) and difficult to tax.

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It is estimated that Zimbabwe’s informal sector is the second largest in the world (estimated at 60.6% of GDP), coming only after Bolivia whose informal sector is about 62.3% of GDP (International Monetary Fund (IMF) 2018). The 2014 Labour Force Survey shows that only 21.6% of Zimbabwe’s working population are employed in the formal sector while the rest are in the informal sector (ZIMSTAT 2014). The informal sector is largely dominated by communal farmers, at 52.3%; own account workers, 32.8%; unpaid contributing family workers, 1.4%; and others, 12%. The huge informal sector is associated with low revenue to GDP ratios, implying that most economic agents do not pay tax. This presents a significant challenge for government to increase tax in order to support social sector development. Apart from reducing government revenue, it is difficult to provide insurance to the informal sector either through private insurance or social insurance. Efforts by government to ensure that informal sector workers contribute to social insurance schemes through National Social Security have been facing resistance. This is because most jobs in the informal sector are temporary and have low salaries. The non-contribution to the national pension scheme by the informal sector exacerbates the financing challenges of social sectors for Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has a huge public debt overhang of over US$18 billion as at the end of December 2018, which makes it difficult for the country to finance social sector needs. Domestic debt accounted for 54% and approximately US$9.5 billion in 2018. About 60% of the country’s external debt is in arrears, which makes it difficult for the country to access additional loans from multilateral creditors as well as bilateral creditors from the Paris club. The country also faces a tight maturity profile on domestic debt. In 2019, close to US$2.5 billion was required to pay for maturing domestic debt, while approximately US$1.5 billion was required for 2020. The high domestic debt service costs due tend to crowd-out social spending. The need to cover the principal and interest payments as they fall due again means that limited fiscal space is left for social funding. Zimbabwe also has a huge infrastructure deficit stemming from very inadequate levels of public expenditures for routine and periodic maintenance over a number of years. The African Development Report estimates the infrastructure needs for Zimbabwe at US$14.2 billion for the period 2011 to 2020 (AfDB 2011). Similarly, the government of Zimbabwe’s Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable SocioEconomic Transformation (Zim-Asset) programme put the infrastructure financing requirement at US$18.7 billion in 2014 (GoZ 2013). In the post-Mugabe era, the Second Republic has expressed commitment to improve basic infrastructure in the country including transport, power, sanitation and water. So far, the Mnangagwa government has managed to complete the Tokwe Mukosi and Marovanyati dam projects while the Gwayi-Shangani dam is now set for completion in 2023. Similarly, notable progress has been made in the reconstruction of the Harare to Beitbridge road. Nonetheless, massive progress still needs to be made given the dilapidated state of infrastructure in the country. The allocation of resources to infrastructure may lead to reduced public resources being channelled towards social spending. In this regard, there is a need for an intricate balance between financing social sectors and basic physical infrastructure, both of which are extremely urgent.

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During the period from 2000 to 2008 when the economy experienced its deepest level of crisis, direct budget support to social sectors dwindled. Most donor funds were channelled through NGOs due to the strain on the civil service in terms of its capacity for accounting for funds—with some of the civil servants moving into the NGO sector. This followed the proliferation of NGOs supporting the social sectors. However, lack of coordination of aid flows often creates coverage disparities, thereby undermining the efficient mobilisation and allocative efficiency in the distribution of resources to the social sectors. In this respect, there is a significant likelihood of over-funding some projects or sectors while under-funding others. For instance, in the past, external finance was (as indicated) mainly focused on the supply of drugs and medical supplies and not on preventive health care.

5 Financing Opportunities and Policy Options Alternative options available for financing the social sectors in Zimbabwe include using domestic resources, international public finance and international private finance. These sources are discussed hereunder. Financing from domestic resources is very critical for Zimbabwe given that the country has been unable to access foreign capital from traditional creditors, notably IMF, World Bank and Paris Club member countries, due to continued accumulation of arrears to the same. In addition, the drying up of donor support following the global financial and sovereign debt crisis experienced by major donor countries also means that the country should rely increasingly on domestic sources of financing. Domestic sources for social sector finance include broadening the tax base, introducing dedicated taxes, mobilising revenue from extractive industries, micro-finance, and government-guaranteed loans among others. There is also a need to enhance efficiency in tax collection through rationalisation of the tax system. Zimbabwe has a huge informal sector whose contribution to tax is very limited due to its opaqueness. Implementing policies aimed at either formalising the informal sectors or changing the tax system to cater for the informal sectors, can go a long way to unlock additional resources for financing social sectors. In 2018, the government introduced a 2% Intermediated Money Transfer Tax (IMTT) meant to raise tax from the informal sector (Government of Zimbabwe 2018). A total of ZWL$283 million (Zimbabwean currency) was collected as IMTT during the first quarter of 2019, translating to 15% of total tax revenue. While this tax has helped to improve revenue streams for government, it has also increased the cost of transacting given that most transactions occur through transfers due to cash challenges facing the economy. The introduction of earmarked or dedicated taxes has been one of the most effective ways of raising finance for social sectors in some countries. Earmarked taxes can be on income or payroll and include all or some consumption taxes such as tobacco and alcohol (WHO 2017). The use of earmarked taxes has become widespread across the world, particularly in the health sector. A total of 83 countries have these taxes for health. As alluded to above, Zimbabwe has introduced two earmarked taxes for

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health, namely, the AIDS levy on income tax, and a health levy on air time. However, due to low-income levels, the introduction of additional dedicated taxes may face resistance from citizens and the various labour organisations which feel that people’s incomes in Zimbabwe have been eroded by recent price increases. A recommended and available option is to ensure that part of the 2% IMTT tax is deployed in the social sectors such as health and education. International churches have a long history of supporting the development of education and health institutions in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has witnessed a significant growth in local churches, and this may be a potential avenue for the financing and development of social sectors in Zimbabwe. Local churches can work with local communities and government to set up schools and hospitals particularly in areas which are relatively marginalised. In addition to domestic financing sources, external financing plays a critical role in raising financing for social sectors in most developing counties. These include the bilateral and multilateral ODA, international funds and regional financial institutions among others. Current efforts by the Mnangagwa government towards international engagement and re-engagement are expected to unlock funds from the donor community towards social sector development. Importantly, ODA has been critical in piloting social sector financing, which could be scaled up by all layers of governments. International private players are also becoming critical in the provision of finance for social sectors. Some countries in the developing world have been receiving significant international capital flows through investments in health and education, Public–Private Sector Partnerships (PPPs), and diaspora remittances. The Zimbabwean government enacted the Joint Ventures Act in 2016 to support the development of PPPs. These PPPs are important, as private players and the public sector can jointly develop social sector infrastructure such as hospitals and schools and recover the cost through user fees. However, this needs to be supported through the necessary regulatory and legislative framework as well as incentives to encourage private participation in funding social sectors. According to the World Bank (2016), more than 250 million people, or 3.4% of the world population, live outside their countries of birth. International migrants are believed to have sent home remittances amounting to about US$432 billion in 2015. Global remittance flows to developing countries are estimated to have increased to US$448 billion in 2016 and were expected to reach US$485 billion by 2018 (World Bank 2016). For sub-Saharan Africa, the region was expected to receive about US$36 billion in 2016 and US$39 billion by 2018 (World Bank 2016). Zimbabwe receives more than US$1 billion in terms of diaspora remittances per annum. In this regard, remittances can be crucial in reducing poverty through better nutrition, healthcare access and education for children. As it stands, the remittances have acted as an informal social protection mechanism and a vital private financial resource for many households. There is greater scope, however, to tap into remittances to finance health and education in Zimbabwe. This can be done by way of coming up with investment instruments, such as bonds for infrastructural projects in social sectors, which target Zimbabweans in the diaspora.

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As noted, the country has been unable to access funding from traditional bilateral creditors from the Paris club as well as multilateral creditors, notably the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, African Development Bank and the European Investment Bank, due to the accumulation of external payment arrears. The need for an arrears’ clearance strategy and a re-engagement programme cannot therefore be overemphasised. Government should also strengthen state institutions to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in the utilisation of public funds earmarked for social sectors by tackling corruption and strengthening procurement procedures through which resources are embezzled.

6 Conclusion This chapter reviewed the trends in social sector outcomes in the education and health sector in Zimbabwe, as well as examining financing of the education and health sectors, and institutional challenges and capacity gaps in the social sectors. In addition, it identified the possible options for financing social sectors in the provision of health care and education to the vulnerable members of the society. While the country had made significant progress in developing its social sectors, the economic crisis experienced from 1998 to 2008 reversed some of the gains that had been achieved. From 2009, when the country adopted a multiple currency system, the country managed to improve social sector outcomes driven by a favourable macroeconomic environment. From 2016, however, the country’s economic fortunes nosedived as the economy began to experience renewed economic challenges, including falling revenues and declining fiscal space, and the shortage of foreign currency to import critical drugs, among other things. These challenges are reducing fiscal space and the ability of the government of the Second Republic to support social development in the country. Zimbabwe still faces several financing challenges which might inhibit it in achieving the United Nations’ SDGs among other targets. In this respect, financing for social development in Zimbabwe requires additional financing mechanisms. In the post-Mugabe era, the Second Republic expressed commitment to deal with the financing challenges facing social sectors although no significant progress has been achieved so far. The transition from the multiple currency system, in which civil servants’ salaries were paid in United States dollars, to the current scenario where salaries are now in local currency has led to a significant fall in the morale of both teachers and medical staff as salaries have been eroded by more than 50%. The situation has been further exacerbated by the unexpected emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic which has affected both the education and health sectors in negative ways. In this context, the Second Republic faces an uphill task in financing social sectors. Strategies that can be pursued to enhance financing of the social sector include broadening the tax bases in order to unlock further resources particularly from Zimbabwe’s

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informal economy, exploring contributory schemes, tapping into international financial assistance, strengthening public–private partnerships and tapping diaspora remittances, among other things. The country also needs to mend its relationship with bilateral and multilateral creditors as well as international donor countries in order to be able to tap into additional capital for social sector development. Government should also strengthen state institutions to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in the utilisation of public funds earmarked for social sectors. Though there are constraints specific to addressing the health and education sectors in Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe, it is likely that a more strident formative project broadly speaking (including overcoming democratic shortfalls) would have positive ramifications for these sectors.

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World Economic Forum (2019) Global competitiveness report 2018–2019. World Economic Forum, New York World Health Organisation (2013) State of health financing in the African Region. World Health Organisation, Regional Office for Africa World Health Organisation (2017) Earmarking for health: from theory to practice. Health Financing Working paper No. 5. World Health Organisation (WHO) Zimbabwe School Examination Council (ZIMSEC) (2019) 2018 National examinations pass rates. ZIMSEC, Harare Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT) (2014) 2014 Labour force and child labour survey. ZIMSTAT, Harare

Smart Manda is a research economist with broad expertise in economic modelling, forecasting and analysis. He is currently a Principal Economist in the Economic Research Division of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ). He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Nelson Mandela University, Master of Science in Economics (University of Zimbabwe), Master of Science in Finance and Investment (National University of Science and Technology) and a Bachelor of Science in Economics Honours (University of Zimbabwe). His research interest is on monetary and fiscal policy, economic growth and development, regional integration and international corporation and national competitiveness. Admire Tarisirayi Chirume is a Senior Economist in the Economic Research Unit of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ). His main duties include macro-fiscal analysis and macro-economic research, modelling and forecasting. Chirume has a strong interest in empirical research and modelling with a number of publications and contributions under his name. He holds a Master of Art in Economics from the University of Tsukuba, Japan and a Bachelor of Science Degree (Economics Honours) from the University of Zimbabwe.

Exploring Innovative and Sustainable Financing of Agriculture in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic Peter Nkala

Abstract The land reform programme in Zimbabwe began in 1980 following the signing of the 1979 Lancaster House agreement, targeting a more equitable land distribution in the country between black subsistence farmers and white commercial farmers. The Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) of 2000 marks a watershed in the development of Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector and it continues to have far-reaching implications in relation to the possibilities of innovative and sustainable financing of agriculture. Using primary, secondary and anecdotal evidence on agricultural livelihoods, this study explores effective, innovative and sustainable agriculture financing approaches that address the financial needs of new farmers in post-Mugabe Zimbabwe. This includes innovations in traditional financing options such as conventional agricultural financing, bank loans, contract farming, joint venture financing, ICT-based mobile payment platforms and financing of agricultural research and extension. The chapter shows that there is no clearly marked shift in agricultural financing between the First and Second Republics as most financial institutions are still stuck in their traditional financing models with only cosmetic and superficial innovations in some instances meant to play ball to the direction of the political whirlwind. The willingness to move towards innovative approaches exists but the usual fear of the unknown hampers and slows down the desire to innovate, particularly so among senior management of financial institutions. The study recommends clear policies aimed at improving agricultural finance in the country through necessary and long-overdue increased agricultural financial intermediaries. Agricultural finance institutions must develop innovative agricultural financing portfolios capable of eliminating financial dependence and moral hazards that disrespect basic banking principles.

P. Nkala (B) Faculty of Commerce, National University of Science and Technology, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Moyo and K. Helliker (eds.), Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic, Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30129-2_13

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1 Introduction The land reform programme in Zimbabwe began in 1980 following the signing of the 1979 Lancaster House agreement, targeting a more equitable land distribution in the country between black subsistence farmers and white commercial farmers. In the year 2000, the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) emerged in Zimbabwe, eliminating the white commercial farming sector formerly modelled on the racial colonial agrarian structure which marginalised the majority of black peasants (Moyo 2011a). The Ministry of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement (MLARR) is the custodian of all state land and oversees all agricultural activities at the central government level in the country; hence, it was seriously involved in the FTLRP. Through provincial and district land committees and traditional leaders, the MLARR to date has been very instrumental in the redistribution of land including during the fast-track land reform programme. Applications for fast-track land were lodged with the district and provincial Land Officers in the Department of Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement within the MLARR, albeit with instances of corrupt tendencies. Some applications lodged 22 years ago fell victim of these corrupt tendencies and are yet to be processed, if at all they still exist and were not thrown into the office dust bins. Ideally, traditional leaders are responsible for land matters within their jurisdictions, which have significantly increased in size since the FTLRP, but their powers have been sometimes curtailed by politicians and government officials. The land redistribution exercise created structural problems for farm labourers and vulnerable groups whose livelihoods heavily depended on the farms that were targeted for land reform, a policy miscalculation that to date the government has not fully addressed (Mkodzongi and Lawrence 2019; Nkala et al. 2011). The ongoing economic crisis in Zimbabwe reinforces the financial exclusion of small-scale black farmers, both in communal areas and fast-track farms reeling under challenges of limited support infrastructure and high input costs. Despite the lack of agricultural infrastructure and equipment and problems of financial access, the MLARR persistently reminds small-scale fast-track farmers of the likelihood of losing their land if they are considered unproductive. Some politicians from the ruling party have also threatened newly settled farmers with expulsion if they do not toe the political party line, downplaying the land reform as a national agenda and reducing it to a party matter that can be used to gain political mileage. In addition, lack of access to agricultural finance causes stress, strife and sorrow, as these farmers fail to meet farm production and productivity obligations as expected by the MLARR and other agencies. Innovative agricultural finance institutions and rural development banks are key in facilitating growth, and in assisting small-scale farmers, in line with the government’s agricultural policy as espoused in the National Development Strategy 1 (2021–2025). This chapter uses primary and secondary data, as well as anecdotal evidence to analyse innovative and sustainable agriculture financing approaches aimed at reaching out effectively to smallholder farmers in the post-Mugabe era, thereby increasing agricultural incomes and improving farmers’ livelihoods. Agricultural

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finance institutions must develop innovative agricultural financing portfolios to eliminate financial dependencies and moral hazards while respecting basic banking principles. The required access to credit should strengthen local financial institutions and improve agricultural finance in ways compatible with poverty reduction and improved livelihoods for small-scale farmers in Zimbabwe (FAO 1999).

2 Zimbabwean Agriculture, Past and Present The history of land reform in Zimbabwe dates back to the 1890s. Following the defeat of the indigenous people in the 1890s’ uprisings against the European colonial invaders, the indigenes of the now colonial Zimbabwe were forced to pay rents and taxes on what remained of their land and property, including the infamous head tax. In 1922, still under the auspices of the British South Africa Company (BSAC), European settlers voted to run the country with limited supervision from Great Britain (Thomas 2003). With government support, European settler farmers and miners established farms and mines across the country between 1890 and 1930. Black communities occupying prime agricultural lands of interest to the colonialists had to be displaced without compensation from the colonial government. These lands of interest comprised mainly prime land in reliable and higher rainfall areas as well as other parts of the country where such land could be identified (Savory 1988). The Land Apportionment Act of 1931 divided the country into white and black land with the white population favoured for location in the prime land areas (Magaramombe 2001). The increasing white population from 80,000 in 1945 to 220,000 in 1960, inevitably led to further removal of blacks from their lands, causing enormous land pressure in the Reserves, save for the Master Farmer programme. Black farmers then were considered high-risk borrowers and excluded from accessing agricultural financial services from the few pro-white banks and other agricultural finance institutions. There were limited credit-offering financial institutions supporting farmers in the rural areas or Reserves as they came to be known, despite lobbies towards increased access by the African Farmers Union (AFU).1 It was only in 1978 when small-scale agricultural credit schemes were established for the benefit of smallholder communal farmers (Mumbengegwi 1986). Notwithstanding, white farmers in the colonial agrarian economy got tremendous government support for the cultivation of high-value crops such as maize and tobacco (Desai 1980; Savory 1988; Burkett 1988). The 2000 FTLRP resulted in an enlarged peasantry and expanded number of medium-sized farms, alongside the downsized large-scale capitalist farms and agroindustrial estates in the country. For example, the A1 fast-track model allocated small pieces of land measuring up to 4.2 hectares to poor farmers for livestock rearing and cropping while the A2 model allocated 10–1000 hectares to black commercial 1

The Bantu Farmers Union (BFU) was formed in the 1930s, changed to the African Farmers Union (AFU) in 1942 and finally to the Zimbabwe National Farmers Union (ZNFU) in 1980.

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farmers. The A1 model was projected to consume 80% of the US$1.5 billion government initially committed for land redistribution, with the remainder earmarked for A2 farms (Masiiwa and Chipungu 2004). As of September 2022, there were 360 000 A1 and 18 000 A2 farmers, with 200 000 on the waiting list for allocation of land. In addition, FTLRP resulted in urban and peri-urban agriculture becoming a more integral part of urban households’ livelihoods survival strategies. Nowadays, almost all urban households rely on urban agriculture for survival, unlike was the case before the mid-1990s (Doss 2006). For fast-track farms, understanding the knock-on effects of investment, farm improvements, machinery, seeds and fertilisers, irrigation instalment and maintenance remains critical. Of particular significance is that A1 farmers, as has been the case for decades with communal farmers, remain on the fringes of agricultural financing. The character and speed of FTLRP in fact gave very limited opportunities for innovation in agricultural financing (Stoneman 2017). Overall, conventional financing methods have prevailed as the FTLRP failed to significantly improve agricultural financing for both A1 and A2 farmers. The MLARR offer letters, 99-year leaseholds and livestock remain unacceptable collateral for agricultural finance institutions. There has been a minimal shift from the traditional financing models as smallholders still face the same traditional challenges of access to credit. Banks directly question the security of land tenure for holders of offer letters and 99-year leases, with fast-track replacing freehold agricultural property rights with land-user rights on state property (Moyo 2011b). Murmurs from A1 and A2 farmers for engagements at the government level with the banking sector to accept offer letters and 99-year lease documents as collateral are ongoing (Adams and Romero 1981). The fact that the State owns all agricultural land in Zimbabwe further complicates this agricultural financing challenges for all categories of FTLRP beneficiaries. Traditional financial institutions preferred working largely with white commercial farmers, shunning thousands of black small-scale farmers considered to be unbankable and high-risk. Government initiatives of reaching out and closing this gap, particularly for the A1 and A2 beneficiaries of land reform are often unsustainable. At international level, the FTLRP attracted an imperial backlash and precipitated isolation from international financial markets and discouraged foreign direct investment into the country. Zimbabwe was then forced to “Look East” and elsewhere for agricultural financing (Mkodzongi and Lawrence 2019). This arose amid a plethora of challenges, notably the collapsed agricultural financing model traditionally prevailing in the country (Masiyandima et al. 2011). After only minimal land reform during the 1980s and 1990s in Zimbabwe, fasttrack reform was justified for ethical, social and economic justice reasons, although it was heavily criticised (Thomas 2003; Scoones et al. 2011; Scoones 2014). Critics spoke of a linear decline in agricultural output and massive losses of formal employment in agriculture (Moyo 2011a). Such a narrative does not acknowledge the need to change the ongoing dualistic land ownership and agrarian economy that had persisted since independence, characterised by struggling predominantly small-scale black farmers in communal areas and affluent highly capitalised mostly white commercial farmers. Since 2000, there is no doubt that accountability and sustainable public

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resource utilisation has been a problem given high levels of corruption and lawlessness. These problems compromised confidence in the Zimbabwean government and the agricultural sector in particular, thereby scaring away potential investors and financiers in agriculture. Critics therefore saw no basis for the justification of agricultural financial support for the chaotic fast-track system. Nevertheless, the shocks caused by the FTLRP have not changed the Zimbabwean government’s perspective that agriculture is fundamental for socio-economic development and poverty reduction (Scoones 2014). The government in 2019 acknowledged the disruption caused by the FTLRP to the country’s agricultural sector and effects on a generation of white farmers evicted from farms creating an exodus to countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Mozambique, Zambia and Nigeria among others. Some of these farmers were forced to live in comparatively poor condition while waiting for the uncertain financial compensation for infrastructural developments made on farms they once owned. President Mnangagwa’s government reconsidered the position of Mugabe’s First Republic on compensation and acknowledged it as a necessity (Mkodzongi and Lawrence 2019). Thus, in the 2019 budget, government allocated US$17.5 million towards the initial compensation payments to affected former white farmers. The Commercial Farmers’ Union was tasked to draw up a list of potential beneficiaries by April 2019. Compensation evaluation committees comprising both government officials and former farm owners were established to determine case by case levels of compensation. However, government was clear that farmers were being compensated for infrastructural developments and improvements and not for the land itself. The government approached international financial institutions for various financing models. Such compensation could help inject capital into the agricultural sector as some of the former farmers are still keen to return to agriculture, despite the current uncertainty of investing in this sector.

3 Small-Scale Agriculture Financing in Zimbabwe In Zimbabwe, economically challenged smallholder farmers suffer different modes of financial exclusion, among them high-risk premiums compared to white commercial farmers who have received preferential treatment by both the colonial and postcolonial banking systems. At a global level, silos of agricultural underdevelopment, financial exclusion, information asymmetry and lack of communication technologies remain elusive for most smallholder farmers (Sopov 2018; Ewald et al. 2010). This challenge exposes smallholder farmers to exploitation by politicians who then distribute government sponsored equipment and inputs along partisan lines leading to the exclusion of those believed to support the opposition. There is a very thin separation between the government and political party line narrative in Zimbabwe and most politicians have exploited this to win support from the electorate at the expense of opponents with no access to government resources.

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The changing consumption patterns in emerging markets necessitate the urgency of investing in agriculture worldwide and more so in developing countries. The World Bank (2018) estimated that the 70% increase in the demand for food by 2050 will require a private sector investment of US$80 billion in agriculture. Global estimates in 2018 showed that agriculture supports the livelihoods of about 500 million smallholder farmers’ households in the developing world (World Bank 2018). The Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), a pan-African network providing independent evidence to inform policy as well as coordinate policy research and dialogue on necessary strategies for promoting food, agriculture and natural resources in Africa, affirms that, in Africa alone, agriculture accounts for more than 70% of total employment (Munhamo and Jaka 2017). Seventy percent of the population in Zimbabwe earns a living from agriculture and the agricultural industry supplies 60% of inputs to other industries while contributing 40% of total export earnings and 17% to Gross Domestic Product. This evidence underscores the need for financial support to agriculture to ensure positive impacts on rural livelihoods as espoused in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The World Bank (2018) argues that agricultural growth is twice more effective in eliminating poverty compared to any other economic sector. However, financial institutions in most developing countries lend between 15 and 17%, which is disproportionately a lower share of loan portfolios, to agriculture and far lower than the contribution of agriculture to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Some of the factors constraining growth and the deepening of agricultural finance include: (i) inadequate and ineffective policies, (ii) high transaction costs to agriculture in remote areas, (iii) production risk covariance, (iv) market-price fluctuations and (v) absence of risk management instruments. Added to these are (vi) low product demand due to fragmentation, (vii) undeveloped value chains and (viii) lack of expertise in agricultural loan portfolio management (World Bank 2018). Following the end of the Government of National Unity in 2013, the Zimbabwean government introduced Command Agriculture that continued after the November 2017 political transformation. Zimbabwe’s economic development trajectory in the post-Mugabe era also known as the New Dispensation or Second Republic, was anchored on the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) (2017–2020), the current National Development Strategy 1 (2021–2025) and the broader policy thrust derived from Vision 2030 and its values and objectives (See Box 1). Through the latter, governments strives among other development objectives, to achieve the upper-middle income economic status by year 2030.

Box 1: Vision 2030: Values and Objectives ● ● ● ●

Improved governance and the rule of law. Re-orientation of the country towards democracy. Upholding freedoms of expression and association. Peace and national unity.

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● Respect for human and property rights. ● Attainment of responsive public institutions. ● Broad based citizenry participation in national and socio-economic development programmes. ● Political and economic re-engagement with the global community. ● Creation of a competitive and friendly business environment. ● Enhanced domestic and foreign investment. ● An aggressive fight against all forms of corruption. The key objectives of the TSP were (i) stabilising the macro-economy and financial sector, (ii) introducing necessary policy and institutional reforms to transform to a private sector-led economy and (iii) launching “quick-wins” to stimulate economic growth. Quick-wins are those economic activities or projects that are likely to produce results as quickly as possible, which are also referred to as low-hanging fruits. In this respect, the TSP acknowledges that Zimbabwe’s agricultural financing models show weaknesses and need crucial reforms. Current credit offered by informal and formal financial institutions and other value chain actors simply proved inadequate to meet the funding needs especially of smallholder farmers. Financing of agriculture in Zimbabwe is primarily understood as a legacy of the politics of colonialism and the ensuing neo-colonial relations between Zimbabwe and the West (Thomas 2003). Since 2000, Zimbabwe’s economic performance has fallen on hard times, in relation to global trade and investment. Measuring the direct negative effects of sanctions on trade and investment is difficult without the relevant statistics, despite claims of their significance by ruling party politicians and government. The public sector in Zimbabwe suffers from periodic funding crises and major inefficiencies such as low salaries and deficient operational funding. Education and health sectors are worst affected resulting in unprecedented brain drain and skills flight to the diaspora. Zimbabwean farmers in general have been forced to look for innovative financial survival strategies in their quest for increased agricultural production, and national and household food security. Despite structural constraints and the seeming government economic mismanagement since the late 1990s, Zimbabwean farmers remain resolute in their willingness to produce, and the government continues to assist farmers in accessing agricultural inputs and implements. In light of the FTLRP, restrictions on capital flows, high-interest rates, bond markets collapse, limited options in agricultural development finance and negative attitudes of both old and new financial sector players hamper agricultural recovery in Zimbabwe (Stoneman 2017; Mutami 2015). Agricultural financing is inherently risky given the vagaries of the weather, climate change, recurrent droughts as well as uncertain policy shifts since the FTLRP (Oberholster and Adendorff 2018). The fluctuations in agro-producer prices, pests, disease and drought-induced crop failures count among the risk drivers associated with agricultural financing in Zimbabwe. Doss (2006) shows that small-scale farmers, because of a lack of resources are riskier

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borrowers hence their associated high agricultural financing interest rates. The necessary insurance markets required to mitigate the risks around smallholders are missing and unlikely to be established in the short-term (Musarandega and Chingombe 2017). Kaduwo (2018) argued that these risks form part of the very basis for increasing access to finance for smallholders. Kaduwo’s perspective is rooted in the realisation that credit is necessary for financing the purchase of equipment as well as meeting operational costs of smallholders (Mbira and Moyo 2018). Due to the limited number of financial intermediaries in Zimbabwe, imperfect competition rather than pricetaking competition obtains. A very restrictive financial market subjects farmers to astronomically high inflexible interest rates that in turn lead to discouragingly high costs of capital. In such constrained and incomplete markets, financial innovation is generally low and inefficient and likely to be costly due to high-interest rates. Overall, scarcity of agricultural finance and sticky traditional banking sector mind-sets about smallholder farmers are common challenges facing agricultural financial institutions in Zimbabwe. The current ailing financial sector in Zimbabwe is not robust enough to finance the high-risk end of the market such as agriculture without going through some revolutionary financial transformation.

3.1 Conventional Agricultural Financing in Zimbabwe The FTLRP in Zimbabwe was a major agricultural transformation that affected fundamental principles governing land tenure and property rights as well as the security of bank loans in Zimbabwe. It is difficult to fathom that successful white farmers could lose land for which they legally held title that had been used as collateral for large sums owed in agricultural loans. At that time in 2000, local banks were inexperienced in dealing with such a financial catastrophe, as they were confident that lending to commercial farmers was safe and had guaranteed returns. These commercial farmers had enjoyed unlimited access to financial resources from financial institutions on very relaxed financial terms and also support from government, for years. The FTLRP therefore overturned and decimated the trust nurtured between farmers and the banking institutions for years, much to the chagrin of everyone whose livelihoods depend entirely on agriculture (Bratton 1986; Seidman 2017). There is no doubt that the FTLRP had indeed been very disruptive to the financial sector particularly farmers’ access to credit from these institutions. Critics of the FTLRP regard the transfer of land to peasants as retrogressive and potentially destined to destroy the agricultural sector in Zimbabwe. Their fear has been both realistic and plausible but the elimination of the bi-modal, white versus black colonial agrarian architecture, was inevitable. The FTLRP needed to change the traditional perception banks held about financing the agricultural sector in general. Since 2000, local and international financial institutions require new approaches that shield banks from collapse in the event of huge debt cancellation or beneficiaries’ unwillingness and inability to repay agricultural loans. Financial institutions fear the risk of failure or unwillingness to pay by farmers, given the experiences of

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politically motivated financing programmes—for example, the Farm Mechanisation Programme of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. In this context, the FTLRP has had long-term impacts on both the financial and the agricultural sectors of the economy. The last thirty years in Zimbabwe have witnessed an increasing debate on the efficacy of promoting conventional rather than sustainable agricultural practices, concluding that proponents of conventional agricultural financing have no real argument (Milosevic et al. 2010). Resources for sustainable agricultural financing should be through self-funding or crowd funding whereas, in conventional agriculture, funding inputs are from outside financial institutions including multinational corporations. This means that under the current environment facing farmers in Zimbabwe, sustainable agricultural financing relies on own resources available on the farm rather than relying on external resources. Consistent with supporting ingenuity and innovative adaptation strategies of farmers, internal sources should replace expensive outside inputs that are unaffordable to most smallholder farmers. Despite the implications of the FTLRP on formal financial institutions, Zimbabwe has not succeeded in ensuring moving away from conventional agricultural finance practices. As a result, small-scale farmers remain vulnerable to exploitation by multinational companies hence government through Command Agriculture seeks to capacitate farmers with agricultural inputs. It is critical to encourage and strengthen farmers organisations aimed at ensuring that the production end of agricultural value chains which are effective influencers of agricultural finance policy-making.

4 Financial Innovations for Sustainable Agriculture Financing Schrieder and Heidhues (1995) argue that financial innovation arises out of the need to satisfy customer demands and as a reaction to counter-competition. In the agricultural systems of developing nations, this involves attempts to satisfy different groups of farmers needing financial assistance or intermediation for their operations. Financial intermediation in agriculture in developing countries is characterised by weak competition among financial institutions focused on satisfying the financial service demands of both large-scale and smallholder farmers. It would be suicidal for financial institutions in developing countries to shun the introduction of innovative financing approaches suited for specific geographical, economic, political and social contexts. For example, the financial architecture in these countries should favour medium-size enterprises, the informal sector and smallholder farmers, considering that these are central to future growth of these economies. Individual and group clients from these broad categories form the bulk of clients serviced by developing countries’ financial institutions and hence they cannot be ignored. Increasing financial access to lowly endowed customers particularly poor rural farmers has a tendency to increase transactions costs as well as

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financial intermediation-related risks. The new financial systems should acknowledge the new developments in information and communications technology (ICT) such as mobile phones, social media platforms and other interactive media open to farmers. Financial innovation which is the future of financial institutions in developing countries depends on how they re-engineer and retool lending portfolios to include medium-size enterprises, the informal sector and the smallholder farmers. Financial innovation in agriculture therefore entails banks and other financial intermediaries transforming from the traditional brick and mortar banking models targeting commercial farmers with the ability to meet regular repayments because of well-established production systems, and embracing the new and poorly resourced A1 and A2 Zimbabwean farmers. Financial innovations in developing countries should seek to expand, deepen and integrate capital markets and immensely contribute to the trajectory of economic growth and development for the benefit of the poverty-stricken majority. Innovation also entails ditching or re-examining the traditional philosophy of the un-bankable poor including the smallholder farmers as financial institutions create modern inclusive financial sector. The success of financial innovation requires a paradigm shift in terms of how farmers and banks relate to each other, and to the government and other stakeholders. The new financial model should acknowledge that farming is a very risky and uncertain business given imminent threats from poor soils, drought, erosion and pests. Traditional financial models do not recognise the peculiar needs and traits of new farmers and effects of climate change. Climate change-related challenges negatively affect farming more than ever before, and the effects and influences need to be integrated into the new banking policies and practices. In this context, financial innovation is any change in the financial intermediary that may be cost-decreasing or cost-increasing for the intermediary and society (Adams and Romero 1981; Schrieder and Heidhues 1995). Desai (1980) and Burkett (1988) associate financial innovation with the development of new products or services leading to increased efficiency levels in the technology advanced financial system. ICTs deliberately or by default should be fully integrated into any agricultural financial innovation. The diversity of financial innovation affecting agricultural finance may be categorised into financial-systems innovation, processes innovation, product innovation or financial institutions innovation, with blurred boundaries between them. Overall, this entails improving markets and extending the sphere of rational calculability (Ewald et al. 2010). The Zimbabwean financial system is still traditional and defined by the pre-FTLRP characteristics hence it is not yet geared for the new changes brought about by land reform. Zimbabwe has not seen significant changes in terms of financial-systems innovation, processes innovation or product innovation. The system still reminiscences about successful commercial farmers as clients, not the struggling newly resettled A1 and A2 farmers. Financial sector reform precipitated by the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) in Zimbabwe from 1991 to 1995 sought to enhance financial innovation and intermediation. It sought to increase financial liberalisation by

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opening up the financial sector and ensuring increased institutional and product diversity among other changes. However, promised innovations and diversification were not realised, with policy inconsistencies partly responsible as each new policy thrust failed to pick up on unfinished business from previous policies guiding operations in the financial sector. Following financial liberalisation in Zimbabwe, many financial institutions sprouted leading to improved liquidity and leverage for various sectors of the economy but for a very brief period, before the advent of an unprecedented closure of most of the newcomers. During this time, controls on foreign currency allocations, credit allocations, prices and interest rates were temporarily removed. At the same time, inflationary pressures increased as a result of price decontrols and bank financing of the growing fiscal deficits. Thirty years later, about 15% of those new financial institutions remain, the majority collapsing for various reasons including lack of financial prudence and mismanagement. The public confidence in the banking sector was severely affected as the public lost millions of dollars in household savings and investments. Current and future financial innovations need to take into account these experiences and ensure mechanisms that will avoid a repeat and negative effects of a financial collapse. Agricultural sustainability in general is discussed in detail in Pretty (1995, 2005) and Nkala et al. (2011), but here we focus on sustainable agricultural financing. Sustainable agricultural financing allows for increased access by smallholder farmers to longevity around farming, despite high-risk levels, high transaction costs, long turnover periods as well as low returns on investments, missing markets and cumbersome land tenure systems. Flexibility in making provisions for small-scale farmers by showing a willingness to adjust repayments according to given risk factors arising in any particular season should be embedded in such an innovative system. This entails the development of financing models incorporating seasonal and perennial challenges facing poor farmers, making sure that as the bottom line, farmers remain financially sound after the intervention. Simply expressed, sustainable financing means that farmers are able to continue with their agricultural activities even after the capital injection from whatever source. Agricultural financing should be welcomed rather than rebuffed by farmers due to extortionist tendencies and other impediments.

5 Methods of Agricultural Financing for Zimbabwe This section discusses different forms of agricultural financing including contract farming, joint venture financing, bank loans and group financing. The characteristics and challenges of agricultural financing models and their suitability for modern poor and under-capitalised smallholder farmers is covered. Farmers in Zimbabwe lobbied for agricultural financing through Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union (ZCFU), Zimbabwe National Farmers Union (ZNFU) and Federation of Farmers Unions (FoFU). Launched in September 2017, FoFU is a merger of CFU, ZCFU and ZNFU to ensure effective organisation of farmers

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around a common policy consensus required for agricultural growth and development in Zimbabwe. Hence, FoFU seeks to achieve unified farmer representation, thereby improving Zimbabwean farmers’ ability to advocate and lobby government for favourable laws, regulations and policies. These attempts are an ongoing initiative that may be realised only in the long term while farmers’ need for loans and other forms of financial assistance are immediate. Conventional agricultural financing models collapsed because of climate change and unpredictability associated with farmers and farming in general. Climate change has, therefore, in recent years complicated traditional models of agricultural financing, necessitating newer and more innovative models of increasing access to credit by poor and struggling small-scale farmers. The World Bank (2018) developed innovative agricultural financing products such as (i) value chain financing, (ii) inventory finance, (iii) partial agriculture credit guarantee schemes, (iv) matching grants, (v) crop insurance, (vi) price hedging instruments and (vii) gender finance. Most financial institutions in Zimbabwe use these agricultural finance products and sell them to farmers who meet the set criteria for access to loans, “cart blanche”, yet not all of them may be suitable for this market. This means that the one size fits all approach used by financial institutions is not applicable for the Zimbabwean market characterised by small-scale farmers exhibiting high chances of defaulting in loan repayments. Crop insurance though, is relatively new and unknown to many small-scale farmers in Zimbabwe and only a few contract farming companies and suppliers of inputs use this form of credit insurance to protect against climate change associated risks.

5.1 Bank Loans Loans are the traditional financing options for any borrower activity that is undercapitalised and needing credit lines. Credit schemes available to farmers in Zimbabwe have shown disappointing results (Bratton 1986). Masiyandima et al. (2011) argue that financial institutions focusing on agricultural financing should adopt innovative collateral-substitution lending approaches employed by similar institutions in other countries, enabling lending without demanding the traditional formal bank collateral security. This approach is, however, yet to be fully accepted and adopted by traditional banking institutions in Zimbabwe. Small bank finance is an option for small-scale farmers including A1 and A2 fast-track and large-scale commercial farmers in dire need of capital. Working and pooling their resources together, the small-scale farmers could realise economies of scale in purchasing, production, value addition, marketing and advisory services. This mode of finance is usually unavailable but when available attracts highinterest rates ranging between 25 and 40% in some cases. Interest rates as high as 36%, and insurance and management fees compounded annually, have seen loans of US$13,000 ballooning to US$78,000 as banks do not respect the in-duplum rule that, “interest should cease at the point where the interest itself ends up being equal

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to the principal”. Banks order farmers to pay up loans that would have accumulated to three or four times the original amount advanced or risk losing property through auctioning of farmers’ properties. Financial institutions during inflationary periods do anything possible to avoid losses as direct consequences of unpredictable changes in the economy, such that the client should always pay. Financial institutions in Zimbabwe seem to be violating every rule in the financial sectors manual to profiteer at the expense of depositors. Although some A1 and A2 farmers fund agricultural activities from own wage income, as most are still employed in the public or private sector, such wage income is never sufficient to finance high budgets for farm implements and other inputs. Most A1 and A2 farmers are still involved in infrastructural investment purchasing farm equipment and machinery with minimal or zero government support. The exceptions are when government efforts result in the provision of low-interest loans with long repayment periods such as the US$98 million sourced under the auspices of the “More Food International Programme”, a bilateral financing arrangement with the government of Brazil. Such schemes tend to be very popular with farmers, although challenges come at the point of distribution of the loans when those responsible tend to politicise the distribution process. Some politicians are quick to hijack such government programmes through self-accumulation and the quest for gaining political mileage. Stanbic Bank in Zimbabwe has an agricultural production loan facility that helps farmers finance agricultural input costs. Farmers can apply as individuals, groups or legally constituted entities in the agricultural sector including commercial and agri-businesses. This is important as evidence from both rural and urban produce markets around the country indicates a dire need for short-term loans of up to six months to stabilise both supply and prices for the benefit of farmers. Typically, small-scale communal and other farmers are unable to meet the requirements of financial institutions, and hence they rarely finance farm operations through loans from financial institutions. A study by Bratton (1986) confirmed that access to credit for farmers belonging to voluntary agricultural associations was easier and most joint liability loans attracted lower administrative costs. Joint liability rather than individual arrangements is easier to enforce and improve repayment rates. Under such arrangements, farmers supervise each other in terms of meeting repayment requirements, therefore eliminating the possibility of bad debts as the likelihood of repayment improves. The success of such models is shown by the famous Grameen Bank model by Mohammed Yunus which disproved the erroneous thinking that the poor are un-bankable. Stokvels that are well-known in South Africa are also good cases of how successful crowd funding can be in financing projects of the poorly resourced such as smallholder farming businesses. The demand for agricultural loans and failure to repay may result in the loss of lives as farmers fail to withstand the pain and trauma of seeing treasured properties auctioned to offset bank debts. Bank rigidity and inflexibility forces farmers to secure loans against urban residential properties and some movable farm machinery that

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ends up auctioned following defaults on repayments. Notwithstanding this, sometimes failure to pay by farmers is a wanton unwillingness to pay, whereby beneficiaries refuse to pay for anything perceived to be donated by government or their political party. The argument is “if there are others who got loans in the past and never paid, why should those getting loans later be made to pay?”. This moral hazard has roots in the government sponsored grain loan scheme and has been a major problem in many agricultural financing schemes in Zimbabwe.

5.2 Contract Farming Contract farming is a method of agricultural financing by private sector companies which aimed at alleviating the financial burden in the procurement of inputs, from the farmer to the contractor through an agreement to sell the output at an agreed price to the contractor. Future agricultural financing should support innovative practices utilising cost-effective approaches that rely on less pricey external inputs. Such innovative practices should be able to survive economic challenges though diversification, less reliance on pricey external inputs and reliance on income generated through farmer creativity (Savory 1988). To this end, in Ethiopia, financiers require farmers with at least 0.5 ha. of land to participate in innovative maize growing and credit schemes as part of contract farming (Doss 2006). However, many smallholder farmers often cry foul about the prices offered by contracting companies as not being in tandem with the amount of labour input from land preparation, planting and harvesting expended by the farmer. Subsequently, contractors or financiers lose out to side marketing as the farmers seek to maximise gains by offering produce to other buyers other than the contractor as protest against unfair prices. For commercial farmers, contract farming arrangements were never popular routes to agricultural finance due to low profits and high risks accruing to the farmer. In the case of Zimbabwe, the Chinese are now heavily involved in various sectors of the economy including mining and agriculture. This is in line with the government’s Look East policy which, since 2000 made China the number one investor in the Zimbabwean economy. This is part of a broader trend of Chinese investment in Africa, albeit with various concerns about the covert intentions of Chinese in developing countries across the world. With regard to agriculture, the Chinese are mainly interested in tobacco and cotton as well as boosting imports of Chinese agricultural machinery innovations. In 2000, Tian Ze, a Chinese company, financed tobacco farming in Zimbabwe including in the newly acquired fast-track farms. Government facilitated the project through foreign currency retention initiatives, permits to purchase tobacco outside auction floors, subsidised seed multiplication through the Tobacco Research Board (TRB), and developing necessary regulations to facilitate this form of contract farming. The Chinese market is the largest consumer of the flue-cured tobacco in Zimbabwe of which the golden leaf tobacco trade was worth US$200 million in 2017.

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In a study of contract farming amongst small-scale tobacco farmers Zimbabwe, Scoones et al. (2017) conclude that smallholder contract farmers benefit through improved access to information, access to credit and guaranteed marketing of their produce. The study highlighted that smallholder contract farmers had higher household incomes than non-contracted farmers. However, most contracted smallholder farmers did not understand the terms and conditions of the contracts as contracting companies never fully explained contracting terms to farmers. This challenge is common in many situations of contract farming and is either deliberately overlooked or is a consequence of communication breakdowns between the less educated farmer and the contractor. Training of smallholder farmers, explaining terms and conditions of contract farming arrangements and the formation of a National Agriculture Risk Management Bureau (NARMB) to monitor various aspects of contract farming activities is recommended. The pace at which small-scale farmers are embracing contract farming for cash crops such as maize for seed multiplication, tobacco and sorghum is increasing although improvements in the types of contracts between farmers and contract farming companies are yet to be realised.

5.3 Joint Venture Financing Joint agricultural venture financing entails individuals or groups of farmers engaging in farming arrangements with larger players such as the model applied in the Agricultural Rural Development Authority (ARDA) estates in Zimbabwe. For example, external financiers enter into business contracts with larger farmers under joint venture arrangements. Joint ventures usually involve larger and more capacitated partners contributing capital while the lesser resourced communal and A1 farmers, contribute land or labour. Commercial farmers tend to avoid joint venture arrangements because of profitability and risk related reasons. A study on sustainable joint venture agricultural practices in Ethiopia showed that a number of factors influenced farmers’ adoption of these agricultural practices, namely, (i) household trust in government agricultural support, (ii) credit constraint, (iii) spouse’s education, (iv) social capital and networks, (v) labour availability, (vii) rainfall and plot level disturbances, (viii) household health and (ix) market access (Teklewold et al. 2013). In fact, many questions about joint venture agricultural practices in sub-Saharan Africa remain unanswered because of continued low levels of funding for agricultural research (Milosevic et al. 2010). Budgeting for funds and increasing allocations for agricultural research could improve understanding of joint ventures functionality and effectiveness as a source of agricultural finance in Zimbabwe. Due to the reluctance of some financial institutions to extend credit to smallholder farmers, the Zimbabwean government in 2015 encouraged farmers’ engagements in joint ventures and contract farming, but to first seek government approval to safeguard the interests of all parties. Most financial institutions demand collateral in the form of title deeds for the land but communal and resettlement farmers do not

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have such title deeds. Given the current economic quagmire facing stakeholders in the agricultural sector, the most plausible government arrangements through joint ventures are the best towards capitalising the poorly resourced A1 and A2 farmers. Most of these farmers have relied on the Government and Presidential Input Support Scheme (PISS), a government scheme that provided inputs to farmers. Joint ventures tend to capacitate farmers, optimise farm and farmer productivity, and facilitate the recovery of loans some farmers owed to banks, thereby helping farmers to avoid losing property following defaults in loan repayments. Joint ventures also help cut-out the middle-men, which usually presents pricing problems for farm products and assets including livestock being given away at ridiculously low prices. The fear is that farmers might confuse contract and joint venture arrangements with sub-letting of farms which government detests, hence there exists the enforcement of land use agreements signed by district and provincial land officers of the Ministries of Lands and Rural Resettlement (MLRR) and Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development (MAMID). Government can improve joint venture performance through policies that promote security of land tenure, contract enforcement and risk management framework issues where these are lacking.

5.4 ICT-Based Mobile Payment Platforms The Zimbabwean agricultural sector has much to learn from countries such as Bolivia, Ghana, India, Israel, Kenya and Uganda, as these countries have embraced information and communication technologies (ICTs) in promoting agriculture. These ICTs include use of computers, the internet, geographical information systems, mobile phones, traditional radio and television media to disseminate information to all stakeholders in the agricultural sector. However, the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services (MICTPCS) is working with private stakeholders including software developers on a drive to sensitise farmers on farming better using ICTs. The introduction of ICTs in education, health, financial services and trade is evidence that technology can contribute significantly to agricultural development in Zimbabwe. A Zimbabwean mobile operator for instance developed the Eco-Farmer initiative (See Box 2) to provide agricultural information on farmers’ mobile phones on the expectation that farmers with mobile phones will share such information with those without. Broadcasting via rural community radios, television or mobile phone help reach wider coverage in disseminating agricultural finance information, thereby levelling the playing field between producers and traders. Videos of good practices and rural theatre are powerful means in this agricultural financial information dissemination channel. Software developers are encouraged to design innovation platforms that help farmers realise the value of using ICTs.

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Box 2: The Eco-Farmer Initiative Agricultural finance in Zimbabwe has benefited from Econet Wireless’s EcoFarmer Initiative introduced in 2013, now with more than one million farmers on the platform. Econet is one of the three mobile network providers in Zimbabwe that has diversified into providing financial services including agricultural finance through its commercial banking division, Steward Bank. The Eco-Farmer micro-insurance product insures inputs and crops against adverse weather patterns such as drought or excessive rainfall. Subscribing farmers also access a bundle of Econet services that include farming information, crop data, crop insurance and daily weather data from local weather stations, as well as financial services and market linkages to agricultural finance institutions. EcoCash is the payment vehicle through which farmers access Econet financial services and it is arguably the most preferred payment method by local businesses. To qualify, farmers have to register at an Econet kiosk providing full personal details including the submission of the Eco-Farmer crop cover voucher number, pay a US$10 premium per season for a claim of US$100 or pay a premium of US$2.50 for a claim of US$25 for insurance service access. Organisations that have collaborated with Econet through the Eco-Farmer Club initiative include input providers such as Windmill, Agricura, Tanaka Power, Agriseeds, Farm Shop, National Tested Seeds, Graniteside Hardware, Seedridge and ARDA Seeds. Benefits of being an Eco-Farmer Club member include accessing seed, fertilisers, agrochemicals, stock feeds, animal health products, farming implements and inputs from selected agro-dealers such as seed and fertiliser companies, poultry suppliers, as well as crop and livestock outlets at special discounted prices. Source: Various Documents. ICTs enable timeous dissemination of information on agricultural advisories, trainings, weather related risks, financial products and agricultural markets. However, the adoption of ICTs as a strategy to improve farm productivity, augment incomes and improve market access in Zimbabwe lags behind compared to other countries. Most of these interventions require preliminary investment by the government as the provider of the conducive environment and an enabling infrastructure for agriculture. Much still needs to be done in Zimbabwe in this regard. Given the widespread rural penetration of the mobile phone connectivity in Zimbabwe, most farmers already own mobile phones, an excellent opportunity for cost-effective dissemination of personalised agricultural finance information. Furthermore, farmers can receive payments and transact on electronic mobile platforms instead of visiting the bank. The already developed mobile banking and payment platforms increase access to finance while reducing transactions costs for various stakeholders in the agricultural value chain. This noble development is affected by Zimbabwe’s cumbersome pricing system that makes it difficult for

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farmers to realise maximum benefits due to high costs of EcoCash transactions. Such benefits of ICTs in agriculture can be maximised through an elimination of the multiple pricing approaches used by most businesses in the country. Businesses in Zimbabwe have different prices for each currency of transacting; for example, RTGS swipe, RTGS transfer, ZWL-cash, EcoCash, or types of foreign currency transactions that involve the rand, pula or the US-dollar. Ultimately, it is the customer who pays a high price for this confusion. What is further required is the development of solutions associated with the production challenges of climate change and weather risks, price hedging instruments and reducing operational costs for smallholder farmers and others in the agribusiness sector. Digital finance technologies are necessary in the fourth industrial and agricultural revolution. Global Positioning Systems (GPS) linked to Geographical Information Systems (GIS), digital cameras and the internet, help rural communities of countries such as India, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana and Bolivia have better access to credit and rural banking facilities. These developments are also possible given the sophistication of Zimbabwe’s information and communication technological environment and should be encouraged in both the private and public sectors of the economy. The country’s financial sector is also sophisticated enough to further embrace the use of ICTs in financing agriculture.

5.5 Financing of Agricultural Research and Extension Agricultural research and extension in Zimbabwe is well-established. Kangasniemi (2002) notes that taxpayers are the dominant funders of agricultural research executed by government research stations or institutions across the country. In a study about financing agricultural research and extension for small-scale farmers in the subSaharan Africa, Beynon (1996) argued that public agricultural research and extension was at one time well-funded in Zimbabwe, but since the late 1980s this declined sharply with personnel costs consuming 70% of the budgetary allocations, through the Department of Research and Specialist Services (DRSS). The Department of agricultural research and extension tended to spread its resources thinly there by detrimentally affecting its capacity to undertake on-farm trials. The effects of the decline in the effectiveness of agricultural extension continue to be felt as most resettlement and communal farmers no longer access these services due to a lack of resources including transport. Establishment of an independent Agricultural Research Council in order to promote research-based agricultural innovations, improve efficiency in the use and control of finances and to ensure accountability and responsiveness to agricultural stakeholder needs is necessary. Pooling resources can also be done through increasing user fees, collecting royalties from breeder material, having a commercial approach to farming and research. Eventually, the Ministry of Finance granted DRSS more financial autonomy and retention of net revenues to further promote agricultural research and extension. Private sector activity is growing rapidly and is expected

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to account for 30% of total research expenditure by 2025. Producer associations such as the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) channels significant sums of money towards its own research unit, the Agricultural Research Trust (ART) rather than through DRSS. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, all members of CFU were subject to compulsory levies towards research to eliminate the free-rider problem (Beynon 1996). All efforts recognise the important role of extension services in improving productivity in agriculture through cost-effective use of public funds.

6 Lessons from the 10 Kampala Principles of Innovative Agricultural Finance The need for fully functional agricultural finance sectors across the African continent is the concern for Making Finance Work for Africa (MFW4A), an organisation affiliated to the African Development Bank (AfDB) based in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. MFW4A provides a coordination platform for governments, the private sector and development partners interested in improving financial sector development across the continent with minimum or zero duplication but optimal developmental impacts. Table 1 summarises 10 principles for innovative agricultural finance adopted by MFW4A at their meeting held in June 2011 in Kampala, Uganda. These 10 principles can be used as a guideline by any government, private sector and other development actors interested in improving agricultural performance and financial intermediation in the developing world. All these principles can be implemented to close the gaps discussed above with an aim to improve financial innovation and performance in the agricultural sector in Zimbabwe. The gap alluded to in Principle 4 in particular is more apparent and glaring in Zimbabwe particularly as applies to the legality of offer letters and other government documents that give holdership or lease titles to the A1 and A2 farmers in particular. Twenty-two years after the implementation of the FTLRP, numerous legal issues regarding contestation and failure by financial institutions to accept 99-year lease documents as collateral for loan applications are still pending. The majority of A1 and A2 farmers particularly women and youth need capacitation to understand financial literacy, consumer protection and farmer business education as alluded to in Principle 8.

7 Conclusion The chapter shows that there is no clear shift in agricultural financing between the First and Second Republics in Zimbabwe, most financial institutions are still stuck in their traditional financing models with flashes of cosmetic and superficial innovations. The willingness to move towards innovative approaches exists but is hampered by the usual fear of the unknown particularly among financial institutions’

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Table 1 The 10 Kampala Principles of innovation in agricultural finance in Africa # Principle

Description

P1

Establish a specific high-level coordination body as the advocate for Agricultural Finance

P2

Strengthen farmers based organisations that will effectively influence agricultural finance policy-making

P3

Strengthen public sector policy agricultural value chain approach to include smaller farmers to optimise economies of scale throughout the agricultural value chain

P4

Enact legislation to foster innovation and remove barriers to financing the business of agriculture, through measures such as asset-backed products, warehouse receipts, security of land tenure, contract farming, credit reference bureaux, consolidation of small but viable rural financial institutions and other support to the informal financial sector

P5

Encourage private sector investment and increase public sector expenditure in crop and livestock research and extension, water harvesting crop insurance, rural green energy supply, communications and roads

P6

Capacitate financial institutions and markets ability to meet the demand for longer-term financing with increased accessibility

P7

Encourage agriculture commercialisation by bringing together all stakeholders ensuring that social, cultural and environmental concerns are met and ensure controls are in place to prevent undesirable exploitation

P8

Capacitate farmers, particularly women and youth, understanding of financial literacy, consumer protection and farmer business education

P9

Drive research, training and knowledge dissemination to improve private sector investment in the agriculture value chain including services

P10

Ensure availability of information and communications technology towards improvements in markets, output prices, costs inputs and financial products and services conditions

Source Making Finance Work for Africa www.mfw4a.org

senior management. Perhaps the four years of agricultural transformation in the post-Mugabe era are simply too short to have recorded any meaningful innovations in financing agriculture in Zimbabwe. This chapter also shows that pro-poor financing policies could increase financial innovation, adoption and productivity especially of smallholder farmers, particularly during the fourth industrial revolution. Policies integrating clear national strategies for agriculture and rural development are necessary for the country’s agricultural financing model in line with the objectives of the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP), the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) and possibly other future economic policies. Innovative and sustainable approaches to agricultural financing allowing for the revival of the bread basket status of the country are necessary and urgent. Freezing or suspending loan repayments and interests during drought is not only reasonable but a recommended and equitable financial practice. The dependency

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syndrome and moral hazard among farmers dogging the agricultural sector in the last four decades remains problematic and should be eliminated. Addressing the dependency syndrome and moral hazard should be without prejudice to the state or stakeholders with an interest in financing the agricultural sector. Farmers and politicians should understand, appreciate and respect basic banking principles and consequences of defaulting on agricultural loans. Innovative measures by banks could include expanding collateral to include farm equipment, vehicles and tractors, livestock or other movable property and other properties owned or easily accessed by modern A1 and A2 farmers. New insurance portfolios such as the weather index, resultant low area yields, livestock mortality and price fluctuation insurance against crop failure are necessary for an improved agricultural value chain financing. The introduction and promotion of micro-insurance product insurance offering innovative digital access to the insurance sector, such as Kenya’s Acre Africa, would be most welcome. Such insurance packages could address systemic and other risks management mechanisms that would lower the operational costs of dealing with smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe or developing countries in general. Furthermore, offer letters and 99-year lease agreements should be acceptable as collateral for A1 and A2 farmers that require financing. Current efforts and negotiations by government and the central bank are encouraged and should be concluded as soon as possible. Introduction of seasonal adaptive measures are necessary for effective agricultural financing to allow for longer-term repayment periods, grace periods in the event of a bad cropping seasons induced drought, cyclones and less frequent repayments or leasing of products. The FTLRP created an opportunity for Zimbabwe to aggressively finance agriculture from internal rather than external resources as has been the norm since independence. The growing tendency of farmers within A1 and A2 jurisdictions pooling resources together to finance projects including infrastructure such as roads, dams and boreholes is encouraged. This facilitates community transparency, accountability and a sense of ownership among everyone involved. Financial institutions should introduce cloud-based assessments of farmers’ eligibility for credit through data from mobile phones and internet platforms that will not require the physical presence of farmers in the banking hall. This will increase efficiency and savings of the farmers’ productive time allowing them to concentrate on their farming activities. Such innovative banking approaches are even more appropriate during the COVID-19 pandemic when face to face interactions with clients are discouraged as the new normal. Kaduwo (2018) argues that, unlike Kenya and Uganda, Zimbabwe lacks agriculture value chain-financing platforms required by the twenty-first-century farmer. Financial institutions in Zimbabwe can draw lessons from these countries and introduce these platforms and products using the already available infrastructure. Policies aimed at improving agricultural finance in the country through increased agricultural financial intermediaries other than the Agribank are necessary and overdue. Such policies should also emphasise treating “farming as a business” by all categories of farmers to avoid holding land for speculation, prestige and posturing rather than extracting the much-needed value out of the land. Consequently, such

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policies promote the legal framework required to empower producer organisation to mobilise resources for the public sector, and ensure effective resource utilisation and accountability (Kangasniemi 2002). Efforts in this direction by government and the private sector would be commendable. Weekend and mobile phone farming should be discouraged because of welldesigned land audits that seek to establish productivity levels on each holding and also for the purposes of putting all the land to optimum use. The State should finance agricultural research as a public good that will assist the new rural farmers become productive and commercial in their approach to farming. Public research programmes targeting poverty alleviation and food security goals for both consumers and producers could attract financing from the private sector should be supported. Consolidated agriculture funding mechanisms involving the private and public sector should be encouraged. Finally, donor support for agricultural finance is only beneficial in the short-term but unsustainable in the long term due to the creation of the proverbial dependency syndrome so it is critical that the state through the fiscus finance its own agriculture.

References Adams DW, Romero AA (1981) Group lending to the rural poor in the Dominican Republic: a stunted innovation. Can J Agric Econ 29:217–224 Beynon J (1996) Financing of agricultural research and extension for smallholder farmers in subSaharan Africa, Natural Resource Perspectives, Overseas Development Initiative Bratton M (1986) Financing smallholder production: A Comparison of individual and group credit schemes in Zimbabwe. Publ Adm Dev 6(2):115–132 Burkett P (1988) Informal finance in developing countries: lessons for the development of formal financial intermediaries. Fl, USA, University of Miami, Coral Gables Desai BM (1980) Rural financial market barriers and group lending innovation. Economics and sociology occasional paper no 7. The Ohio State University, Columbus Oh, USA Doss CR (2006) Analysing technology adoption using microstudies: limitations, challenges and opportunities for improvement. Agric Econ 34:207–219 Ewald E, Ismail E, Julie F, Adam L, Williams K (2010) Reconceptualising financial innovation: frame, conjuncture and bricolage. Econ Soc 39(1):33–63 Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) (1999) Cultivating our futures: taking stock of the multifunctional character of agriculture and land: food and agriculture organisation, Rome Kaduwo T (2018) Innovation is the missing link in agriculture, analysis, financial matters, opinion, The Zimbabwe independent Kangasniemi, K (2002) Financing agricultural research in Africa. In: Byerlee D, Echeverria RG (ed) Agricultural research policy in an era of privatisation. CABI Publishing Magaramombe G (2001) Rural poverty: commercial farm workers and land reform in Zimbabwe. In: Paper presented at the SARPAN conference on land reform and poverty alleviation in Southern Africa, Pretoria Masiiwa M, Chipungu L (2004) Land reform programme in Zimbabwe: disparity between policy design and implementation. In: Masiiwa (ed) Post-independence land reform in Zimbabwe: controversies and impacts on the economy. University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and Institute of Development Studies

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Masiyandima N, Gibson C, Bara A (2011) Sustainable financing options for Agriculture in Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe economic policy and analysis research unit (ZEPARU), working paper series, ZWPS 02/10 Mbira L, Moyo S (2018) Drivers of agricultural funding in a post partially dollarized Zimbabwe. J Econ Behav Stud 10(3):52–59 Milosevic B, Lamberti L, Milenkovic M (2010) Sustainable agricultural and future challenges for agricultural research and extension services. Sustain Agric Future Mkodzongi G, Lawrence P (2019) The fast-track land reform and agrarian change in Zimbabwe. Rev Afr Polit Econ 46(159):p1-13 Moyo S (2011a) Changing agrarian relations after land reform in Zimbabwe. Peasant Stud 38(5):p939-966 Moyo S (2011b) Three decades of agrarian reform in Zimbabwe. Peasant Stud 38(3):p493-531 Mumbengegwi C (1986) Continuity and change in agricultural policy. In: Mandaza I (ed) Zimbabwe political economy of transition: 1980–1986, pp 203–222 Munhamo C, Ellen J (2017) Proposed financing mechanisms for improved post-harvest loss management technologies. In: Cost benefit analysis of post-harvest management innovations: Benin case study, food, agriculture, and natural resources policy analysis network (FANRPAN), pp 32–33 Musarandega H, Chingombe W (2017) A comparative case of the implications of various approaches to climate change adaptation in Bangladesh, India, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Africanus 47(1):1–11 Mutami C (2015) Smallholder agriculture production in Zimbabwe: a survey. Consilience 14:140– 157 Nkala P, Nelson M, Precious Z (2011) Conservation agriculture and livelihoods of smallholder farmers in central Mozambique. J Sustain Agric 35(7):757–779 Oberholster C, Adendorff C (2018) Four agricultural financing scenarios for Sub-Saharan Africa toward 2055: conditions for governmental policy interventions. World Futures Rev 1946756718770771 Pretty J (1995) Regenerating agriculture: policies and practice for sustainability and self-reliance. National Academy Press, Washington DC; ActionAid, Bangalore, Earthscan Publications, London Pretty J (ed) (2005) The pesticide detox: towards a more sustainable agriculture: Earthscan, James and James, London Savory A (1988) Holistic resource management. Island Press, Washington DC Schrieder G, Heidhues F (1995) Reaching the poor through financial innovations. Q J Int Agric 34(2):132–148 Scoones I (2014) Debating Zimbabwe’s land reform. Institute of Development Studies, Brighton Scoones I, Marongwe N, Mavedzenge B, Murimbarimba F, Mahenehene J, Sukume C (2011) Zimbabwe’s land reform: challenges and myths. Peasant Stud 38(5):967–993 Scoones I, Mavedzenge B, Murimbarimba F, Sukume C (2017) Tobacco, contract farming, and agrarian change in Zimbabwe. J Agrar Change 1–21 Seidman A (2017) Book review: agricultural development in Southern Africa-farm-household economies and the food crisis Sopov M (2018) Income intervention quick scan: Access to finance; farmer income lab intervention quick scan. Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation, Wageningen University & Research. Report WCDI-18-023. Wageningen Stoneman C (2017) Land reform in Zimbabwe: constraints and prospects. Routledge Teklewold H, Kassie M, Shiferaw B (2013) Adoption of multiple sustainable agricultural practices in Rural Ethiopia. J Agric Econ 64:597–623 Thomas NH (2003) Land reform in Zimbabwe. Third World Q 24(4):691–712 World Bank (2018) Agriculture finance and agriculture insurance. World Bank, Washington DC

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Peter Nkala has a Ph.D. in Economic and Social Sciences from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria; and MSc and BSc in Economics from the University of Zimbabwe. Currently, he is the Executive Dean, Faculty of Commerce at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Zimbabwe. From February 2020 to April 2021, he served as NUST Acting Pro-Vice Chancellor—Innovation & Business Development. Dr Nkala has worked with International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Southern African Trade Research Network (SATRN), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). His research interests are in agriculture and livelihoods, economic development and trade.

Concluding Reflections on Change and Continuity Gorden Moyo and Kirk Helliker

Abstract This final chapter revisits the central issue of this book in the context of the preceding thematic-based chapters, namely, change and continuity in relation to the Mugabe and Mnangagwa governments, with a particular focus on what we label as Mnangagwa’s formative project. There is general agreement across the chapters that Zimbabwean scholars must not rush to conclusions about the fundamental character of the Mnangagwa regime, and that unpacking the various dimensions of the Second Republic’s formative project is a worthy analytical endeavour. However, despite the wide-ranging official articulations of this project, the chapters demonstrate that the project has not taken off in any serious manner. Hence, as the chapters show in their own unique way, the project’s limitations are clearly evident. These limitations exist because, currently, the risks of change to power-retention far exceed any risks arising from simply retaining the current political settlement. This raises deep concerns about the space for dissent and mobilisation leading up to the upcoming national elections in 2023. We conclude by arguing that until such time as ordinary Zimbabweans can openly dissent and mobilise against the Zimbabwean government without fear of repression, Mnangagwa’s formative project will remain stalled.

1 Introduction The chapters contained in this volume provide a critical appraisal of what we label as President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s formative project. They address some of the trends, contestations and contradictions associated with the transition from the presidency of Robert Mugabe to that of Mnangagwa following an unconstitutional but, at least initially, popularly received transfer of power in November 2017. The chapter contributors grappled with some of the vexing questions that have defined G. Moyo (B) Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Lupane State University, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] K. Helliker Department of Sociology, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Moyo and K. Helliker (eds.), Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic, Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30129-2_14

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and continue to define and redefine the formative project of the Mnangagwa administration including questions of national healing and reconciliation, official corruption, debt sustainability, financing of agriculture, devolution, traditional leadership, and the right to development. These themes are analysed in this book with a view to examine the extent to which Mnangagwa’s government represents change or continuity in relation to the Mugabe legacy or an admixture of both. In this final chapter, we reflect further on Mnangagwa’s formative project in the light of the book’s wide-ranging chapters.

2 Mnangagwa’s Formative Project: Limitations Abound In this respect, it is important to highlight that the formative project, as a changestrategy, is only one dimension of the Second Republic’s transition away from Mugabe and that, the more it seems to be moving away from Mugabe, the more it appears to be simply entrenching a reconfigured or revised Mugabeism. However, this, we claim, cannot be simply asserted (or posited); rather, it must be argued. Therefore, this brings to the fore the importance of the chapters in identifying and understanding the risks and limitations of Mnangagwa’s formative project. This is a project marked by numerous limitations and risks, which gives it little semblance of coherence and direction. There is a general agreement in all the chapters that the transfer of power from Mugabe to Mnangagwa was accompanied by promises that the new government would represent a break from the old regime that had become unpopular with most Zimbabweans, and that it would show greater respect for democratic norms and values as enshrined in the national constitution. In line with the public mood obtaining at the time, President Mnangagwa presented himself as a man who could and would usher in a new era and a clear break from the past. Importantly, he portrayed himself as a listening and a servant president committed to fighting corruption; a champion of radical economic reform, now in a liberal direction, with a focus on attracting foreign direct investment; a reformer who would ensure that civil servants are efficient, humble, and responsive in their interaction with the public; a democrat who will promote and protect human rights and ensure the holding of democratic elections; and a development-oriented leader who would champion an infrastructural revolution that would lead to better living standards of the generality of Zimbabweans. In keeping with this view of himself and his government, Mnangagwa’s first economic blueprint adopted in 2018—the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP)—focused on job creation with reform based on industrialisation, mechanisation, and market driven policies. Its successor—the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) 2021–2025—is equally ambitious especially on elevating Zimbabwe into an Upper Middle-Income Economy by 2030. Notwithstanding the public mood at the time of the transition from late 2017, the arguments presented in this volume suggest that drawing from the theoretical

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literature, especially the writings of Antonio Gramsci, there was always the possibility the Mnangagwa government would be characterised mainly by continuity and only punctuated by a few isolated, if not symbolic, reforms, all the more so because Mnangagwa and his associates in government, having served in Mugabe’s cabinet for over three decades, were part of the old system. In such cases, history shows that the new government would pursue symbolic or cosmetic-like reforms as an attempt to attract investors and lenders as well as to inhibit the possibility of local popular dissent given the rise in expectations. Following this line of argument, on the economic front, some of the authors in this book argue that Mnangagwa’s mantra on ‘Zimbabwe is open for business’ amounts to little more than a charm offensive to woo investors, including by way of committing to service Zimbabwe’s external debt to both bilateral and multilateral creditors and lenders. From this perspective, the prospects for a new business culture in Zimbabwe seem slim. Similarly, politically, legislative amendments such as the replacement of the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) by the Maintenance of Peace and Order (MOPA) and the renaming of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) as the Freedom of Information Act, as well as the repeal of the Indigenous and Economic Empowerment Regulations among others, were strategically directed to rebrand the Mnangagwa administration as reform oriented. At local level, it promised to implement devolution as well as champion healing and reconciliation especially regarding the victims and survivors of the Gukurahundi in Matabeleland and the Midlands provinces. Arguably, all these were meant to generate legitimacy for the new administration. The appraisal of Mnangagwa’s formative project by the various authors in this volume has shown that there is a very wide gap between his government’s rhetoric and the lived experiences of the people in Zimbabwe today. To be clear, the country continues to suffer from deep-rooted structural problems such as energy shortfalls, currency crisis, hyperinflation, debt distress, corruption, inequality, and high unemployment rates among others. More recently, the Russia-Ukraine war has further deepened the crisis in Zimbabwe and Africa in general by disrupting the global supply chains that have resulted in increased prices for food, fuel, and fertilisers. Ironically, the Mnangagwa government appears to be in support of the invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces as indicated by its vote at the United Nations General Assembly on 22 March 2022 where it abstained from condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Though not discussed in this volume, it is likely that the Russia– Ukraine issue will define the Mnangagwa government’s international relations going forward. In the main, then, the authors argue that the Mugabe–Mnangagwa transition has so far been marked more by continuities than discontinuities and change. In other words, though recognising the existence and possible significance of a formative project, if only as a firmer basis for power retention, this is a road littered with too many risks. After all, Mugabe ruled for 37 years. To some authors, Mnangagwa’s reliance on continuity is hardly surprising since, up until he was fired by Mugabe on 6 November 2017, Mnangagwa was part of the core of the Mugabe regime which orchestrated most of the policies that defined the Mugabe era. In his various positions

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in government including being Cabinet Minister, Speaker of Parliament, and Vice President of Zimbabwe, Mnangagwa enjoyed privileged access to power and wealth and loyally served his mentor Robert Mugabe for over three decades in government. Hence, for some contributors to this volume, the elevation of Mnangagwa to the presidency was choreographed by the executive-military alliance to ensure that its deeply entrenched patronage network would remain intact in the light of the fact that members of the Group 40 (G40—the Young Turks in ZANU-PF) were angling to take over from Mugabe. This claim is in line with Operation Restore Legacy which was the basis for ousting Robert Mugabe in 2017 by the military forces. Bluntly put, Operation Restore Legacy meant removing Mugabe as a person but retaining his policies, his history, and his legacy. Viewed from this perspective, the New Dispensation can be said to have been founded on the bedrock of Mugabeism. The contributors broadly agree that, five years after the ouster of Mugabe, Zimbabwe has not witnessed a transition beyond Mugabeism and no meaningful progressive change even within Mugabeism has taken place. Consistent with this, many of the individuals and groups that dominated Zimbabwe during the Mugabe era have reinvented themselves and still figure prominently in economic and political affairs today, clearly demonstrating the notion of continuity without change.

3 The 2023 Elections The question of civil and political space in contemporary Zimbabwe, in which counter-hegemonic forces might be able to dissent and mobilise against Mnangagwa’s ZANU-PF, is currently crucial, given the upcoming national elections in 2023. As pertinent chapters show, when Mnangagwa took over the reins of power in 2017, a key expectation was the immediate end to impunity and systematic human rights abuses that had become institutionalised under his predecessor who ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist. Contrariwise, the Mnangagwa administration continues to use violence against civil society, journalists, and members of the political opposition. The continued human rights abuses suggest that Zimbabwe went through a change of guards but not a change of political settlement or system. Not only have journalists been subjected to various forms of harassment, intimidation, and arrest on flimsy charges, the rule of law has been manipulated to keep them in jail (Cheeseman 2020). There are also claims that some of the journalists are bribed to ensure that their reporting favours the powerful. At the same time, opposition movements, if not co-opted and controlled by the state authorities, have continued to be isolated and their leaders incarcerated. Any attempt to criticise the Second Republic for lack of commitment to reform, or to publicly articulate alternative political views, have been chalked down as unruly and unpatriotic by the ruling executive-military alliance led by President Mnangagwa. Clearly, the New Dispensation has not taken any genuine tangible steps to demonstrate accountability, justice for human rights abuses, or respect for the rule of law. Instead, the Mnangagwa government is currently finalising the Private Voluntary

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Organisation (PVO) Bill and the Patriotic Bill, both of which seek to criminalise the operations of civil society as well as shrink the civic and political spaces in the country. Once passed into law, the two pieces of legislation will require that all civil society organisations (CSOs) and non-government organisations (NGOs) register with the Ministry of Labour. This is tantamount to granting the Ministry the right to disband any voluntary associations deemed to perform illegal activity. Furthermore, they will prohibit CSOs, NGOs, and individuals from taking part in civic and developmental activities as well as from receiving foreign funding needed without governmental approval. A cursory analysis of the PVO Bill and the Patriotic Bill indicates that they have both borrowed heavily from the ‘Russian Foreign Agent Law’ which requires anyone who receives support from outside Russia or is under ‘influence’ from outside Russia to register and declare themselves as ‘foreign agents’. This is an oppressive law that should not be canonised in a ‘constitutional democracy’ such as Zimbabwe. Sadly, it is expected that the two bills will be passed into law ahead of Zimbabwe’s 2023 elections so as to enable the ruling elite to use them to clampdown on dissent. Not without reason, there is a growing sense among civil society actors and academia in Zimbabwe that the Russian and Chinese investors in the country will benefit along with the ruling elite if civil society groups and other democracy campaigners are atrophied. In this context, there is no doubt that the Mnangagwa administration has been using political control mechanisms including state institutions such as the security services and parliament to enable it to clampdown on the opposition parties, gag the media, and shrink democratic space. Of course, this was also the case during the Mugabe era. In other words, the system of power relations, as well as the constitutional and legal arrangements organising political participation, have remained essentially unchanged despite Mugabe’s departure. It is necessary to reiterate that the previous administration of Robert Mugabe had become an enigma because of state corruption (including electoral corruption) and illicit financial flows both of which had immiserated the lives of most people in Zimbabwe. For this reason, it was calming for most people when the Mnangagwa government pitched itself as a vacuum cleaner of corruption and other social and economic vices in the country. The fight against all forms of corruption seemed to be a key political devise within Mnangagwa’s formative project, which he would use to reconstitute a sense of public morality and restore political confidence in state institutions and, above all, in presidential authority. However, as relevant chapters show, the discourse on fighting corruption has not, in practice, induced the creation of concrete measures for its implementation. In fact, the subsequent actions of government have not inspired confidence in people. If anything, the ‘catch and release’ approach has led many observers to conclude that the Mnangagwa government has doubled down rather than clamped down on corruption. This raises deep concerns about the prospects of electoral fraud in 2023. Mnangagwa’s failure to curb corruption, and the implications this might have for undermining the integrity of the 2023 election, is rooted in the risks entailed in pursuing vigorously an anti-corruption crusade. Throughout the post-liberation

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history of Zimbabwe, a small clique consisting of senior military officials, politicallyexposed persons, traditional leaders, and ruling party officials has profited immensely from its privileged access to economic opportunities in the country. In this light, dealing with the venality and the bane of corruption is a complicated challenge in Zimbabwe. While the initiative to contain corruption is symbolically loaded, as it underlines the desire of the new administration to break definitively with the ideas and practices of the past, it means going up against the powerbrokers in the military and ruling party. In other words, for the Mnangagwa administration, fighting corruption is just like fighting itself. This is perhaps a crucial reason why there are few if any high profile prosecutions in Zimbabwe and why actions against corruption seem to be redirected to petty corruption rather than official corruption. In this regard, impunity continues to reign for those who have access to public coffers and control over public contracting such that they have continued to siphon off enormous sums of money. On the foreign policy front, the Second Republic initially focused on rapprochement with Euro-Western countries in a bid to get sanctions lifted. This, Mnangagwa thought, would also contribute simultaneously to the legitimacy of his rule and of any forthcoming elections (now 2023). However, Mnangagwa’s hopes of re-orienting Zimbabwe’s foreign policy have not yielded the desired results. This is largely because, as indicated, the promised political and economic reforms have not earnestly taken root in Zimbabwe. If anything, Mnangagwa’s policies are mired in contradictions. For instance, the call for international re-engagement is juxtaposed with the continuation of many of the corrupt, predatory, and repressive practices which characterised the Mugabe regime. Thus, as Henning and Southall (2021) rightly observe, the more the government fails to engage democratically with its own citizens, the more it will negate any prospect of re-engagement with Euro-Western nations. Having failed to restore friendly and productive relations with the West, the Mnangagwa government set out to strengthen its ties with China and other Emerging Economies including Russia, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia among others. In particular, Russia has embedded its foreign interest in the extractive industries, arms trade, and political fraternisation (Henning and Southall 2021). Russia is known for meddling with elections in Africa on behalf of its allies as happened in Madagascar and Mozambique as well as elsewhere in the world. There are now growing fears that both the Kremlin and Beijing will lend their electoral support to the ruling elite in Zimbabwe in the bid to promote their geo-economic and geo-political interest in the country. In fact, there are credible claims that the Chinese and the Russians played a part in the 2018 elections (Moyo 2019) and their role may increase in the 2023 election. As Zimbabwe edges ever closer to the 2023 elections, the claims about election meddling are increasing. There is little doubt that the forces and institutions that sustained Mugabe in power for over three decades, such as the security services, bureaucrats, traditional leaders, and certain business elites, are the same institutions that are custodians of Emmerson Mnangagwa today. Thus, elections, so often touted as a symbol of democracy, seem to bring little real change in Zimbabwe and other parts of the global South as they have become part of the infrastructure for upgrading and legitimising authoritarianism (Lust 2014). As a result, more and more people

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including the youth no longer see the value of elections in Zimbabwe. It remains to be seen whether the 2023 elections, which will be the second in the Second Republic, will be any different from the previous plebiscites, but we have our doubts here.

4 The Tale of the Mbulumakhasana Tail Finally, we return to the tale of the Mbulumakhasana mystical creature mentioned at the start of chapter one. The Mbulumakhasana appears to be human and yet it exhibits beastly characteristics, including a tail. In other words, it is not what it appears to be. In this book, we have sought to avoid rushing to analytical conclusions about the fundamental character of the Mnangagwa regime. This has included being prepared to identify the existence of a formative project and being willing to unpack and examine its bodily form. In the earlier chapter, we suggested that the formative project was open-ended and that no definitive conclusions could be made about it. Certainly, though, in offering serious criticisms of the formative project, the contributors to this book have pointed to a somewhat protruding tail. Currently, the Mnangagwa government may not be a full-blown Mbulumakhasana, but it is appearing increasingly as a very close relative of the Mbulumakhasana. In this respect, any preliminary conclusion about the Mnangagwa administration must be that it has, in the main, reconfigured itself within the realm of Mugabeism. Pursuing a formative project has massive risks for the Mnangagwa government because, if it loses control of the process, its retention of national power may be in jeopardy. As it stands, the risks of retaining power within Mugabeism are far less than the risks of breaking with the past. With the old guard and the military still firmly in power, and both benefiting from their perches atop the highly cartelisedand patronage-based economy, a genuine formative project is highly unlikely to take root in Zimbabwe under current conditions. The present limitations to the project will continue into and no doubt beyond the 2023 elections. A stage would need to be reached whereby the risks of retaining power within Mugabeism are far greater than the risks of breaking with the past. In the case of the example we turned to in the first chapter, namely Apartheid South Africa, its back was finally broken by the mid-1980s because of the unresolvable structural contradictions in the economy and the mass political mobilisation. What will break the back of Mnangagwa’s regime remains unclear at this stage. But, until such time as ordinary Zimbabweans can openly dissent and mobilise against the Zimbabwean government without fear of repression, the formative project will remain stalled. With this thought in mind, we hope that this volume adds to the growing scholarly literature on the transition from Mugabe to Mnangagwa and will contribute to a better understanding of the form and character of Mnangagwa’s formative project.

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References Cheeseman N (2020) State of democracy in Africa: changing leaders doesn’t change politics. The Conversation Henning M, Southall R (2021) President Mnangagwa claimed Zimbabwe was open for business. What’s gone wrong. The Conversion Lust E (2014) Elections in transitions: change and continuity, project on middle east political science Moyo G (2019) The fetishised role of external actors in Zimbabwe’s 2018 elections: implications for the future plebiscites. Afri Stadia 31

Gorden Moyo is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Lupane State University (LSU), Zimbabwe. He is also the Founder of an independent think tank – the Public Policy and Research Institute of Zimbabwe (PPRIZ). He received his PhD in African Leadership Development from the National University of Science and Technology, Zimbabwe. His research interests are in development finance, developmental states, emerging economies and African agency. His most recent book is African Agency Finance and Developmental States published in 2021 by Palgrave Macmillan. Previously, Moyo served as a Minister of State Enterprises and Parastatals in the Inclusive Government of Zimbabwe (2009–2013). Kirk Helliker is a Research Professor in the Department of Sociology at Rhodes University in South Africa, where he heads the Unit of Zimbabwean Studies, which he founded. The Unit was formed in 2015 and seeks to contribute to the development of emerging, early-career and midcareer Zimbabwean (and other) scholars. Professor Helliker publishes widely on Zimbabwean history, politics and society and has supervised a significant number of Ph.D. and MA students. His most recent co-edited books are: Capital Penetration and the Peasantry in Southern and Eastern Africa: Neoliberal Restructuring and Livelihoods of Ethnic Minorities in Rural Zimbabwe (both published in 2022) as well as Tonga Livelihoods in Rural Zimbabwe (2023).