tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/zapu-26451/articlesZapu – The Conversation2019-09-05T09:02:06Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1227262019-09-05T09:02:06Z2019-09-05T09:02:06ZZimbabwe’s deepening crisis: time for second government of national unity?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290911/original/file-20190904-175686-v3skdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many Zimbabweans have turned to hawking to keep the wolf from the door as the economic crisis in the country deepens. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Zimbabwe is going through its worst socio-economic and political crisis in two decades. Crippling daily power outages of <a href="https://www.biznews.com/africa/2019/08/05/zimbabwe-tipping-point-economic-crisis">up to 18 hours</a> and erratic supply of clean water are just some of the most obvious signs. Meanwhile, an inflation rate of over 500% has put the prices of basic goods beyond the reach of most people.</p>
<p>Hopes that the end of President Robert Mugabe’s ruinous rule in November 2017 would help put the country on a new path of peace and prosperity have long <a href="https://theconversation.com/fantasy-that-mnangagwa-would-fix-zimbabwe-now-fully-exposed-110197">dissipated</a>. Efforts by his successor President Emmerson Mnangagwa to <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/zimbabwe-is-open-for-business-says-mnangagwa-12913367">attract foreign investors</a>, who are critical in reviving Zimbabwe’s ailing economy, have also largely failed.</p>
<p>The situation has not been helped by the rejection of the 2018 presidential election results by the main opposition party. The Movement for Democratic Change Alliance (MDC-A) claims the governing Zanu-PF stole the elections even though the results were <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/africa/Regional-observers-Zimbabwe-election-free-and-fair/4552902-4692254-e75fje/index.html">endorsed</a> as free and fair by the African Union and Southern African Development Community (SADC). Only the European Union observers were somewhat circumspect <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/eu-observers-say-zimbabwe-election-fell-short-on-fairness-20181010">in their assessment</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/fantasy-that-mnangagwa-would-fix-zimbabwe-now-fully-exposed-110197">Fantasy that Mnangagwa would fix Zimbabwe now fully exposed</a>
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<p>The opposition alliance has been calling for Mnangagwa’s government to relinquish power, and a <a href="https://www.openparly.co.zw/chamisa-calls-for-national-trasitional-authority/">national transitional authority</a> appointed to run the country for at least two years, or until the 2023 general elections.</p>
<p>How individuals who will sit on the national transitional authority will be chosen and by whom, is not clear. But the party and <a href="https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2019/03/01/towards-the-national-transitional-authority/">some academics</a> believe such a transitional authority would normalise Zimbabwe’s highly polarised political situation and help it revive its relations with the West.</p>
<p>The opposition may have a point on re-engagement with the West. This is key to helping end the investment drought that started in earnest <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.908.3003&rep=rep1&type=pdf">between 2000 and 2003</a> under sanctions imposed by Western countries for human rights violations linked to Zanu-PF’s violent land reform seizures and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/jun/03/zimbabwe.andrewmeldrum">election rigging</a>.</p>
<p>But the transitional authority idea is doomed to fail because of lack of buy-in by Zanu-PF. So, it’s time to consider a more viable alternative path to peace for Zimbabwe.</p>
<h2>Clamping down</h2>
<p>For now, the government has dismissed talk of a transitional authority as unconstitutional. Instead, in May it launched its own platform, called the <a href="https://www.panafricanvisions.com/2019/zimbabwe-mnangagwa-launches-the-political-actors-dialogue-to-address-long-term-economic-challenges/">Political Actors Dialogue</a>. The forum comprises 17 small political parties that participated in the 2018 elections. </p>
<p>The main opposition party is boycotting the process on grounds that Mnangagwa is an illegitimate president. Recently, it attempted to <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi-gdPunLfkAhXfSBUIHdWZCeIQFjAEegQIBBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fworld-africa-49366224&usg=AOvVaw0fkr2f1y4BV0-4W2SlJHGY">embark on public protests</a> in the hope of bringing the government to its knees. The protests fell flat after being blocked by the courts and the police.</p>
<p>It boggles the mind why the MDC-A, led by Nelson Chamisa, insists on marches when previous attempts were crushed with brute force. These led to deaths in <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=21&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwingbiQ87TkAhVsZhUIHWexAsIQFjAUegQICBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.news24.com%2FAfrica%2FZimbabwe%2Fzimbabwean-generals-deny-troops-shot-and-killed-6-protesters-20181113&usg=AOvVaw02nyk1uLwat64nJso2EImF">August 2018</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwicyIfl87TkAhV9SBUIHXzrAC4QFjAAegQIAhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmg.co.za%2Farticle%2F2019-01-30-zim-army-responsible-for-murders-rapes-report&usg=AOvVaw1fiTJ2kraC9xNiMyQ4TBM6">January 2019</a>. </p>
<p>The Zanu-PF regime has always clamped down heavily on perceived threats to its rule since 1980. Why then does the MDC-A continue to endanger people’s lives through this deadly route as a way of resolving Zimbabwe’s socio-economic and political crises?</p>
<p>I firmly believe that the opposition needs to change tack and focus on entering into dialogue with the government. </p>
<h2>Dialogue and unity government</h2>
<p>Zimbabwe’s ongoing crisis requires the two leading political protagonists - Mnangagwa and Chamisa - to enter into serious dialogue. Both leaders need to soften their hard-line stances towards each other and put the people of Zimbabwe first.</p>
<p>There’s a precedent for this. Ten years ago, then South African President Thabo Mbeki managed to bring then President Mugabe and Movement for Democratic Change opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to the <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiMheeVnrfkAhVXShUIHeBIDw04ChAWMAB6BAgAEAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.france24.com%2Fen%2F20080721-mbeki-harare-mediate-talks-zimbabwe-political-crisis&usg=AOvVaw2pLPeTVwBEVrH2TSAcW5e3">negotiation table</a>. </p>
<p>The talks culminated in the formation of the government of national unity that ran Zimbabwe from February 2009 to July 2013, with Mugabe as the President and Tsvangirai as the Prime Minister. The unity government was fairly successful and managed to <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiv9PjanrfkAhUUTBUIHQR0D0cQFjAJegQIABAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theindependent.co.zw%2F2013%2F07%2F11%2Freflecting-on-positive-zimbabwe-gnu-moments%2F&usg=AOvVaw25plQQHFWt-5PTjI9_Fi6J">stabilise the economy</a>.</p>
<p>Two decades of suffering have shown that it is not the threat of protests or sanctions from the West that can move Zanu-PF to change, but neighbouring countries under the aegis of <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwia1fucj7HkAhWnRhUIHcY8Dvc4ChAWMAB6BAgAEAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Flibrary.fes.de%2Fpdf-files%2Fbueros%2Fmosambik%2F07874.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2PSzn2eTrgI53Cnw2yrI2t">SADC</a>. South Africa is pivotal in this regard as the region’s strongest economic and military power. </p>
<p>It’s time to experiment with a second government of national unity for Zimbabwe. But for this to happen, SADC and South Africa must have the appetite to intervene in Zimbabwe. This is currently lacking. </p>
<h2>Dialogue in Zimbabwe’s history</h2>
<p>Historically, dialogue has moved Zimbabwe forward as a nation during its darkest hours. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>A year before independence in 1980, battle-hardened guerrilla commanders agreed to talk to the then Rhodesian Prime Minister, Ian Smith, to end Zimbabwe’s liberation war even though they were convinced that they were winning. </p></li>
<li><p>In 1987 Joshua Nkomo, who was the leader of the main opposition party, the Zimbabwean African People’s Union, agreed to talk to his political nemesis, then Prime Minister Mugabe. Yet before this, he had been hounded out of the country by Mugabe in the mid-80s, and <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=zi-tWekXbD8C&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=%22the+early+rain+which+washes+away+the+chaff+before+the+spring+rains%22&source=bl&ots=dWX2SIUj7r&sig=0aDLpmmQfN93e_RNJuKcBmGGEYI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwioi-joj6LWAhWE7hoKHRF_C7wQ6AEIOTAD#v=onepage&q=%22the%20early%20rain%20which%20washes%20away%20the%20chaff%20before%20the%20spring%20rains%22&f=false">thousands of his supporters killed</a>. </p></li>
<li><p>More recently in 2009, Morgan Tsvangirai agreed to enter into a unity government with Mugabe, despite winning the first round of the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2012-08-10-00-zim-2008-election-taken-by-a-gun-not-a-pen">2008 elections</a>. The unity government briefly resuscitated and stabilised Zimbabwe’s fragile economy. Hyperinflation was tamed, basic commodities became available again and people regained purchasing power.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>Given the MDC-A’s positive contribution during its brief stint in the 2009-2013 unity government, the party should be expending its energies on dialogue. The main opposition party can enter into a second government of national unity, but continue building and strengthening its own support.</p>
<p>In the same vein, Zanu-PF also needs to realise that without the involvement of the MDC-A, its attempts to revive the economy and end the strife in the country, on its own terms, are destined to fail.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122726/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tapiwa Chagonda has previously received funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF). </span></em></p>It’s time for a new approach as it becomes increasingly clear that protests won’t topple the Zanu-PF government.Tapiwa Chagonda, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1179862019-05-30T11:07:31Z2019-05-30T11:07:31ZA tribute to Zimbabwean liberation hero Dumiso Dabengwa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278494/original/file-20190607-52748-jxtqi0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A fitting way to pay tribute to Zimbabwean liberation war hero <a href="https://www.polity.org.za/article/sacp-sacp-expresses-its-heartfelt-condolences-to-the-dabengwa-family-the-people-of-zimbabwe-and-southern-africa-for-the-great-loss-encountered-2019-05-24">Dumiso “DD” Dabengwa</a>, who has died aged 79, is to depict a snapshot history of the late 1970s and the 1980s that shows the stresses of his job during and just after Zimbabwe’s war of liberation.</p>
<p>As the head of intelligence for <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Zimbabwe-Peoples-Revolutionary-Army/dp/1436361559">Zimbabwe African People’s Revolutionary Army</a>, the armed wing of Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu), he faced two enemies in the late seventies: the Rhodesian forces and those of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwean African National Union (Zanu), the nationalist party that split off from <a href="https://www.academia.edu/38948000/The_split_of_ZAPU_2_">Zapu in 1963</a> and would eventually lead Zimbabwe. In the 1980s South Africa and the United Kingdom joined those antagonists. </p>
<p>Only psychologists could discern how Dabengwa maintained his legendary composure. He kept his head while everyone was losing theirs: a necessary trait for an intelligence supremo. </p>
<p>This tribute is inspired by a picture – probably taken in 1981 at the New Sarum airfield outside what was Salisbury – that’s making social media rounds following Dabengwa’s death. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1131547396960399361"}"></div></p>
<p>Dabengwa is shown standing with Rex Nhongo, commander of the newly integrated Zimbabwean military forces. The two young soldiers symbolise the unity to be forged out of Rhodesia’s and the two nationalist parties’ security forces as they entered Zimbabwe’s democratic dispensation. </p>
<p>That task’s difficulty is shown by the possibility that the two were on their way to Entumbane to calm the battles raging between the two nationalist armies, in which over 300 soldiers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/27/obituaries/dumiso-dabengwa-dead.html">were killed</a>. But they would fail in these efforts and would land on different sides of Zimbabwe’s post liberation story. Dabengwa would be jailed by his erstwhile comrades. Nhongo would retire early, rich and still a power-broker in his party – until his fiery death in mid-<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331776137_Political_Accidents_in_Zimbabwe">2011</a>.</p>
<h2>Internecine violence</h2>
<p>About five years before 1981, an effort <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02589001.2012.639655">emerged</a> to create a united “people’s army” out of Zanu’s guerrilla forces, Zanla and Zipra.</p>
<p>Nhongo had once been a Zipra soldier, but left during Zapu’s devastating internecine disputes in the early 1970s. With Zanla’s commander in Zambia’s jails suspected of <a href="https://allnewsnetwork.wordpress.com/2011/03/12/who-killed-josiah-tongogara-and-herbert-chitepo/">murdering the national chairman of Zanu, Herbert Chitepo</a>, Nhongo was by 1976 at the head of Zanla. Thus he became the commander of the Zimbabwe People’s Army (Zipa), supposedly an attempt to unite the two nationalist armies. </p>
<p>But his heart was not in it. He ordered his soldiers on engaging the Rhodesian forces to <a href="https://academic.oup.com/hwj/article/57/1/79/675840">kill Zipra fighters first</a>. There were battles between the two armies in training camps. What should Dabengwa have done?</p>
<p>Zipra withdrew a good number of troops, but adhered to the agreement to unite the armies. As it happened, before too long Robert Mugabe (on his way to the top) and Nhongo sidelined the group that really believed in the unity project. Dabengwa told one of us (Moore) many years later that Zipa was too militaristic, ignoring democratic processes. He took a wait and see approach.</p>
<p>With the adherents to unity gone, Zanu’s anti-Zapu sentiments opened further. The party’s <a href="http://www.archives.gov.zw/">1978 political education</a> tract claimed that Zipra forces planned to let Zanla smash Rhodesia’s “racist state machinery” single-handedly. Once victory was achieved, Zipra would “crash (sic) Zanla and seize political power…” </p>
<h2>Gukurahundi</h2>
<p>These and <a href="https://cul.worldcat.org/title/march-11-movement-in-zapu-revolution-within-the-revolution/oclc/13564369">other Zanu-related imbroglios</a> made life very difficult for Dabengwa, a man entrusted with Zapu’s intelligence. </p>
<p>Yet with “freedom” – hastened by <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2017.1275108">Soviet assistance to ZPRA</a> – Zimbabwe became even more central to Cold War and South African intrigue. As Zimbabwean political scientist Miles Tendi <a href="https://www.zimlive.com/2019/05/27/dumiso-dabengwa-a-military-czar-without-peer-in-making-of-the-zimbabwean-state/">attests</a>, Dabengwa and Josiah Tongogara, then the top Zanla general, played a key role with the “Patriotic Front” (another effort at unity between the two main liberation parties) at the late 1979 <a href="https://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/5847/5/1979_Lancaster_House_Agreement.pdf">Lancaster House negotiations </a> that led to Zimbabwe’s new dispensation. </p>
<p>Dabengwa himself said in a <a href="http://www.cite.org.zw/videos/interview-with-dumiso-dabengwa/">mid-2018 interview</a> that he and Tongogara thought they could push the unity idea beyond an agreement to maintain unity at diplomatic negotiations, but remaining separate for all other purposes. They wanted <em>political</em> unity. They carried out research among the soldiers, who indicated agreement. Yet Tongogara’s <a href="https://bulawayo24.com/index-id-opinion-sc-columnist-byo-152947.html">suspicious death</a> as he drove to a Mozambican camp only days later killed that dream: <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=zi-tWekXbD8C&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=%22the+early+rain+which+washes+away+the+chaff+before+the+spring+rains%22&source=bl&ots=dWX2SIUj7r&sig=0aDLpmmQfN93e_RNJuKcBmGGEYI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwioi-joj6LWAhWE7hoKHRF_C7wQ6AEIOTAD#v=onepage&q=%22the%20early%20rain%20which%20washes%20away%20the%20chaff%20before%20the%20spring%20rains%22&f=false">Gukurahundi</a> mass killings and atrocities in Matabeleland were only steps away. </p>
<p>Dabengwa’s interview leaves little doubt about Gukurahundi’s roots:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>At independence the British had already made a decision with Mugabe to carry out this genocide. (They) had already decided to ensure that that no one of the Ndebele nation would be allowed to be leader in this country. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Conspiracy and persecution</h2>
<p>On 9 May 1980, just weeks after Zimbabwe’s 17 April freedom celebrations, Mugabe visited British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-%20guides/prime-ministers-office-records/">complained that</a> “some” in Zapu did “not accept the new situation”. They wanted to continue the fight and the government might have to act against them soon.</p>
<p><a href="http://researchdata.uwe.ac.uk/104/240/roh-oh-sta-da1-appr.pdf">Danny Stannard</a>, Rhodesia’s Special Branch director, stayed on during the new era. With then Minister of State Security Emmerson Mnangagwa, he organised the transition of Zimbabwe’s security services – precisely to keep the region Communist-free, Stannard told one of us in 2014. He thought Mnangagwa was the perfect man for that job. Stannard held Dabengwa in venomous disregard and was dead certain that in February 1982 his Soviet allies were rolling to the Entumbane barracks. </p>
<p>In March the Zapu cabinet ministers, Dabengwa, deputy armed forces commander Lookout Masuku, and four other Zapu officials were arrested and charged with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/25/world/a-fateful-trial-witty-ex-guerrilla-v-zimbabwe.html">treason</a>. Arms caches had been “discovered” on Zapu properties. </p>
<p>In December 1982 a Whitehall officer wondered if the British should reconsider support for a régime seemingly hell-bent on eliminating Zapu and its potential supporters. No, he wrote, “if we refuse military sales and aid” Mugabe might approach the USSR – albeit reluctantly. Other reasons to keep Mugabe on side included selling arms and jet fighters, as well as paving the road to Namibian and South African <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/07075332.2017.1309561">settlements</a>. </p>
<p>Treason charges for all but Dabengwa were dismissed in early April 1983. But, as he and the others walked out of court they were jailed again under the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/25/world/a-fateful-trial-witty-ex-guerrilla-v-zimbabwe.html">Emergency Powers Act</a>. </p>
<h2>Peacemaking</h2>
<p>By this time, the Fifth Brigade had been in Matabeleland for several months: Gukurahundi was underway with its terror, mass starvation, and murder. When they were released in 1986 Zapu had to stop the carnage, agreeing to be absorbed into Zanu (PF). Dabengwa’s reluctant agreement was essential; it took his authority, and that of Zapu leader <a href="https://pindula.co.zw/Joshua_Nkomo">Joshua Nkomo</a>, to persuade the Zipra ex-combatants and the Zapu youth to merge.</p>
<p>The Cold War was on its last legs. Zanu (PF) had won its war for a one-party state. During the 1990s, with Nkomo as vice-president in the revised Zanu (PF) government, Dabengwa took on posts ranging from Home Affairs minister to managing the long-gestating but never funded <a href="https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2011/01/06/matabeleland-zambezi-water-project-urgent/">Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project</a>. </p>
<p>He left government in 2000. In 2008 he abandoned the Zanu (PF) politburo and revived Zapu. </p>
<p>There cannot be a man deserving more to rest in peace than Dabengwa.</p>
<p><em>David Galbraith, a retired Professor of English at University of Toronto and who spent the early 1980s in Matabeleland, contributed to this article</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117986/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Only psychologists could discern how Dumiso Dabengwa maintained his legendary composure, a necessary trait for an intelligence supremo.David B. Moore, Professor of Development Studies and Visiting Fellow, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, University of JohannesburgNqobile Zulu, Lecturer in Development Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1078402018-12-05T12:09:51Z2018-12-05T12:09:51ZLiberation hero Mugabe evokes polarised emotions among Zimbabweans<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247966/original/file-20181129-170250-1fqyfc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The end of Robert Mugabe’s rule was greeted with momentous national celebration. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Robert Mugabe’s name is <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/robert-mugabe">synonymous</a> with both Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle and its post-colonial politics. His role and that of his Zanu-PF party have been central to the country’s dynamics since the early 1960s – and could well set the tone for the foreseeable future. </p>
<p>For much of his political life Mugabe has often been viewed, in the words of one of his biographers <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=vQY4DgAAQBAJ&pg=PT23&lpg=PT23&dq=Martin+Meredith,+Mugabe+%22secretive+and+solitary%22&source=bl&ots=DmCK97xurM&sig=PymYcd-DCAyFl-2WFRS18fAIbao&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwijmNmroPneAhWQsKQKHZANDhAQ6AEwAnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Martin%20Meredith%2C%20Mugabe%20%22secretive%20and%20solitary%22&f=false">Martin Meredith</a>, as “secretive and solitary”, an “aloof and austere figure”.</p>
<p>However he is described, there’s no doubt that Mugabe’s political legacy is highly contested. To understand how this happened, it’s necessary to examine his personal history; his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/11/17/its-been-one-year-since-zimbabwe-toppled-mugabe-why-isnt-it-a-democracy-yet/?utm_term=.11c978401892">political demise</a> in 2017; and Zimbabwe’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/19/zimbabwe-needs-aid-to-prevent-further-crisis-warns-ruling-party">deepening political and economic crisis</a> more than a year after Mugabe’s ouster.</p>
<p>For the faction that has succeeded Mugabe, led by President Emmerson Mnangagawa, moving beyond the highly problematic legacy that they helped to create remains a daunting task.</p>
<h2>Early life</h2>
<p>Robert Mugabe was born 94 years ago at Kutama Mission in Zvimba District, west of what was then called Salisbury, the capital of then <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Southern-Rhodesia">Southern Rhodesia</a> (today’s Zimbabwe). He received a <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/africa/robert-mugabe">Jesuit education</a> and was by many accounts an exceptional student.</p>
<p>In 1945 Mugabe left Kutama Mission with a teaching diploma. He won a scholarship to South Africa’s Fort Hare University in 1949. There he met other emerging nationalists and was <a href="http://www.channelafrica.co.za/sabc/home/channelafrica/news/details?id=7aa25498-9448-4324-89c2-e4f62a324e17&title=The%20rise%20and%20fall%20of%20Mugabe">introduced to Marxist ideas</a>. </p>
<p>Armed with a BA degree in history and English Literature, Mugabe returned to Southern Rhodesia in 1952. He soon moved to the Northern Rhodesia (today’s Zambia) in 1955 to take up a teaching post. In 1958 he moved again, to a teacher training college in Ghana. There, a year after Ghana’s independence in 1957, he experienced the thrill and sense of possibility of a newly independent African state. It was a seminal political moment for him.</p>
<h2>Making of a revolutionary</h2>
<p>Mugabe returned home in 1960 on extended leave to introduce his new wife <a href="https://www.zambianobserver.com/the-forgotten-story-of-sally-mugabe-the-beloved-mother-of-zimbabwe-robert-mugabes-first-wife-and-true-love-the-woman-whose-death-changed-president-mugabe-forever/">Sally Hayfron</a> to his family. Instead of returning to Ghana, he became entangled in nationalist politics. This included the turmoil that the two major nationalist parties, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/30035743?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) and Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu)</a>, split. </p>
<p>In 1963 he was arrested, along with many other nationalists. He was <a href="https://www.thezimbabwean.co/2011/10/dtente-the-release-of-nationalist/">released</a> after 11 years. </p>
<p>Mugabe and his colleague <a href="https://pindula.co.zw/Edgar_Tekere">Edgar Tekere</a> escaped to Mozambique in 1974 to join the liberation war against the regime of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ian-Smith">Prime Minister Ian Smith</a>, conducted from bases in that country. There have been different accounts of Mugabe’s rise to the top of the leadership in Mozambique. As liberation war veteran <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/a-real-zimbabwean-war-veteran-speaks-97206">Wilfred Mhanda tells it</a>, their support for Mugabe was premised on his commitment to building unity between the rival nationalist movements. </p>
<p>But he reneged on this, instead pursuing the supremacy of his own party Zanu.</p>
<p>Following the Lancaster House settlement and the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40395186?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">1980 elections</a>, Mugabe’s Zanu emerged as the dominant party. He set out his policy of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt24hd4n.7?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">reconciliation with the white population</a>. This allowed the existing property and economic relations from the Rhodesian period to continue, while the politics of state control was transferred to Zanu. </p>
<p>This period witnessed the consolidation of Mugabe’s control of both his party and the state. The massive violence committed against the competing party of liberation, <a href="https://www.pindula.co.zw/Zimbabwe_African_People's_Union">Zapu</a>, through the <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=zi-tWekXbD8C&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=%22the+early+rain+which+washes+away+the+chaff+before+the+spring+rains%22&source=bl&ots=dWX2SIUj7r&sig=0aDLpmmQfN93e_RNJuKcBmGGEYI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwioi-joj6LWAhWE7hoKHRF_C7wQ6AEIOTAD#v=onepage&q=%22the%20early%20rain%20which%20washes%20away%20the%20chaff%20before%20the%20spring%20rains%22&f=false">Gukurahundi massacres</a>, signalled Zanu’s violent intolerance of opposition. </p>
<p>However, the 1980s were also evidence of Mugabe’s commitment to social policies such as health and education. Mugabe’s government greatly expanded the state expenditure in these areas in the <a href="http://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/zimbabwe.-the-political-economy-of-transition-1980-1986">first decade of independence</a>. </p>
<p>The hostilities between Zapu, led by Joshua Nkomo, and Mugabe’s Zanu officially ended with the signing of a <a href="https://pindula.co.zw/Unity_Accord">Unity Accord</a> by the two leaders on December 22, 1987. Zapu was effectively swallowed by Zanu PF. The ruling party had used the acronym since the end of the brief Patriotic Front coalition (1976-79) between the two liberation parties, on the eve of the 1980 elections. </p>
<h2>Things go south</h2>
<p>During the 1990s, opposition to Mugabe <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/300366769_The_Movement_for_Democratic_Change_MDC_and_the_Changing_Geo-Political_Landscape_in_Zimbabwe">grew</a> in size and influence. Faced with the real possibility of political defeat – and dissent from the war veterans – Mugabe drew on <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/zimbabwe/ZimLand0302-02.htm">longstanding land grievances</a> to reconfigure the politics of the state and Zanu-PF. </p>
<p>His <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00358530500082916">Fast Track Resettlement</a> programme radically reconstructed the land relations from the settler colonial period. There is a continuing debate about the effects of the land redistribution exercise. It resulted in the violent allocation of land to a combination of large numbers of small farmers and the ruling party elite, and its long term impact on the country’s economy remains problematic.</p>
<p>The process also created a massive rupture between <a href="https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/111691/P202.pdf">human and redistributive rights </a>. By legitimising the Fast Track programme, Zanu-PF emphasised economic redistribution and settling the colonial legacy around the land question. </p>
<p>But in doing so, the ruling party opportunistically labelled the fight for human and democratic political rights – which had long been central to the anti-colonial struggle – as a foreign <a href="https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/sunday-times/20180218/282342565314857">“regime change agenda”</a> pushed by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and civic movements. </p>
<p>The politics of the land reform process unleashed many questions around citizenship, belonging, and assertions of identity. Mugabe’s often valid critique of imperialist duplicity was accompanied by an unacceptable authoritarian intolerance of dissent within Zimbabwe. </p>
<p>The armed forces were <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-mugabe-why-the-role-of-zimbabwes-army-cant-be-trusted-87872">central to his stay in power</a>. The push in his final years to have his wife Grace succeed him heralded a <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/mugabe-announces-appointment-of-controversial-wife-grace-to-a-key-post-20170915">longer term reign for a Mugabe dynasty</a>. To further his wife’s ambitions, Mugabe first moved against Vice President Joyce Mujuru, the favoured contender to succeed him, in <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/clues-to-successor-as-mugabe-names-vice-president/a-18122886">2014</a>.</p>
<p>Next, the Mugabes, with the support of a faction of Zanu-PF known as the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-zimbabwe-politics-g40-factbox/factbox-key-figures-in-zimbabwe-first-lady-grace-mugabes-g40-faction-idUSKBN1DF1DX">G40 group</a>, took on another potential successor, Vice President Mnangagwa. He was dismissed from his state and party positions in <a href="https://www.chronicle.co.zw/mnangagwa-fired-disloyal-disrespectful-deceitful2/">early November 2017</a>.</p>
<p>This set off a dramatic series of events. In mid- November 2017, following military chief Constantine Chiwenga’s warning of <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/counter-revolutionaries-want-to-destroy-zanu-pf-army-chief-tells-mugabe-20171113">“counter-revolutionaries”</a> in the ruling party, the armed forces <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-military-coup-is-afoot-in-zimbabwe-whats-next-for-the-embattled-nation-87528">effectively took power</a> away from the executive. </p>
<p>This was followed by the initiation of an impeachment process against Mugabe. But, on the day the process began, in November 2017, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42071488">he resigned</a>. </p>
<h2>End of an era</h2>
<p>For many Zimbabweans Mugabe remains a contested figure. For those who lived through the humiliations of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/720978?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">settler colonialism</a>, his strident critique of its legacies still ring true. But others will find it impossible to accept his exclusivist assertions of <a href="https://bulawayo24.com/index-id-opinion-sc-columnist-byo-129803.html">national belonging</a> and authoritarian intolerance of dissent.</p>
<p>When combined with the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249599119_Zimbabwe_Now_The_Political_Economy_of_Crisis_and_Coercion">deep economic crisis</a> over which he presided, it is little surprise that the end of Mugabe’s rule was greeted with such momentous national celebration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Raftopoulos is a Research Fellow in the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State, and Research Director of Solidarity Peace Trust a Human Right Organisation working on Zimbabwe . </span></em></p>For many Zimbabweans Robert Mugabe will remain a contested figure.Brian Raftopoulos, Research Fellow, International Studies Group, University of the Free StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/998592018-07-16T14:15:04Z2018-07-16T14:15:04ZCan Zimbabwe finally ditch a history of violence and media repression?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227563/original/file-20180713-27045-2alah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Zanu-PF supporters at a peace rally in Harare.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Aaron Ufumeli</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Zimbabwe’s governing Zanu-PF is earnestly courting international legitimacy as the country approaches its first post-independence elections <a href="https://www.apnews.com/baee38cf5cd24282be5d7c332848a8b2">without Robert Mugabe</a>. </p>
<p>The party frequently uses clichés like “fresh start”, “new dispensation”, and “open for business” to signal its willingness to <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/24/africa/zimbabwe-president-emmerson-mnangagwa-davos-intl/index.html">engage with the West</a>. The talk has been matched by some action.</p>
<p>The government has repudiated most of its <a href="https://www.herald.co.zw/govt-amends-indigenisation-law/">indigenisation legislation</a>, and recently <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/62f28a38-5d0a-11e8-9334-2218e7146b04">applied to re-join</a> The Commonwealth. Additionally, <a href="https://www.zimbabwesituation.com/news/zimbabwe-invites-46-countries-to-observe-2018-polls/">46 countries and 15 regional bodies</a> have been invited to observe the elections. This includes many Western nations that had been excluded in recent years.</p>
<p>Their assessments will probably not be decided by technical factors. It seems unlikely that ongoing debates over <a href="https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/06/zec-under-fire-over-undelivered-voters-roll/">the voter’s roll</a> or the prominence of ex-military personnel in the <a href="https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/02/soldiers-make-15-zec-staff/">Zimbabwe Electoral Commission</a> will have much impact on the final judgements passed by the monitoring missions.</p>
<p>It’s more likely that the credibility of the elections will be shaped by issues such as political violence and media freedom. In both spheres, the legacy of colonialism and the liberation struggle weigh heavily. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://bulawayo24.com/index-id-opinion-sc-columnist-byo-71015.html">breakaway party</a> from the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) in 1963, the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu) emerged in a very fragile position. It endured violence against its members and was denied access to a free media. In later years, the party perpetrated and perpetuated the same tactics under which it was conceived – both as a liberation movement and in government.</p>
<p>There are a number of examples of how Zanu-PF drew on colonial-era repressive tactics in its post-independence quest for political primacy. These include the <a href="https://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2018/01/31/gukurahundi-is-mugabe-s-baby">Gukurahundi violence</a> under the Mugabe led government in the 1980s against areas predominantly supporting Zapu, the government’s 2005 <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/zimbabwe/zimbabwe-operation-murambatsvina-overview-and-summary">Operation Murambatsvina</a> which targeted properties belonging mostly to urban opposition supporters, and the 2008 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/22/zimbabwe1">election run-off violence</a> after Mugabe lost the first round of voting.</p>
<p>As Zimbabweans head to the polls on July 30, this history looms large over the electorate and those responsible for overseeing its successful execution.</p>
<h2>History of political violence</h2>
<p>In July 1960, unprecedented protests in Zimbabwe’s two largest cities ushered in a new era of political violence in the British colony. A year later violence erupted within the liberation movement itself. In June 1961, the first significant attempt to form a breakaway nationalist movement in Zimbabwe was thwarted. Members of the <a href="https://zimhistassociation.wordpress.com/2018/03/27/the-first-split-in-zimbabwes-anti-colonial-struggle-continues-to-cast-shadows-over-contemporary-politics/">Zimbabwe National Party</a> (ZNP) were physically prevented from launching the party at their own press conference by <a href="http://www.sundaynews.co.zw/events-leading-to-banning-of-ndp/">National Democratic Party</a> (NDP) sympathisers.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227581/original/file-20180713-27024-1a70nja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227581/original/file-20180713-27024-1a70nja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227581/original/file-20180713-27024-1a70nja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227581/original/file-20180713-27024-1a70nja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227581/original/file-20180713-27024-1a70nja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227581/original/file-20180713-27024-1a70nja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227581/original/file-20180713-27024-1a70nja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE/Aaron Ufumeli</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ill-fated efforts of the ZNP would have been prominent in the minds of Zanu founders when it was formed two years later. </p>
<p>Zapu, which replaced the NDP after it was banned, went to great lengths to beat Zanu into submission. The houses of Mugabe and Ndabaningi Sithole, the top leaders in Zanu, <a href="http://cba1415.web.unc.edu/files/2014/07/zapu.pdf">were stoned</a> after the new party was launched.</p>
<p>As other African nations became independent and Zimbabwe remained under minority rule, frustration mounted. This led to a determination to achieve majority rule by any means. A <a href="https://www.pambazuka.org/arts/roots-political-violence-go-deep-zimbabwe">culture of political violence</a> became institutionalised.</p>
<h2>Media Repression</h2>
<p>Assaults on the media were particularly prominent under white minority rule following the unilateral declaration of independence in 1965. <a href="https://www.scotsman.com/news/40-years-on-from-udi-zimbabwe-is-still-paying-the-price-1-1101979">Censors </a> redacted broad swathes of news stories, littering papers with blank pages.</p>
<p>This overt censorship was but a new manifestation of a repressive media heritage. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/blcas/welensky.html">Political papers</a> of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/07/world/sir-roy-welensky-84-premier-of-african-federation-is-dead.html">Roy Welensky</a>, the second Prime Minister of the Federation to which Southern Rhodesia belonged from 1953 - 1963, reveal the invidious nature of attempts to control the press. His government covertly worked with journalists and editors to produce articles critical of the white opposition in newspapers that were nominally independent. He also consulted with the white publishers of newspapers geared toward a black audience about ways to promote his government.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://pdfproc.lib.msu.edu/?file=/DMC/African%20Journals/pdfs/Journal%20of%20the%20University%20of%20Zimbabwe/vol23n2/juz023002004.pdf"><em>Central African Examiner</em></a>, a news magazine that was theoretically independent and had links with <em>The Economist</em>, changed editors in the middle of the 1958 elections. The new editor, David Cole, was Welensky’s public relations adviser. </p>
<p>In 1961 the government considered blocking the sale of the colony’s newspaper titles catering to a predominantly black audience to the Thomson Newspaper Group. The concern was that it would be difficult to influence the editorial policy of papers with foreign ownership. Meanwhile, newspapers geared toward a predominantly white audience and owned by the South African based Argus Press were not seen as posing a threat.</p>
<p>The sale went ahead. But in August 1964 both the African Daily News (which had a pro-Zapu bias) and Zanu <a href="http://pdfproc.lib.msu.edu/?file=/DMC/African%20Journals/pdfs/Journal%20of%20the%20University%20of%20Zimbabwe/vol6n2/juz006002015.pdf">were banned</a>. </p>
<p>Zanu learnt the importance of media control in its early years. Once in power it exerted its own influence. Forty years after Zanu and the <em>African Daily News</em> were proscribed, Zanu-PF replicated the tactics when it <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/jan/22/pressandpublishing.Zimbabwenews">banned a newspaper, also known as the Daily News</a> amid a media clampdown.</p>
<h2>Eyes on Mnangagwa</h2>
<p>While President Emmerson Mnangagwa has backtracked from Mugabe’s more confrontational rhetoric, his political career is nearly as long as his predecessor’s. His political upbringing was profoundly shaped by the repressive measures the nationalists endured and took up in the 1960s to dismantle the unjust system that governed them.</p>
<p>Zanu-PF’s assaults on the media and penchant for violence are reflective of similar tactics that were used against the party during the colonial era. And they have been critical to its ability to <a href="https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2016/06/10/violence-dominates-zim-political-history/">obtain and retain power</a> for 37 years. </p>
<p>Will Zimbabwe be able to turn the corner and move toward a more equitable election campaign in which the historic trajectory of media repression and political violence is fundamentally altered? If the answer is yes, Mnangagwa will have made a significant stride in truly ushering in a “<a href="https://www.herald.co.zw/the-first-100-days-of-the-new-dispensation/">new dispensation</a>”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99859/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brooks Marmon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The credibility of Zimbabwe’s elections will depend on issues like political violence and media freedom.Brooks Marmon, PhD Student, Centre of African Studies, The University of EdinburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/880852017-12-03T10:19:57Z2017-12-03T10:19:57ZA clean break with Mugabe’s past will have to wait - even beyond elections<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196676/original/file-20171128-7447-t1w0v1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Emmerson Mnangagwa has officially been sworn in as interim Zimbabwean President.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Who would have thought that this year would end with <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/robert-mugabe">Robert Mugabe</a> having lost the presidency of both the governing Zanu-PF and Zimbabwe? None could have foreseen such a development being the work of his ruling party’s inner circle.</p>
<p>The whole development is clearly a product of internal Zanu-PF tensions and actions. The military top brass involved are old standing Zanu-PF cadres that have <a href="https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/112460/JUL09SSRZIMBABWE.pdf">propped Mugabe up</a> for decades. Emerson Mnangagwa, who has been sworn in as his successor, has been Mugabe’s right hand man for <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/profile-zimbabwe-president-robert-mugabe-20171115">37 years</a>. </p>
<p>Zimbabweans have every right to celebrate the end of Mugabe’s long and disastrous reign, but they would be wrong to assume that this is the end of their political problems. The same Zanu-PF leadership has taken control of this transition, making it an intra-party matter rather than a national opportunity for deepening democracy as many hope. </p>
<p>Mnangagwa’s first priority will be to ensure consolidation of Zanu-PF power. He may do so by positioning Zanu-PF as a born again party committed to change. He may seize the opportunity to introduce real changes in the conduct of Zanu-PF and government leadership, in economic policies and in rebuilding the social compact by showing greater maturity in relations with other political parties and civil society.</p>
<p>But, as reports surface about the harassment of some of Mugabe appointed ministers and their families at the hands of <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/zimbabwe-judge-military-action-mugabe-legal-51375327">men in uniform</a>, we are reminded that the military should never be encouraged to manage political problems because they are likely to cross the line of civil-military relations. Excessive use of military power is likely to follow.</p>
<h2>Mugabe the survivor</h2>
<p>Mugabe has survived many attempts to get rid of him before. These include the efforts of the previous opposition Zimbabwean African People’s Union <a href="http://africaresearchinstitute.org/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/How-intellectuals-made-history-in-zimbabwe.pdf">(Zapu)</a> under Joshua Nkomo in the <a href="https://www.pindula.co.zw/Joshua_Nkomo">1980s</a>, through to the <a href="https://asq.africa.ufl.edu/files/Laakso-Vol-7-Issues-23.pdf">Zimbabwe Unity Movement in the 1990s</a> and to Movement for Democratic Change <a href="http://www.mdc.co.zw">(MDC) in the 2000s</a>. All these efforts failed because Mugabe has, at times, been popular, at times cunning and at times ruthless in preserving power – for himself and the Zanu-PF. </p>
<p>At times reliance on patronage of <a href="http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/politics/mdc-t-says-chiefs-not-zanu-pf-political-commissars/">indigenous systems of leadership</a> helped Mugabe and the party ward off challenges. Over the past 15 years, Zanu-PF has relied on the crude use of state power, <a href="http://www.thezimbabwean.co/2012/01/securitization-will-be-an-ill/">draconian security measures</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/22/zimbabwe1">brutality on the streets</a>.</p>
<p>It has also resorted to buying popularity through measures such as the violent land restitution process between <a href="https://www.eisa.org.za/pdf/JAE13.2Magure.pdf">2001 and 2007</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196677/original/file-20171128-7442-1bi6f8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196677/original/file-20171128-7442-1bi6f8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196677/original/file-20171128-7442-1bi6f8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196677/original/file-20171128-7442-1bi6f8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196677/original/file-20171128-7442-1bi6f8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196677/original/file-20171128-7442-1bi6f8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196677/original/file-20171128-7442-1bi6f8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zimbabweans at the inauguration of Emmerson Mnangagwa in Harare.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Aaron Ufumeli</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After 2007, Zanu-PF and Mugabe had to contend with a regional mediation process by the Southern African Development Community after an election they lost, but which the MDC did not win by margins needed to <a href="https://www.eisa.org.za/wep/zim2008results5.htm">form its own government</a>. Zanu-PF responded by unleashing violence and <a href="https://www.eisa.org.za/wep/zim2008postd.htm">brutality on opponents</a>. Power sharing, which gave the MDC and its leader <a href="https://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOPOLISJ/TOPOLISJ-5-28.pdf">Morgan Tsvangarai</a> an opportunity to position themselves as alternatives, saw Mugabe and Zanu-PF play every trick in the book to preserve power.</p>
<p>After Zanu-PF narrowly won the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/05/robert-mugabe-zimbabwe-election-zanu-pf">2013 elections</a>, it seemed that Mugabe and his party had finally prevailed. But the power battles turned inward, as party factions jostled over who would succeed Mugabe. </p>
<h2>Zanu-PF power struggles</h2>
<p>Various factions in the Zanu-PF have crystallised into two main camps. </p>
<p>The first is Mugabe and his henchmen of the so-called <a href="http://bulawayo24.com/index-id-opinion-sc-columnist-byo-122610.html">Zezuru group</a>, including top heads of security forces who had wanted Mugabe to continue for a long time. They favoured Solomon Mujuru before he died and later Mnangagwa as a successor. </p>
<p>The second was made up of younger, rather flamboyant group of mainly men around Mugabe Zanu-PF politicians who had gained power and influence in the civil service. This group was known as the <a href="https://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2017/11/17/unpacking-the-g40">G-40</a>. In the past few years this group backed Grace Mugabe as her husband’s successor. </p>
<p>Things have hung in the balance with the G40 gaining momentum because they could influence Mugabe’s judgement and decisions through his wife and nephews. This group could make a call who needed to be fired or isolated – and the president would act accordingly. </p>
<p>For example, when moderates in the Zanu-PF and war veterans touted Vice President Joice Mujuru as possible successor to Mugabe, the G40 aimed a barrage of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/11241242/Grace-Mugabe-claims-Joice-Mujuru-plans-to-kill-her-Gaddafi-style.html">insults against her</a> and publicly declared that her time was up. Shortly afterwards Mugabe fired her and got her <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/i-was-a-clear-successor-to-mugabe-says-former-vp-joice-mujuru-20170309">expelled from the party</a>. This deepened divisions within Zanu-PF and intensified concern about the G40 and Grace Mugabe. </p>
<p>The last straw was the <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/11/06/mugabe-fires-deputy-mnangagwa">firing of Mnangagwa</a> and threats against chiefs of armed forces.</p>
<p>Believing that Mugabe was being manipulated by the G40, the military stepped in to weed out those around the president. What they wanted was to persuade Mugabe to go and for Mnangagwa to replace him in as peaceful a process as possible so as not to destabilise Zanu-PF’s hold on power. The military showed great patience as it set about achieving this outcome. </p>
<p>In the end – and after citizens had taken to the streets calling for Mugabe, and the G40, <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2017-11-19-today-we-have-won-zimbabweans-cheer-during-mass-rally">to go</a> – the old man <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42071488">resigned</a>, thus avoiding an embarrassing impeachment process. </p>
<h2>New forces versus old</h2>
<p>Mugabe is gone. A faction of the Zanu-PF that had gained currency around him is being squeezed out of every space in Zimbabwe. A new faction under Mnangagwa is in place. </p>
<p>Mugabe stands as a shadow of continuity behind leaders who have been around him for decades and who have now been entrusted with the renewal agenda. Mugabe has left, but what’s been called <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/la/book/9781137543448">Mugabeism</a> remains: both the positive side of vehemently defending the sovereignty of Zimbabwe and the negative side of the brutality of state power. </p>
<p>Mnangagwa and the military have lavished him with generous post-retirement packages, honoured with a <a href="http://nairobinews.nation.co.ke/life/happy-sunset-awaits-mugabe-with-sh1billion-golden-handshake/">holiday in his name and praise</a>. The interim president has warned the deposed G-40 faction of Zanu-PF to return stolen state monies or <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/news/three-month-zimbabwe-amnesty-for-cash-stashed-abroad-12183516">face the law</a>. </p>
<p>A clean break with Mugabe’s heritage of violence and crude dominance will have to wait even beyond <a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwe-needs-wide-reforms-to-have-credible-elections-but-it-may-be-too-late-83473">elections next year</a>. Zimbabwean citizens have been energised by their role in removing Mugabe. They would do well to remain vigilant, to press for more fundamental changes in the way the state behaves and insisting on democratic processes in economic policies. Otherwise they will continue to live under one Zanu-PF faction to another without real change in their lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88085/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siphamandla Zondi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Zimbabweans have every right to celebrate the end of Robert Mugabe’s long and disastrous reign, but they would be wrong to assume that this is the end of their political problems.Siphamandla Zondi, Professor and head of department of Political Sciences and acting head of the Institute for Strategic and Political Affairs, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.