Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe: Crisis? What Crisis?

“Crisis? What Crisis?”. Appearing in bold print as a headline on the front page of the Sun newspaper in the context of the winter of discontent in 1978–1979, these simple questions referred to (the Labour Party Prime Minister) James Callaghan’s denial that there was “mounting chaos” (or a crisis) in the United Kingdom. Four months later, the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher swept to electoral victory. Forty years on, the ruling party in Zimbabwe (ZANU-PF), though far from suffering an electoral defeat in the foreseeable future, now raises the same questions, and often explicitly.

In this context, the ruling party and state president of Zimbabwe (Emmerson Mnangagwa) began his “address to the nation” on August 4, 2020 with the words “[t]he world is in crisis.” The crisis spoken about by Mnangagwa, affecting Zimbabwe and the rest of the world, is the health crisis centering on the Covid-19 pandemic. As a universal crisis emerging as a “natural disaster” and “imported” into the country, the Zimbabwean government (like all governments) claims no responsibility for this crisis appearing on the world stage. The Zimbabwean government admits to the presence of a health crisis in Zimbabwe, insofar as this refers merely to the existence of the Covid-19 virus within the territorial borders of the country. However, it refuses to recognize and accept, certainly not in any significant manner, the reality of a public health crisis—as this would raise searching and disturbing questions about entrenched state incapacities around the provision of public services, notably health care. Beyond the health crisis, no other crises exist in Zimbabwe from the perspective of ZANU-PF, only challenges.

Hence, on repeated occasions, Mnangagwa and ZANU-PF leaders have insisted that any other form of crisis, and specifically political and economic crises, appear only in the fantasizing minds of the main political opposition (Nelson Chamisa’s MDC and its civil society allies), and thus solely as a discursive construction riddled with blatant falsifications. For instance, on September 4, 2020 at a meeting of the Mnangagwa-instigated and ZANU-PF-led Political Actors Dialogue (PolAD) comprising a range of small opposition parties but not Chamisa’s MDC, Mnangagwa asserted: “I wish to unequivocally state that there is no [political or economic] crisis in Zimbabwe”. Days later, at the 113th session of ZANU-PF’s Central Committee in mid-September 2020, Mnangagwa talked glowingly about ZANU-PF as the “unwavering revolutionary party” which (in the words of his August address) was resolved in its ongoing fight against “[t]he dark forces, both inside and outside the country” intent on manufacturing crises. Any public-health crisis, let alone political or economic crises, if they existed at all, had been “imported” into Zimbabwe by neo-colonial forces (for example, through uncalled-for sanctions) with whom the internal opposition readily collaborates.

This framing of the national story about contemporary Zimbabwe involves an outright denial of crises (of governance and mismanagement in particular) and points to the presence of false or artificial crises generated and propounded by the myth-making of unpatriotic elements. In this sense, Mnangagwa’s political discourse, in defending the national sovereignty of the Zimbabwean nation against the enemy within and outside, is not dissimilar to that of Mugabe’s strident Pan-Africanist and anti-imperialist rhetoric, particularly subsequent to the formation of the MDC in 1999 and his constant labelling of it as an agent of regime change funded by hostile foreign powers.

Of course, scholarly critics of ZANU-PF have pointed out, quite rightfully and over an extended period of time, the marked existence of a multi-faceted (and shifting) systemic crisis which constitutes the very fabric of Zimbabwean society. There are significant debates about the causes, character, and consequences of what has become known as the “Zimbabwean crisis” in the “crisis literature” (Chiumbu and Musemwa, 2012). As well, given the almost never-ending use of “crisis” as a descriptive and analytical category, there is some dispute within the scholarly literature more broadly about whether the notion has now outlived its days of theoretical significance (Shank, 2008); and, further, about whether speaking of a condition of perpetual and endemic crisis—or “chronicity” (Vigh, 2008)—has any explanatory value at all, in the case of Zimbabwe or elsewhere. Certainly, though, the Covid-19 pandemic (as a health crisis) has entered smoothly into the ruling party’s well-established discursive repertoire of denouncing the main opposition. The pandemic forms an unsubtle but convenient basis for distinguishing between a supposedly real crisis (a health crisis, not of the government’s making) and fraudulent and conspiratorial crises propagated by “dark forces.”

From a critical perspective, and thus in line with the prevailing crisis literature, it has become abundantly clear that crises in Zimbabwe now extend beyond the Mugabe “era” and sit firmly entrenched within the “era” of Mnangagwa, despite any attempts to wish them away as “fake news” under the so-called “new dispensation.” Without denying the pronounced continuities across the two “eras,” notably in the form of semi-authoritarian and predatory-accumulation tendencies, it is quite likely that emerging scholarly attempts at comparative analyses of the Mugabe and Mnangagwa “eras” may lean increasingly towards a less unfavorable analysis of the Mugabe era. In large part, this is because of a key trend arising directly out of the November 2017 military coup, namely, a qualitative shift in the form and extent of militarization of Zimbabwean politics and society (see Maringira, this volume). This deepening militarization, what Sachikonye (2011) labels as a “muscular politics,” has masculinized and patriarchal dimensions and is bound to have negative repercussions for the position of women in politics (see Bhatasara and Chiweshe, this volume).

After the coup, and before the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, the Mnangagwa government began showing its inherent logic of rule, despite distancing itself from the “failures” and “mistakes” of the Mugabe “era” by declaring the formation of the Second Republic. In taking a page from Mugabe’s script, Mnangagwa’s use of the state’s repressive apparatuses against civilians protesting at the time of the July 2018 elections, and then again in early 2019, demonstrates ZANU-PF’s boundless efforts to remain in power at all costs. At the same time, Mnangagwa is showing signs of breaking with the past by bringing to the fore certain initiatives, though the intentions behind these initiatives, and their strength and seriousness, are in serious doubt.

For example, there are indications of a wrestling with the past, by way of acts of reconciliation pertaining to the Gukurahundi atrocities from the early 1980s and the dispossession of white commercial farmers under fast-track land reform from the year 2000. Yet the so-called reconciliation around Gukurahundi is deeply controversial, leading to a split within the Matabeleland Collective and falling far short of any meaningful truth-telling and justice-seeking initiative. The compensation package for the dispossessed white farmers is likewise a source of tension, while the tens of thousands of farm laborers (either displaced in situ or elsewhere in the country) seem largely forgotten, despite their precarious existence 20 years on. Further, while PolAD may come across as a genuine attempt to overcome the combative party-politics of the present, it incorporates—in the main—pliant, minor opposition parties.

As well, there are signs of a new (perhaps neo-liberal) economic path, including with regard to foreign policy and investment, alongside an array of monetary and currency policies, as part of the overall “open for business” mantra. Both Melber and Southall (this volume) and Nyamunda (this volume) pose significant questions about any (post-Mugabe) changes in this regard. Though Mnangagwa has spoken glowingly about promises of large-scale investment in the “new” Zimbabwe, the country remains closed for business in practice, with massive foreign debt hanging over its head. Finally, Mnangagwa has staked his political reputation on a vigorous fight against endemic and systemic corruption. For now, though, the impartiality of the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission is subject to serious questions because of the weaponizing of anti-corruption efforts (in relation to intra-ZANU-PF factional battles), while Mnangagwa operates an unconstitutional, rogue Anti-Corruption Unit in his office. In examining judicial appointments, Verheul (this volume) notes a discernable (though not complete) shift away from defending national sovereignty to fighting corruption under Mnangagwa, and primarily as a basis for shoring up state legitimacy.

There is great significance in the events prior to the rise of the Covid-19 pandemic in capturing analytically the enduring crises and emerging character and imperatives of the Mnangagwa government. However, it appears that the only real crisis in Zimbabwe (from ZANU-PF’s perspective), namely, the health crisis during the Covid-19 moment, has highlighted most vividly the dispositions ingrained in the Mnangagwa government. Thus, key developments around health and politics during the time of the pandemic provide a crucial lens for honing in on the enduring social, political, and economic crises in Zimbabwe and the increasingly militarized “solution” to them.

These include the following: disruptions and strikes by health-care professionals over wages and working conditions; massive shortfalls in state capacities around health (and the corruption contributing to this, such as the Drax scandal); the unconstitutional appointment of coup leader and Vice President Constantino Chiwenga as Minister of Health; the Minister’s attempts at militarizing the health profession and health professionals; and the Minister’s unconstitutional overreach in preventing by-elections from going ahead in December 2020 (to the disadvantage of Chamisa’s MDC).

Perhaps most troubling, as witnessed under the pandemic, is the closing down of political and civil space by the Zimbabwean state. As a general tendency, the Mnangagwa government has used the lockdown measures as a pretext for contracting civil space (and violating human rights) on an unnecessary and illegitimate basis. For ZANU-PF (and indeed for other ruling parties), Covid-19 is portrayed as an existential threat and invisible enemy, with war-like language used to mobilize against the unseen enemy. Because all Zimbabwean citizens potentially carry the virus, citizens who (or groups which) violate the state’s lockdown measures are labeled as collaborating with the enemy, as “dark forces.” Hence, “[t]he public are . . . the problem: they socialize; . . . they put others . . . at risk. Thus governments . . . have been forced to seize the levers of power in order to lead the ‘war’” (Chandler, 2020).

Individual citizens trying to make a living, and democracy-seeking (and Chamisa-linked MDC) activists, have borne the brunt of repressive measures under the Zimbabwean lockdown, including by means of unwarranted beatings, politically motivated detentions and arrests, disproportionate force, torture, and abductions. As well, the ruling party is deploying state institutions (including the judiciary) to undercut Chamisa’s MDC at an institutional level (thoroughly undercutting its presence in parliament, senate, and urban councils). At the same time, it seeks to position Thokozani Khupe’s MDC as the main “opposition” party. Nevertheless, Chamisa has contributed in no small way to the challenges currently facing Zimbabwe’s main political-party opposition (see Mwonzora and Hodzi, this volume). With its pronounced hold historically on rural areas (both communal areas and, more recently, fast-track areas), Mnangagwa’s ZANU-PF is trying to do what Mugabe’s ZANU-PF was unable to undertake successfully, namely, to undermine the urban areas as the bastion of political opposition.

Undoubtedly, in and through the pandemic, the Zimbabwean state under Mnangagwa is preparing thoughtfully for a post-Covid world. Indeed, the pandemic has granted ZANU-PF breathing space and time to formulate and refine further measures which may close down political and civil space on a more permanent basis. Because of this, civil society and community organizations need to start formulating strategies for change relevant to the “new” post-Covid Zimbabwe.

In the context, it is hoped that the six articles in this special edition go some way in identifying the specificities and complexities of Zimbabwe’s Mnangagwa, and the challenges faced in seeking to pursue a democratic dispensation in the years ahead.