Few subjects in the Zimbabwean story demonstrate the mixture of issues – law, politics and history – which are the mainstay of #TheBigSaturdayRead as the narrative of Mugabe’s consolidation of power throughout his reign as leader both of ZANU PF and Zimbabwe. It’s a story which aptly demonstrates the inseparable link between law and politics, which to me is an enduring area of interest. It helps us to understand power, how it is constructed, maintained and strengthened. My purpose today is to trace the genealogy of the principle of One Centre of Power, which has become very fashionable in recent years in relation to ZANU PF politics and in other parties. I demonstrate how it has evolved in the past 40 years, expressed through the agency of politics and law. But I also demonstrate why, in the context of contemporary politics, it is ZANU PF’s Achilles Heel.
Long-serving leader
Nearly 40 years after he assumed the leadership of the party, Robert Mugabe is still at the helm of ZANU PF. For 36 years, he has been the leader of Zimbabwe, having become the first Prime Minister of the newly independent country in 1980. There was a great amount of promise during that early season, with Mugabe successfully using a strategy he has deployed time and again since then – politics of deception – to convince much of the world that he was a progressive leader and a democrat. His supreme eloquence and proficiency in the English language were mistaken for signs of sophistication and good leadership.
At 92, with an increasingly fragile body that needs regular tending in far-off countries, a party divided and an economy in the doldrums, the twilight of his career and life could not be more different from its promising dawn 36 years ago.
In September 2015, he made headlines when he read the wrong speech on the formal occasion of the opening of Parliament. The speech he repeated was one that he had delivered just a fortnight before. He went on and on, blissfully unaware that he was reading an old speech. A younger Mugabe would have been more alert to the faux-pas.
At the highly-charged ZANU PF Congress in 2014, after delivering a typically long speech, Mugabe shocked his audience of loyalists and everyone else following proceedings on television when he chanted, “Pasi neZANU PF!” (Down with ZANU PF!) – a slogan reserved for opponents of ZANU PF. There are other gaffes, stumbles and falls, all consistent with advanced age. But for most people, which is now beginning to register among his supporters, the greater concern is the fact that he doesn’t have any fresh ideas on how to resuscitate a broken economy. Yet he insists on staying on and even contesting the 2018 presidential elections, when he will be 94. There is a point at which it becomes an act of collective cruelty on the part of Zimbabweans in general and Zanu PF supporters in particular, to continue to place obligations on and demand of a man what is plainly above the call of body and mind.
And yet talk of Mugabe’s departure is now placed in the same category where you find treason and subverting constitutional government. In recent weeks, war veterans’ leaders who have defied and criticized him have found themselves arrested and detained, charged with subverting constitutional government. A pastor who led #ThisFlag, a citizens’ movement was also arrested and charged with the same offence. Itai Dzamara, a political activist who called for Mugabe to step down was abducted by suspected state agents in March 2015 and he has not been accounted for. The twilight years of Mugabe’s career are getting increasingly repressive and intolerant.
One Centre of Power
At the ZANU PF Congress in December 2014, the party made a bold declaration that Mugabe was the One Centre of Power. This principle has become a key rallying cry with ZANU PF in the past two years. It is an exclusionary principle which means Mugabe is the central point of power and any person who challenges him or deviates from the principle automatically earns exclusion. Indeed, the bulk of party members who have been expelled from the party in recent weeks have fallen foul of this principle. Following recent public allegations against him, Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa was forced to issue a public statement during which he reaffirmed his loyalty to Mugabe by laying heavy emphasis on One Centre of Power principle. He went further, arguing that the principle was not a recent phenomenon, but that it had long-standing roots from the days of the liberation struggle in the 1970s.
It is important to explore the evolution of the One Centre of Power principle within ZANU PF politics, not least because opposition parties which seem to have some of the characteristics of ZANU PF also seem to have the same tendency to gravitate towards such a principle. This seemingly “national” character of the One Centre of Power principle makes understanding its evolution imperative. Its impact and consequences on the national psyche and how parties are organized are important issues for analysis. By tracing how Mugabe evolved into one centre of power in ZANU PF, we can also observe how such a pattern has similarly developed over the years in other political parties and formations. The hope is that the risks associated with it and why it must be avoided become more apparent.
There is a perspective that Mugabe’s long and, largely unchallenged, reign may have rendered Zanu PF and by extension, Zimbabwe, too dependent upon him. It may be argued that this over-dependence on Mugabe renders ZANU PF highly fragile to the point that its future without him is almost hard to imagine. It has subordinated its institutions in favour of a strongman. Likewise, opposition parties and civil society movements which adopt similar approaches, investing too much in individual leaders rather than building strong institutions risk their futures as individuals come and go.
The Early Years
Those who have witnessed the recent expulsions of Mujuru and her allies and lately, Mnangagwa’s allies might mistake this for the first time that those suspected of challenging Mugabe’s one centre of power status have been victimized. But that would be misleading. Such challenges during the war of liberation were met with stern and brutal measures. Those who were suspected of undermining or challenging Mugabe’s leadership during the war were dealt with harshly by the party. There were two rebellions during the early years of Mugabe’s leadership, such as the Vashandi Rebellion in 1978. Fellow cadres like Rugare Gumbo, the late Henry Hamadziripi, Augustine Chihuri (then known as Steven Chocha), Happison Muchechetere, the late Wilfred Mhanda (then known as Dzinashe Machingura) and many others were incarcerated in dungeons in Mozambique and spent the remainder of the war in captivity. State media these days use the narrative that the likes of Rugare Gumbo had betrayed Mugabe. But they were early indications of Mugabe’s intolerance to challenge the movement of the party towards creating the One Centre of Power which was beyond reproach or challenge.
It was not surprising therefore, that after independence, the movement towards cementing the principle of the One Centre of Power was only strengthened. Later in this article, I shall return to these developments after independence which helped affirm Mugabe’s central position within ZANU PF. It is useful, however, to debunk some of the myths that have been perpetuated by the state media narrative which seek to cast Mugabe as the sole and all-conquering founding father and author of the Zimbabwean Revolution leading to independence from colonial rule. The truth is that the struggle for independence had already begun before Mugabe’s return to Rhodesia in 1960. There are many characters from the 1950s and early 1960s, whose names are hardly celebrated, let alone known, who are the real founding fathers of African nationalism and the long struggle for independence in Zimbabwe. There is no-one to tell their stories today and books by or about them are hardly available to ordinary members of the public. Such narratives are inconvenient to a dominant narrative which perpetuates the image of Mugabe as the One Centre of Power, the founder and author of the struggle. By the time he returned from Ghana where he had found sanctuary (and a wife) others in the country were already organising and leading the nascent struggle.
For a younger generation which has only known Mugabe as the leader of ZANU PF, it might seem odd that in reality, there were other leaders before him, that it was not until the ZANU PF Special Congress in 1977 that he formally assumed leadership and before him the party President was Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole. Despite efforts to air-brush him out of history, Sithole was the founding leader of ZANU, assuming leadership when it was formed in 1963 and confirmed at the inaugural Congress in Gweru. This young generation hears very little of such influential leaders like Herbert Chitepo, Zimbabwe’s first black barrister who as Chairman of ZANU was the principal driver of the armed struggle at a time when Mugabe and other nationalists were in prison. When the Altena Farm attack took place in 1972, regarded as marking the second phase of the armed struggle, Mugabe and other nationalist leaders were in detention. It was Rex Nhongo (Solomon Mujuru) who led that unit. Yet today’s narrative which seeks to cement Mugabe as the sole centre of power tries to revise these historical narratives, maligning the likes of Solomon Mujuru and other cadres, reducing their roles to that of a supporting cast to an all-conquering hero.
By 1990, an MP courted the ire of the Christian faithful when he compared Mugabe to Jesus Christ. Speaking in his maiden speech in Parliament in 1990, the late Tony Gara, a former mayor of Harare, was effusive in his praise of Mugabe: “This country and its people should thank the almighty for giving us his only other son by the name of RG Mugabe. This son of God has and still is serving the people remarkably well” he said. He was soon rewarded with the post of Deputy Minister but he also earned himself a role as a symbol of political sycophancy – one of the founding members of the Mugabe praise and worship choir
The rebuke and ridicule to which Gara was subjected by critics afterwards did not deter others from joining the choir. Speaking in 2011, Simon Khaya Moyo, said: “His Excellency you are a liberator of unparalleled audacity. You are a useful and amazing leader and we pray to God to make you stronger and continue to lead us from the front”.
Webster Shamhu, a former political commissar of Zanu PF had a lavish, if bizarre metaphor for his leader, likening him to “Cremora” – a popular creamer that is a firm favourite in many households across the country, and at one point the subject of a popular television commercial. “Gushungo,” Shamhu purred as he referred to Mugabe by his clan name, “people say you have Cremora, the whole body!”
It was once disclosed during court proceedings that Obert Mpofu, a long-serving Cabinet Minister, had a habit of signing off letters to Mugabe with the words, “Your ever obedient son”. He’s one of the biggest praise singers.
But if the praise-singers have been lavished with gifts in return, those who have dared to be critical have suffered the wrath of Mugabe. Dzikamai Mavhaire’s case is a good illustration. Sometime in 1998, a motion was introduced in Parliament to debate the issue of presidential term limits, itself an indication of the discomfort some in Zanu PF were already feeling over Mugabe’s long stay in power even back then – he had been in office for just half the time that he has been in charge now. During that debate, in an act of either bravery or foolishness, Mavhaire famously declared that Mugabe must step down. “What I am saying is that the President must go”, said Mavhaire to a ZANU PF-dominated Parliament.
Naturally, Mugabe was not happy. Mavhaire, who was Chairman of Masvingo province, was promptly banned from holding any party position for 2 years. The then Speaker of Parliament, Cyril Ndebele valiantly tried to defend Mavhaire, issuing a certificate of parliamentary privilege on grounds that an MP should be immune from punishment for statements uttered in Parliament. But this only served to draw the wrath of Mugabe to the Speaker too. Mugabe described the conduct of the Speaker as “madness”. Senior Zanu PF officials, Nathan Shamuyarira and Didymus Mutasa demanded that Ndebele should also be brought before the party’s disciplinary hearing. Nevertheless, Ndebele stood his ground and received the backing of his former PF Zapu colleagues. Joseph Msika, who was the chairman of the Disciplinary Committee indicated there would be no hearing for Ndebele. Nevertheless, Ndebele did not keep his job after the 2000 elections. He has only recently been appointed the Chairman of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission.
That Mavhaire episode was an indicator of intolerance to dissent or criticism.
But how did this dominant and exclusionary narrative of sole heroism around Mugabe emerge? Understanding this requires an exploration into Mugabe’s rise to become the most powerful man in ZANU PF and subsequently, Zimbabwean politics.
Mugabe’s rise to leadership
Mugabe’s rapid rise to the top of the political food chain in ZANU PF came after his release from detention in 1974, the result of a combination of circumstances which conspired in his favour. Prior to his release in 1974, Mugabe had been ZANU’s Secretary-General. Before that, he was the Information and Publicity Secretary in ZAPU, which was led by Joshua Nkomo. In his recent book, Cephas Msipa tells how Mugabe’s eloquence earned him many admirers upon his return from Ghana, that he was much in demand as a speaker at public meetings. But however intelligent and eloquent he was, in those early years, he was the water-carrier for the superstars of the day, the likes of Nkomo and Sithole, the founding fathers of nationalism.
On 18 March 1975, the highly-respected and influential chairman of ZANU, Herbert Chitepo was assassinated in Lusaka. This led to the mass imprisonment of ZANU’s top military and political leadership, the likes of Josiah Tongogara, who were accused of assassinating Chitepo. After the death of Chitepo, it was felt that a vacuum had been created. Around the same period, the young guerilla leaders were losing faith in the leadership of Reverend Sithole and other nationalist leaders, whom they believed were dithering and interested in pleasure pursuits. The one exception whom they held in high regard was Mugabe. It was during that period that Mugabe had made the famous trek to Mozambique, in the company of Edgar Tekere and Chief Rekayi Tangwena, who helped them cross the border. This was the passage that Mugabe needed to acquire leadership.
When a group of young ZANU military commanders stationed at Mgagao Training Camp in Tanzania issued what is now famously referred to as the Mgagao Declaration in November 1975, it was Mugabe who received special mention and endorsement. The Mgagao Declaration was a devastating attack upon Reverend Sithole and other nationalist leaders except Mugabe. They were impressed by Mugabe’s decision to endure the rigours of the armed struggle in Mozambique, which was in stark contrast to the opinion they had of Reverend Sithole. Of Mugabe they wrote in the Mgagao Declaration,
“An Executive Member who has been outstanding is Robert Mugabe. He has demonstrated this by defying the rigours of guerrilla life in the jungles of Mozambique. Since we respect him most, in all our dealings with the ANC leaders, he is the only person who can act as a middleman”.
They were referring to the Zimbabwean ANC, an umbrella organisation which, at the time, was led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa. Yet despite this high praise from the young guerillas, some of them, like Wilfred Mhanda, would later turn against Mugabe and challenge his leadership style, leading to swift retribution which saw them incarcerated in harsh conditions until independence. Further, this high praise did not immediately persuade Mozambican President Samora Machel to take to Mugabe. By most accounts of the war, Mugabe was effectively kept under house arrest in his early days, until Machel was persuaded by the cadres, among them Solomon Mujuru, that Mugabe could be trusted.
Nevertheless, between 1975 and 1977, Mugabe went on to establish and consolidate his leadership in both the political and military wings of the party. The Mgagao Declaration was endorsed by the Dare reChimurenga (ZANU’s War Council) in 1976. It was also backed by the leaders who were imprisoned by the Zambian authorities in the aftermath of Chitepo’s assassination. “The burden and responsibility of leading our party now rests with you. Should we be released by our captors, we shall be glad to join you in the field,” they wrote from prison. Among the authors were Josiah Tongogara, Kumbirai Kangai and Rugare Gumbo.
The constitutional formality of his leadership endorsement was completed at a special meeting of the Zanu Central Committee held in August 1977, when he became the second President of the party. At that meeting, he became the President of the party and its armed wing, Zanla “giving him control of and placing him at the centre of both the political and military wings of the party” an important feat which becomes even more significant when one appreciates the dynamics of party and military relations in present-day politics. One might also see why Mnangagwa has recently spoken of the One Centre of Power as drawing roots from the days of the liberation struggle.
Writing in her autobiography, one of the leading women from the liberation struggle and a former Minister in Mugabe’s government in the 1980s, Fay Chung says: “the choice of Mugabe was made because of the desire of all to avoid a potentially damaging leadership struggle. Mugabe was the next person in the leadership hierarchy and he was unanimously accepted at the replacement for Sithole”
It is important to note that his choice is described as having been unanimous, a phenomenon that has endured over time.
Mugabe went on to consolidate the political and military wings of the party. The only other major figure, who might have posed a threat to his authority was the ZANLA Commander, Josiah Tongogara. However, Tongogara met an untimely end when he died in a car accident on the eve of independence. By the time Mugabe progressed into independence, as ZANU’s candidate and later as Prime Minister, he had no major challenger or threat to his authority. Nevertheless, the journey to consolidating power during the war years was not without its challenges. At least twice, between 1977 and 978, he had to suppress rebellions from disaffected members. Ironically, in thwarting these rebellions, Mugabe benefited from the support of Solomon Mujuru, the late husband of Joice Mujuru, now the subject of historical revisionism in the Mugabe-centric narrative. Another key backer, Emmerson Mnangagwa, is also going through a torrid time, although his messages to Mugabe have been to remind him of these long-standing ties.
Ditching the PF
Having established dominance in ZANU, Mugabe knew that if he was going to establish true unrivalled control in the new Zimbabwe, he had to neutralize his main political rival, Joshua Nkomo. Known as Father Zimbabwe in recognition of his founding role in the nationalist struggle, Nkomo was a colossal figure whom Mugabe could not ignore. ZANU had split from ZAPU in 1963 and despite efforts to unite the parties in the 1970s, unity had never been achieved except for independence negotiations when they got together as the Patriotic Front, a suggestion of President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. Writing about the Patriotic Front in the Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1982, Mugabe says the idea of the Patriotic Front had come from Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania, who played an immense role supporting the nationalist forces in Zimbabwe’s war of independence. “It was this idea that led to the formation of the Patriotic Front, which was to adopt a common position for all future constitutional conferences”, wrote Mugabe.
However, even the effort to form a united fighting force, under ZIPA ended in failure.
When they negotiated at the final negotiations held at Lancaster House in 1979, ZAPU and ZANU did so together as the PF. The success brought hope that the parties would contest together as the PF in the first democratic elections in 1980. But unknown to Nkomo, Mugabe had other ideas. When the elections came in February 1980, he very deftly managed to avoid the PF, the umbrella label under which Zanu and Zapu, the two liberation parties, would have contested as a single unit had an agreement materialised. Writing candidly in his autobiography, The Story of My Life, Nkomo expressed his surprise and dismay at discovering that Mugabe had already left London just after the Lancaster House talks when he thought they had agreed to meet and discuss a plan to contest elections together under the PF.
Hence they ditched the Patriotic Front idea and walked into the election alone, where, to the surprise of their rivals, they won by an overwhelming majority. Zanu won 57 out of the 80 contested seats, Zapu took 20 seats and Muzorewa’s UANC managed a miserly 3.
Various reasons are given as to why Mugabe discarded the idea of the Patriotic Front. Some say, Mugabe believed they had made ground by their own efforts as a party and were confident they would be victorious without ZAPU’s help. Others believe Mugabe feared he would have had to take a subordinate role to Nkomo, who was older and more senior in the family tree of the nationalist forces. But having worked so hard to establish himself as the unrivaled leader of Zanu, Mugabe was not going to give way to Nkomo, something that would have been a real possibility if they had contested as the PF.
If Mugabe’s move was a gamble, it is fair to say it paid off very handsomely. With 63% of the vote to Nkomo’s 24%, Mugabe became Zimbabwe’s first black democratically-elected Prime Minister when he took office on 4th March 1980. The man who had left the country for Ghana in the 1950s had completed a remarkable journey – from a humble school-teacher to Prime Minister. The journey had been arduous, through prison cells and the jungles of Mozambique to the well-appointed boardrooms of Lancaster House. His eloquence, intellect and charisma had been useful assets. But he had also demonstrated his prowess as a political schemer and survivor. He had managed to outshine and outlive his peers and rivals.
These were the early years, when Mugabe laid the foundations to consolidate his power, something which would become more complete after independence. Now, into his fourth decade in power, the Zanu PF political commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere is quoted as warning against expression of ambition while Mugabe is still alive. “We should defend the founder of the country,” he implored people at a by-election rally in October 2015. “President Mugabe is founder of the party and you can’t talk of ambition for a post that is not reachable”, he added. It’s not clear whether he was conscious or oblivious that by those words he was contributing to the authorship of the revisionist narrative.
It is now appropriate to analyse how Mugabe’s quest to establish himself as the One Centre of Power escalated after independence in 1980. This is important, as it helps us to understand how the future might look like without the domineering figure of Mugabe.
Post-1980 consolidation of power
With the party firmly under his command, and with an historic premiership in hand, Mugabe set out to consolidate control of the state and its institutions. His face might never have decorated the national currency when Zimbabwe could still afford one, but by the second decade of his rule, the state and virtually all its institutions bore a vivid imprint of his personality. He was already the One Centre of Power long before the ZANU PF Congress declared it in bold terms at the 2014 Congress and this was all down to a carefully planned process of consolidation of power.
It is important to assess the key developments that reaffirmed and strengthened Mugabe’s place as the One Centre of Power.
1984 Congress
In 1984, Zanu PF convened its first national congress after independence. Mugabe sailed through without challenge, just as he had done in 1977, when he was unanimously elected to formally take charge of ZANU PF at a special congress in Mozambique. This means to date, Mugabe has never been formally challenged at an elective congress of ZANU PF.
However, apart from confirming unrivalled leadership, the 1984 Congress also gave him an opportunity to forge a system of patronage which has served him so well over the years, at both party and state level. It was at the 1984 Congress that the national executive was renamed the Politburo, mirroring the communist structures of the Soviet Union and China. Previously, all 15 seats of the Politburo were elective offices but this was changed at the 1984 Congress, giving Mugabe exclusive power to appoint Politburo members. The democratic processes of nomination and election of members of the Politburo were set to upset the balance of power, and embarrass political elites who were facing the grave risk of losing their positions. Mugabe intervened to save them, thereby gaining important leverage over them. One example was his deputy, who was also the Deputy President, Simon Muzenda, who was facing the real danger of losing his position to another veteran politician, Maurice Nyagumbo. Nyagumbo had received more nominations from the provinces for the post of deputy leader of the party, which was held by Muzenda. Apparently, Nyagumbo had to be persuaded by Mugabe to step aside for Muzenda. Unsurprisingly, Muzenda was forever beholden to Mugabe throughout the rest of his political career.
While this form of “guided democracy” salvaged the political careers of those who were imperiled, by far the biggest beneficiary was Mugabe himself. As patron of the saved subordinates, for his show of benevolence, he received their undying favour and loyalty. To prevent future episodes of similar discomfort, the 1984 Congress gave Mugabe sweeping powers to appoint members of the Politburo. This was a great gift to Mugabe which meant Politburo members now served at his pleasure, rather than at the pleasure of Congress. The power to appoint or to disappoint is fundamental in the dynamics of controlling an organisation. The appointed must always toe the line and their loyalty is to the leader first and foremost, because he has the power to remove them from their position of privilege.
This process of consolidating power in the office of the President was consistent with the popular theme of the time, namely the promotion of the one party state. One of the key mandates of the 1984 congress was to transform Zimbabwe into a one-party state. The bulk of post-independent African countries had quickly discarded their constitutions and adopted a one party system of government. The 1984 Congress was simply following a well-trodden path, setting up Zimbabwe for a one party state. In order to achieve this, it needed a strong President, enjoying unchallenged authority. It would also entail the establishment of ZANU PF as the only political party in the country and therefore, a ban on the opposition. We shall see how the pursuit of the one party state had devastating consequences for Zimbabwe. In the end, however, this plan was aborted in 1990 following the end of the Cold War. The communist ideology lost traction and the authoritarian one party state regimes in sub-Saharan Africa were embracing multi-party democracy.
After the 1984 Congress, David Caute wrote in the New Statesman, “what lies ahead for Zimbabwe is not socialism but presidential power”. Alex Callinicos, wrote in the Socialist Review, “So Zimbabwe looks headed to join the long line of bourgeois regimes, especially in Africa, where power is concentrated in the hands of a President, who heads a single mass party”. As it turned out, their predictions were absolutely correct.
Gukurahundi, the Unity Accord and the demise of ZAPU
As Zanu PF was conferring more power and control to Mugabe at the 1984 congress, placing him at the centre of the party, there were parallel developments at the national level. The political challenge posed by long-time rival Joshua Nkomo and ZAPU was met with a brutal crackdown by the state. This was the worst period of post-independence political violence. The government claimed it was responding to a dissident threat in the Matabeleland and Midlands regions, but it is now widely acknowledged that the state’s response was disproportionate to any threat posed by the rag-tag group of dissidents operating in the area. The government deployed the Fifth Brigade, a crack military unit trained in the dark arts by the North Koreans. They went beyond the call of duty and brutalized civilians. Conservative estimates suggest that at least 20,000 civilians were killed. By far the majority of the targeted victims were Ndebele-speaking people, which is why it has been described as an attempt at ethnic cleansing. Politically, Nkomo and ZAPU were the dominant forces in the region – they had won all but one seat in the House of Assembly in the 1980 elections. Hence the Gukurahundi atrocities are also seen as part of the process of consolidating power by decimating the strongest opposition to ZANU PF.
Writing in his autobiography, The Story of My Life, Nkomo recalled how Mugabe described him and ZAPU: “Zapu and its leader Joshua Nkomo are like a cobra in a house. The only way to deal effectively with a snake is to strike and destroy its head.” However, the Gukurahundi atrocities did not cause the people of Matabeleland to shift their political loyalties. If anything, their resolve to support a party of their choice was strengthened. In the 1985 general elections, ZAPU dominated again in Matabeleland.
Nevertheless, the Gukurahundi atrocities left Nkomo and ZAPU with little choice but to negotiate a settlement with Mugabe and ZANU in order to save lives. The world was watching but did nothing. In the face of suffering of the people, Nkomo and ZAPU capitulated and signed a unity agreement with Mugabe and ZANU. The 1987 Unity Accord helped to halt the atrocities, but it also signaled the demise of ZAPU as a political force and opened the way for Mugabe’s consolidation of power at the national level. Mugabe became the President of the new combined party, with Nkomo and Muzenda as his deputies. This was another step in Mugabe’s process of consolidating power and actualizing the principle of One Centre of Power.
In the bigger picture, the Unity Accord represented a revival and consummation of the old Patriotic Front idea, first suggested by President Nyerere in 1976, except that now Mugabe had managed to avoid a scenario where he might have been required by the pull of seniority to give way to Nkomo. As Prime Minister and in control of the state, there would be only one leader and that would be Mugabe. He had deftly avoided unity talks before the 1980 elections, but he had deployed brute force to bring Nkomo to the negotiating table, and thereafter assumed unrivalled leadership of the PF.
Executive Presidency
While Mugabe and Nkomo were negotiating, there was another parallel process which was taking place in government: there was a process of amending the national Constitution in order to create the Executive Presidency. Constitutional Amendment No. 7 became law on 31 December 1987, just over a week after the Unity Accord was signed. The effect of the amendment was to create a strong presidency with centralized authority and control over virtually every facet of the state. The system of checks and balances which hitherto existed was weakened. When Zimbabwe got independence in 1980, the Lancaster House Constitution introduced a structure of government which was modelled along the lines of the Westminster system in the UK. Under this system, there was a Prime Minister, who held executive authority, but there was a ceremonial President, who was the head of state. The Prime Minister was an MP and was directly accountable to Parliament. The system of checks and balances was very much modelled along the lines of Westminster.
Most former British colonies had inherited similar constitutions, but they had discarded them soon after independence. This was Zimbabwe doing precisely the same thing, some arguing that the Westminster system was unAfrican. They preferred a strong President, hence the creation of the Executive Presidency, with a great amount of power but with fewer checks and balances. While as Prime Minister Mugabe was required to attend Parliament to answer questions from the opposition, as Executive President, he was no longer under any obligation to attend Parliament. He could address and even dissolve Parliament, but the same Parliament could not call on him to answer questions. Under the Executive Presidency, Parliament became a puppet of the Executive, useful only for purposes of rubber-stamping laws written by the Executive.
A number of changes were made to give Mugabe more powers, effectively sealing his role as the centre of power, both in his party and nationally.
Power to make law
In 1986, a new law, called the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act, gave Mugabe, first as Prime Minister, later as President, the power to effectively make law. This new law, giving him power to make temporary laws, effectively legalised rule by presidential decree. The President could make law, and he did, whenever it suited him and his party, especially during election periods, with enabled him to change the rules of the game to his opponents’ disadvantage. Although it was designed for “temporary” laws, it doesn’t stop the permanent effect of the so-called temporary laws. It allowed Mugabe to be a referee and a player in the same game. After the 2000 elections, Mugabe used this law to effectively ban election petitions. However, it was overturned by the Supreme Court. It was the same law under which Mugabe amended the Electoral Law and proclaimed dates for the 2013 elections. More importantly, it also undermined the principle of separation of powers by giving vast legislative authority to the President, which ought to be exercised by Parliament. There is no doubt that this law is unconstitutional under the new Constitution adopted in 2013 as only Parliament has the power to make primary legislation.
Mugabe’s “weighted voting” rights
By a constitutional amendment in 1989, Mugabe got new powers to appoint up to 30 MPs, effectively giving him the power to influence the composition of Parliament and therefore, control the balance of power well before an election was held. He had the power to appoint 12 non-constituency MPs into the House of Assembly, 8 Provincial Governors and 10 Chiefs. This meant while the law says everyone is equal before the law and the principle of one person one vote, Mugabe was more equal than others as he could “elect” up to 30 MPs on his own in his capacity as President. In essence Mugabe had “weighted voting rights” since his power of appointment allowed him to “elect” more MPs than others.
This power meant all appointed MPs owed their positions to him and were therefore completely beholden to him. It provided an avenue through which loyalists who might have lost in elections in their constituencies were rescued by Mugabe. By such methods, Mugabe has mastered the art of creating political sycophants.
More significantly, this power to appoint MPs, meant that however well the opposition did in contested seats, they would never get a two-thirds majority and their victory would always be diluted by the President’s power to appoint MPs. This was facilitated by an additional amendment which made a distinction between the presidential term and the term of Parliament. The Presidential term was 6 years, while the term of Parliament was 5 years. This might seem innocuous at first sight, but it had far more sinister implications. It meant that parliamentary elections would always be held before the presidential elections, and therefore would be overseen by the President. This meant Mugabe’s party always had an unfair advantage over the opposition as it had one man who had the power to “elect” 30 MPs. He could automatically affect the outcome of the election. It was, in essence, election rigging by law. It also gave Mugabe the power to oversee and control parliamentary elections using the apparatus of the state. This is why it makes sense that under the new Constitution, the term of Parliament and the Presidency now run concurrently.
I have selected just two examples to demonstrate the moves towards consolidation of power and creating the One Centre of Power. These examples show that these maneuvers were etched in law. They were part of the Constitution. Most critics credited or blamed Edison Zvobgo as the architect of Constitutional Amendment No. 7 which created the Executive Presidency. This is only partly true. The real architect was Mugabe himself who as far back as 1982 had expressed discontent over the limited powers of the Prime Minister, preferring instead a presidential system, which he indicated they would be working to achieve. Zvobgo only acted on instructions, to fulfil a long-held dream. Zvobgo crafted the law, but the political idea was Mugabe’s. In any event, the idea of an executive President was shared between the nationalist parties. At Lancaster House Constitutional Conference, the Patriotic Front had demanded more than a ceremonial Presidency, preferring a stronger Executive Presidency.
Tekere’s early warning
One of Mugabe’s long-time political allies who turned arch-rival after independence, was Edgar Tekere. He had accompanied Mugabe out of Zimbabwe in 1975 when he crossed into Mozambique to lead the armed struggle. However, by 1988, the two men had fallen out with Tekere warning that Mugabe’s ambition was to rule for life. His role as Secretary-General of ZANU PF had become redundant when Mugabe became the First Secretary of ZANU PF, another move towards consolidation of power, “I fear we are heading towards the creation of a dictatorship. Democracy in Zimbabwe is in intensive care and leadership has decayed,” said Tekere in October 1988. After Tekere’s public criticism, Mugabe responded by calling him a “dissident and malcontent”. It wasn’t long before Tekere got his marching orders from ZANU PF. That was only 8 years after independence. But the man who had occupied the trenches with Mugabe, and who knew him more than most people, had already seen that the revolution had lost its way and Mugabe was targeting the life presidency.
What is evident in these legal and constitutional changes is that Mugabe’s path towards occupying a central role both in the party and government was achieved through a comprehensive and methodical exercise of political and legal landscaping, in which all the tributaries of power were diverted into the course of the main channel. The balance of power shifted dramatically, with power residing in the other arms of both the state and party flowing towards the Presidency. This has given an impression that at party level, Mugabe does not depend on the party, but that the party depends on him. Likewise, there are some who think the country depends on Mugabe and that without him everything would fall apart. That may be true for his party, but it is certainly not true for Zimbabwe.
This then brings us to the third part: With Mugabe such an omnipresent figure in ZANU PF and with his personality so intricately woven into the fabric of the party, does the party have the capacity to outlive him in its original form? Can it survive intact without its One Centre of Power? Is the principle of the One Centre of Power an asset or a liability to ZANU PF?
After Mugabe
Undoubtedly, Mugabe’s departure, whichever way it comes, will be a significant moment of change both within ZANU PF and outside. He is such a colossal figure that his vacation of office will reverberate beyond Zimbabwe.
For all his political prowess in the art of consolidating and keeping power, Mugabe has failed in managing his exit. He refused to accept that there is a point of exit. Perhaps his old ally and later rival Tekere was right that Mugabe never intended to make an exit once he assumed power. Therefore it is not that he neglected the preparation of an exit facility, but that the blockage of any exit facility is deliberate.
But his long stay in office and his advanced age have also begun to attract challenges to the One Centre of Power principle. Some of them are overt but most of the discontent and manoeuvres are overt. This means he has had to spend the latter years of his career trying desperately to contain discontent and frustration in the party. The factions are a sign of competition for leadership but they are also an indication of frustration across the board.
The likes of Tekere got frustrated much earlier. Others like Edison Zvobgo held on for some time, hoping their turn would come. But he too got frustrated and by 2002, he was refusing to campaign for Mugabe. It prompted him to draw an analogy with a mental patient who, during a relay race grabbed the baton and instead of passing it on to the next runner in the team ran away to the mountains. There was no doubt who the witty Zvobgo had in mind. His ally Mavhaire had declared back in 1998 that Mugabe must go, another clear sign of frustration. Simba Makoni departed in 2008. That could have been a big moment, but his allies let him down. In more recent years, the fissures have grown into cracks and there is serious friction in the party. The ouster of Joice Mujuru and her allies signaled the extent of the problems. But the more recent fights between a faction backing Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the G40 which allegedly has Grace Mugabe in its corner have demonstrated that the bonds are loosening. .
Mugabe remains their sole point of unity, built on the foundation of the One Centre of Power principle. However, this is also the party’s Achilles Heel, for if the One Centre of Power falls, the likelihood is there will emerge multiple points of power, all competing to occupy the throne, as evidence by the current factional fights. The greatest risk for ZANU PF and the country is if Mugabe were to die in office. That could result in a chaos scenario. The Constitution provides that the Vice President who last acted before the President’s death will occupy office for up to 90 days (3 months) and within that period the party must select a replacement. How the party conducts that election is within its powers and internal procedures. This would probably mean an Extraordinary Congress of ZANU PF at which eligible members form an electoral college. It is here where the chaos could emerge. It seems to me that impeded by the One Centre of Power principle built over the years, some political actors are simply holding on to this eventuality – the death of Mugabe and the resulting chaos scenario. They will then use that chaos to step in and take power. This is the Chaos Theory.
Mugabe, of course, still has time to use his power to avoid the chaos scenario, if he cares at all what happens beyond his death. One would imagine he does because he has a young family that needs protection. It can’t be safe in a chaos scenario. His best option is to prepare an exit facility and organized succession. This is not new. Most sub-Saharan countries such as Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Botswana have in various ways under the cover of democratic elections organized succession of their leaders. President Mugabe has built a system that is loyal to himself. But this will leave a heavy legacy for his successor. He can help him or her to manage that transition while he is still alive. The principle of the One Centre of Power, which he has carefully propagated from the beginning, going back to the war years has served him well. But it could be the same principle which breaks the party and cause chaos for Zimbabwe. For the opposition parties and civil society, there are lessons: centralizing authority in the President can be beneficial to the leader, but it can have dangerous consequences for the institution.
waMagaisa
