 A record 19 minutes after the announcement of the results of a sham election, Zimbabwean President Robert Gabriel Mugabe was sworn into office for a five-year term, his sixth since 1980.
With this domestic inconvenience sorted, he flew to Egypt to meet 51 heads of state from the African Union. The meeting of these birds of a feather produced a wishy-washy resolution on Zimbabwe, urging Mugabe to engage the Opposition, aware that he knew all about their own stolen elections.
Mugabe has done it again, as he did it once before, when facing two contenders in the 1996 elections. But this time the global focus is much more sharply on Zimbabwe, thanks to a vibrant and people- centred media, and a plethora of other factors.
What next? First, Mugabe will appoint a Cabinet of some sort and rattle on, as he always has in the media, about their skills for the job and the agenda before them.
Soon after, the Minister of Justice will indicate through the Clerk of Parliament when the full Parliament will be sworn in and addressed by Mugabe.
On the very first day of the Cabinet meeting, chickens will come home to roost when the chosen few will find the coffers are empty. There will be no running capital and huge challenges to find any money for the defence, health, education, local government, agriculture, industry and commerce, and foreign affairs budgets.
It does not take rocket science to prove that the coffers are empty. Inflation is out of control. A bottle of Coca-Cola cost $Z58 billion last Saturday. The British pound traded at $Z90 billion, while the New Zealand dollar hit $Z35b.
There is no money in Zimbabwe. In the words of the governor of South Africa’s Reserve Bank, Tito Mboweni: “The wheels have long fallen off”.
While pondering what to do or where to raise loans, even Mugabe’s loyalists will soon demand payment in real currency.
From the Joint Operations Command that orchestrated the violence post March 29, remuneration will be required in United States dollars. When they are not paid, the middle rank of the Armed Services will balk. It won’t stop until even Mugabe’s maids will need payment in foreign currency.
No-one will want anything to do with a valueless currency that is not worth the paper on which it is printed. Even the militias would be daft to accept payment in a form that does not enable them to buy anything from the time when they walk into the empty shops.
Zimbabweans have escalated downwards from billionaires to trillionnaires in poverty.
A leading political-science academic at the University of Zimbabwe, Dr John Makumbe, sums it up: “Mugabe can rig as many elections as he wants, but cannot rig the economy”.
The economy is sinking Mugabe’s regime. It will drive him to the negotiating table in pursuit of the legitimacy he does not have but needs to unlock international capital. This is where the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has leverage over Mugabe.Â
He desperately needs the MDC, which already has the international support to finance the rebuilding of Zimbabwe’s economy. Never in the history of Mugabe’s regime has it been so clear that the MDC is calling the shots. All the MDC needs is to polish up a unity pact, be firm and resolute and learn from the 1987 Unity Accord. In the accord, which he wrote, Mugabe swallowed the then opposition led by Joshua Nkomo, ZAPU PF, establishing a de-facto one-party state.
The economy alone will force all political parties to the table.
Members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) will continue to feel the heat, as more and more Zimbabweans flood across their borders and do anything and everything to get food for a day. A sinking Zimbabwe will drag down these neighbouring states.
At the UN and in the African Union, diplomacy will continue as leaders desperately seek a face saver. Time is not on anyone’s side, as eyes focus on the 2010 Soccer World Cup to be held in South Africa. A collapsed Zimbabwe threatens the security and the image of a nation anxious to prove its strength on the world stage. A new Zimbabwe is on hold, but surely on her way this year. The 2009 Black Caps tour to Zimbabwe must not go ahead. Mugabe’s regime will crumble more quickly the more he is isolated.
·         Mandla Akhe Dube is a Christchurch-based Zimbabwean journalist concerned about events in his homeland. He is general secretary of Save Zimbabwe Campaign New Zealand and vice-chairman of the Zimbabwe Diaspora Forum.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/thepress/4621211a12935.html
Post published in: News