No honeymoon for Tsvangirai

With a brutish determination born of fear for their own skins, the men
most responsible for Zimbabwe’s ruination are doing all they can to
sink Tsvangirai before he can swim. Mugabe is stubbornly refusing to
replace Gideon Gono, the Reserve Bank mastermind whose inept policies
helped shatter the economy. Yet without a root-and-branch shake-up in
policymaking, resumed international financial assistance will not be
forthcoming.

Far from observing the power-sharing niceties of a unity government,
Zanu-PF bosses are behaving as if they are still in sole control,
Harare observers say. Senior civil service appointments have been made
without reference to Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leaders. And
farm seizures by Mugabe’s cronies are accelerating – there have been up
to 50 in recent weeks – even as the country’s dire food shortages and
health crisis morph into regional emergencies.

Despite Tsvangirai’s generous insistence on the need for forgiveness
and reconciliation, 27 MDC activists remain in arbitrary detention
along with a prominent party figure and unity government minister, Roy
Bennett. Domestic media remain firmly under Zanu-PF control and
independent foreign news organisations are still banned.

And as ever, lurking in the shadows, watching Tsvangirai’s every move
and looking for ways to trip him up, stands the powerful defence forces
chief, General Constantine Chiwenga, and the sinister joint operations
command comprising senior military officers and Mugabe trusties. The
JOC is held responsible for the the reign of terror that followed last
year’s stolen presidential election. Under its direction, the attorney
general, Johannes Tomana, has now reportedly dropped all murder
investigations relating to that period.

"It can’t be denied that so far Tsvangirai is prime minister in name
only. It’s certainly the case that Mugabe is still in control of the
country," a senior western diplomat said. "The MDC is finding that
being in government is even heavier sledding than they imagined. Mugabe
is still the bully boy on the block and he’s dumping all the problems
on the prime minister. That’s no surprise."

But Tsvangirai did not have much time to make his mark and reverse the
flow of power away from Zanu-PF towards the MDC, the diplomat warned.
"The next two months will give a broad indication, will tell whether
this [the unity government] will work or fail. It’s not an indefinite
process."

Western strategies to strengthen the MDC’s hand in this watershed
internal battle for control are clear – but limited by political and
financial considerations. Government-funded humanitarian aid has been
stepped up. Attempts are underway to target it specifically in areas of
chronic need, such as fighting the cholera epidemic, as a way of
demonstrating the MDC can deliver. But governments are simultaneously
wary of reinforcing Mugabe’s caricature of Tsvangirai as a western
puppet.

Diplomats say western countries are also encouraging international
financial institutions such as the IMF to work with the new finance
minister, the MDC’s Tendai Biti, with a view to raising the $5bn
Tsvangirai says is needed to rescue the economy. South Africa and the
Southern African Development Community (SADC), which brokered the unity
deal, have a clear obligation to provide funds to make it work, they
argue.

All the same, the prospect of significant international assistance
while Gono remains Reserve Bank chief, and in the absence of greater
transparency and improved legal and financial safeguards, is dim. SADC
finance ministers, meeting in Cape Town this week to discuss a regional
aid package, were also said to be worried that scarce funds could be
siphoned off by corrupt Zanu-PF officials, as in the past.

The difficulty for Britain, the US, and other concerned EU countries is
that by making the resumption of full-scale developmental assistance to
Zimbabwe contingent on macroeconomic reforms, renewed respect for human
rights and adherence to the rule of law, they may be reducing the MDC’s
chances of making a definitive difference in what could be a
short-lived window of opportunity.

Tsvangirai needs to demonstrate that he, not Mugabe, is in charge and
can deliver the country from the abyss. But according to one diplomat,
the danger is that he could become prime minister for the humanitarian
crisis while Mugabe and his cronies and flunkies continue to control
the state. "The question is, can the MDC find and hold the levers of
real power and influence? The dynamic is very weak."

The Guardian (UK)