When - as we have seen in recent months - the police decide which politician shall be allowed to address Zimbabweans; when army generals brazenly declare who shall be president regardless of the outcome of elections; when security forces blatantly disregard the civilian authority, then what we have is not a problematic or even a failing political transition process.What we have is a military coup in progress. The global political agreement (GPA), the blueprint of the political transformation process that all right-thinking Zimbabweans had hoped for, is practically dead.
The popular belief, or is it fear, has been that the Joint Operations Committee (JOC) that unelected and unelectable security cabal whose word is law in Zimbabwe would allow the transformation process to run its course.
That they would let a new constitution be enacted, let elections be held and either block frontrunner to win a free and fair presidential vote Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai from taking power, force formation of another unity government, or simply overthrow him in a coup.
You have to give it to them – the JOC has pulled a fast one on everyone. The MDCs, Dumiso Dabengwa and his ZAPU, Simba Makoni and his Mavambo, the SADC and their facilitator, South African President Jacob Zuma – will all have to play catch up. The dreaded military takeover is already happening. It has been for months now!
The government of national unity (GNU) is no longer in charge of the ship of state. This is what it means when the President and the Prime Minister of the GNU agree, as they did, that all parties should be allowed to hold political meetings, only to be overruled by the police chief. It matters little that from time to time the courts are brought in to legitimise Police Commissioner General Augustine Chihuris actions.
The military-led political violence committed in many parts of the country, the arrest of several legislators and Cabinet ministers and even the overthrow of the Speaker of Parliament (done with the help of the courts) – all have one thing in common. They were not ordered by the GNU Cabinet and they all signify one thing: another force (read JOC) has seized control of Zimbabwe.
Or put differently, the GNU is dead and survives only as a national organ to provide social services such as health and education. Politically, its powers were usurped by the military many months ago.
So let no one especially Mr Zuma and his SADC colleagues fool themselves that the GNU is still alive and that somehow the administration shall write a new constitution that will lead to free and fair elections.
A military junta is in charge in Harare. And we just cannot see how the SADC or anybody else for that matter is going to be able to assist in resolving the Zimbabwean crisis unless they wake up to this basic fact.
Post published in: Editor: Wilf Mbanga