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Chapter 1

Authoritarian Control of the Political Arena

Contrary to a view commonly held in the media and by some observers—that there was a sudden turn of events in 2000, supposedly reversing a previous trend toward democratization—the political system set in place at independence and throughout the 1980s was authoritarian in essence. For ZANU-PF leaders, the institutions, values, and procedures of parliamentary democracy were alien and a potential impediment to their objective of fully controlling the postcolonial state—something hardly disguised by the claim to adhere to “socialism.” Adopting an Eastern European Communist-style one-party state guaranteed absolute control over both state and society by those entitled to it—so they thought—by right of conquest. Power was theirs because they had won the “struggle” and the “struggle within the struggle.” In spite of profound changes on the international scene since 1989, and unlike many other authoritarian regimes in Africa, ZANU-PF has retained the abusive vocabulary and the power techniques of former Communist parties and upheld the one-party-state mentality. The state capture of the economy and the bullying tactics used against the media, civic organizations, and judiciary are addressed in subsequent chapters. We will focus first on the political arena, and more precisely on the party system and the electoral process.

This drive for control has been the real political project of ZANU-PF’s leaders, and within the ruling party Mugabe has always assumed prominence. His relations with his lieutenants bear similarities to those between a Mafia supreme boss and members of his crime syndicate. The boss has to quell dissent without mercy—including from “family” members—because the moment the president’s authority is directly challenged he becomes vulnerable, exposed to an insider coup. For the sake of survival in power, control is a round-the-clock business. From the outset there were two arenas that Mugabe and his close associates needed to dominate: first, the ruling party (where power contenders could emerge from within the nationalist ranks), and, second, interparty politics (to prevent a credible opposition from disputing ZANU-PF’s claim of an “inherent right” to rule). Although this was achieved in part using calculated violence, which is assessed in Chapter 2, the manipulation of the electoral process was the main conduit of ZANU-PF’s monopolization of power.

Controlling ZANU-PF

To establish himself securely at the top of the power structure, Mugabe needed to maintain a constant grip on the ruling party. He transformed a liberation front riddled with tribal factionalism in the mid-1970s into an efficient political machine that took over power in 1980. Furthermore, Mugabe’s personal drive for absolute power required the careful monitoring of party dynamics. As in other African autocracies, the personal ruler did not suppress factionalism but used the faction leaders’ ambitions to his benefit. At one time posing as a benevolent referee above opposite camps, at another leading one coalition against would-be dissidents, Mugabe consolidated his authority over the years, effectively preventing an anti-Mugabe coalition from forming within the party. Free speech and open debate became increasingly rare in spite of the pretense of collective decision-making; although ZANU-PF Politburo and Central Committee meetings and party congresses and conferences continue to receive extensive coverage in the government press, the real decisions on important issues have always been Mugabe’s preserve. When troublemakers appeared to be a potential threat, they were ruthlessly eliminated and punished—and some murdered. Mugabe’s control over the party apparatus has endured in spite of the scale of the current national crisis, which is largely of the president’s own making and is used as a power management tool. From this perspective, the so-called “succession” debate that has been going on since the mid-1990s, and with more intensity since 2002, is largely futile. Recurrent outsider speculations that a “reformist wing” within ZANU-PF could force Mugabe into retirement was not only wishful thinking but demonstrated a lack of understanding of his lifelong enterprise.

“Struggles Within the Struggle”

Factionalism was always the curse of African nationalism in Southern Rhodesia. There has been much debate about the nature of this “struggle within the struggle,”¹ especially among scholars of various neo-Marxist schools, many of whom assumed that ZANU was a genuine revolutionary movement. Thus they read the factional struggle as a confrontation between “radicals” and “reformists.” David Moore, for example, identifies ideological cleavages within the nationalist camp that led to the elimination of the radical elements by the more conservative leadership of both ZANU and ZAPU.² Others, such as André Astrow, maintain that it was instead a classic nationalist movement fighting for genuine decolonization and equal rights for native Zimbabweans. In his view, the entire leadership of these movements being petit bourgeois by nature, factional struggle had a generational dimension, with younger leaders aspiring to a faster promotion.³ Non-Marxist analysts such as Masipula Sithole take into account the tribal dimension of the successive purges that marred liberation-front politics during the liberation war. It is still taboo among Western academics to mention the influence of tribal affiliations in Zimbabwean politics. They usually point out (1) that regional/tribal identities are fabrications of Christian missionaries and colonial power, hence a relatively recent social construct;⁴ (2) that there have always been minority elements of Shona speakers in Ndebele-led ZAPU and Ndebele speakers in Shona-led ZANU, while ZAPU leader Joshua Nkomo was from the Kalanga, a minority group; and (3) that often other motives could explain what was portrayed as tribal hostility.⁵ However, the Shona/Ndebele antagonism was a major factor in the wartime rivalry between ZANU and ZAPU and contributed to the collapse of the Zimbabwe People’s Army (ZIPA).⁶ Ethnic hatred was also a component in the early 1980s annihilation of ZAPU, if not the principal motive (when state security minister Emmerson Mnangagwa called the Ndebele “cockroaches,” it did not sound like a very sophisticated Marxist concept, even taking into account Lenin’s own propensity for abusing his opponents).

In today’s Zimbabwean politics, the respective share of the main Shona groupings (Manyika, Karanga, Zezuru) in government appointments is widely commented on among the people. As elsewhere in Africa, Zimbabwean tribalism is a modern phenomenon rather than a “tradition,” a set of “fabricated” identities marshaled by politicians to advance their careers. The rift within the opposition MDC in 2004–5 that led to its breaking into two rival parties had a component of Shona/Ndebele antagonism (see Chapter 3). However, the “struggle within the struggle” in the 1970s was primarily a cutthroat fight for power between political entrepreneurs whose ideological differences were often very thin. The tactical use of ideological discourse to support one’s personal ambitions, and, conversely, ritual claims that one’s opponent is a tribalist, has remained typical of African politics in Zimbabwe. Obviously, Mugabe did not create factionalism in the liberation struggle, but he learned how to make good use of it to gain control of ZANU.

There had been a series of murders of ZAPU and ZANU leaders, some of which were undoubtedly the work of Rhodesian government intelligence. However, in most cases factional strife was to blame. ZAPU in exile also was weakened by severe infighting in 1970–71,⁷ and the assassinations of Jason Z. Moyo in early 1977 and that of Alfred Mangena in mid-1978 are commonly attributed to ZAPU insiders.⁸ When Herbert Wiltshire Chitepo, national chairman and leader of ZANU’s external supreme council (Dare re Chimurenga) and its then rising political star, was killed in a bomb blast on 18 March 1975, many in Zambia suspected an inside job by a group of Karanga guerrilla commanders led by Josiah Tongogara, who resented the Manyikas’ alleged domination of the front’s civilian leadership.⁹ In November–December 1974, a group of Manyika guerrillas led by Thomas Nhari had rebelled and attempted to abduct Tongogara (they kidnapped his wife instead). Factionalism had degenerated into feuding. Although Chitepo had approved Tongogara’s crushing of the rebels and chaired the hurried treason trials and summary executions (including those of the other two Manyikas in the executive),¹⁰ the Karanga elements in Dare re Chimurenga still believed he was behind the Nhari group.¹¹ The Zambian president, Kenneth Kaunda, set up an international commission of inquiry sanctioned by the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the report of which, published in March 1976, established that the ZANU high command under Tongogara’s chairmanship had authorized Chitepo’s murder two days before he was killed.¹² All members of the ZANU leadership in Zambia were detained—allegedly tortured—and the guerrilla camps closed down. Of course, the current ruling party’s official line to date is very different. ZANU-PF fellow traveler David Martin, who befriended Tongogara and later benefited widely from Mugabe’s patronage, wrote a book to explain that Chitepo was killed because Rhodesia’s Ian Smith, South Africa’s John Vorster, and Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda saw him as an obstacle to their exercise in détente.¹³

An active member of the nationalist movement since the inception of the National Democratic Party (NDP) in 1960, Mugabe had displayed some oratory skills, but until 1974 he was still only one among others in the group of nationalist leaders. When ZANU split from ZAPU in August 1963, Mugabe became secretary general of the new organization and was a potential contender for the top position at the ZANU congress in 1964 (he dropped his candidacy knowing he would not win against the more senior and better known Ndabaningi Sithole).¹⁴ Mugabe and other ZANU leaders claimed in November 1974 that Sithole had been deposed,¹⁵ while most of the party Central Committee was still in detention in Rhodesia, and as the new ZANU president he led a delegation to Lusaka. However, the leaders of the Front-Line States refused to condone the coup and demanded that Sithole be reinstated. In Salisbury in the first quarter of 1975, Mugabe had perhaps nothing to do directly with the plot against Chitepo. Yet Masipula Sithole labeled the Dare re Chimurenga members imprisoned in Lusaka “Mugabe’s faction,”¹⁶ alluding to possible complicity. Chitepo had refused to condone the Mugabe prison coup and was clearly an obstacle to the latter’s ambitions. Before escaping to Mozambique, Mugabe released a statement supporting the imprisoned Dare re Chimurenga members and blaming Kaunda for complicity—that is, with Smith’s agents—in Chitepo’s assassination. One possibility is that Chitepo’s elimination and Mugabe’s subsequent exfiltration were part of the same plot to take over ZANU. Alternatively, there could be no plot: such factional strife effectively created a power vacuum in ZANU that Mugabe skillfully exploited.

When Mugabe made his escape to the Mozambican border in April 1975, he intended to build a following in the refugee camps. However, Mozambique’s president Samora Machel, who believed that a genuine leader should emerge from the guerrilla ranks—as he himself had done within FRELIMO (the Mozambique Liberation Front)—did not trust Mugabe and let him sit at the border for three months. When Mugabe secretly entered the country, he was put under house arrest for several months in Quelimane, away from the camps. In October 1975, guerrillas in Tanzania, who vehemently denounced African National Council leader Abel Muzorewa, Sithole, and ZAPU breakaway faction leader James Chikerema’s “insatiable lust for power,” endorsed Mugabe as a compromise leader for a united nationalist movement. Apparently the young commanders were induced to choose him by the then imprisoned Dare re Chimurenga members (including Tongogara),¹⁷ in the context of ZIPA’s formation—the policy imposed by the Front-Line States leaders to quell the ZANU/ZAPU rivalry and the feuding among nationalists. Military operations in Rhodesia did resume in January 1976, and Samora Machel encouraged the guerrilla commanders in Mozambique to “pick” a new political head for ZANU to balance the ZAPU leadership within ZIPA (the latter being closer to Kaunda). Although Machel preferred Tongogara, still in the custody of the Zambian police, guerrilla commanders posing as leftists chose to support Mugabe, the last member of the old ZANU leadership who sounded committed to their radical line.¹⁸ Then Mugabe negotiated with the Front-Line States leaders the release of the jailed Dare re Chimurenga members in October 1976 as a condition for attending a peace conference.¹⁹ Mugabe had been forced to form a loose alliance with Joshua Nkomo—the Patriotic Front—in order to negotiate with the Rhodesian delegation at the Geneva conference.²⁰ However, and whatever he had to concede, Mugabe remained opposed to “unity” and he was confident that in spite of ZIPRA’s being better trained and more disciplined he could take the advantage in the field through political mobilization (see Chapter 2 on ZANLA techniques).²¹ He did not want to come second to Nkomo—or anybody else for that matter—in a liberated Zimbabwe. When the Soviet Union demanded that he recognize Nkomo as the leader as a condition for the delivery of modern weaponry, Mugabe refused bluntly and turned to the Chinese instead.

Mugabe came back from Geneva with a new international aura and full backing from the Front-Line States to stir up the war. In order to strengthen his grip on the organization, he persuaded Machel to neutralize a group of Chinese-trained guerrilla cadres called vashandi (“workers”), led by Wilfred Mhanda (who used the name Dzinashe Machingura in the war), a former ZANLA commander and political commissar and formally third in the united ZIPA command.²² They had opposed the Geneva conference and criticized Mugabe for selling out to the imperialist forces; they hoped to challenge Mugabe from a radical perspective informed by Marxism.²³ Several hundred ZANLA guerrillas were arrested (some in Tanzania) or murdered, and fifty top camp commanders were detained in Mozambican jails until 1979.²⁴ Another purge took place in January 1978 in a context of mounting criticism of Mugabe in the camps after the November 1977 debacle in Chimoi (the destruction of the main ZANU base by the Rhodesian forces). A group of cadres, led by Central Committee members Henry Hamadziripi and Rugare Gumbo, were arrested, summarily convicted by a kangaroo court presided over by Mugabe, and detained in pit cells for months.²⁵ On both occasions Tongogara and Rex Nhongo used brutal force to regain control of ZANLA and establish Mugabe as the undisputed leader of ZANU.

All the ZANLA dissidents jailed in Mozambique were released after the Lancaster House agreement, when Lord Soames made it one of the conditions allowing Mugabe back in Salisbury (now Harare).²⁶ Most of them were never readmitted into ZANU. For the 1980 elections, Mhanda and twenty-six of his colleagues aligned with ZAPU (others went with Sithole or Muzorewa), only to be arrested again when Mugabe assumed power. The protection of Joshua Nkomo saved them from further harassment,²⁷ but Mhanda was marked as an enemy of the regime and had to go into exile in West Germany, where he eventually graduated with a degree in chemistry. When he returned in 1988, after the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), the state intelligence agency, plotted to have his work permit in West Germany revoked, he found himself blacklisted for all jobs in the public sector and had a difficult time finding a job even in private companies because the CIO interfered with potential employers. Thanks to an intervention by army commander general Constantine Chiwenga, Mhanda managed to have the interdict lifted, provided he would never get involved in politics again.²⁸ Rugare Gumbo crept back into ZANU-PF after two decades of political oblivion (when he was a board member in a parastatal), received a commercial farm, and was elected to Parliament in 2000. He was made a deputy minister in 2002 and full minister after the 2005 elections.

The death of Josiah Magama Tongogara remains to this day clouded in mystery. However, it is very likely that he was killed because he was far too popular among the guerrillas and Mugabe feared the competition from a charismatic and ruthless army chief.²⁹ Further, the OAU Commission on the Assassination of Herbert Chitepo had noted that the ZANLA chief was a man “of inordinate ambitions” who once claimed he would be Zimbabwe’s first president.³⁰ Many observers believed the military commander to be ZANU’s real boss, and Mugabe a political figurehead. Tongogara astonished the British negotiators in Lancaster House with his nonpartisan views and moderating influence, and he emerged from the negotiations with a new national aura. In addition, at Central Committee meetings in London and Maputo, he had openly supported unity between ZANU and ZAPU and argued in favor of a joint election campaign under the Patriotic Front.³¹ He affected being an admirer of Joshua Nkomo and backed the latter’s aspirations to become Zimbabwe’s first prime minister (possibly with a view to quickly succeeding a more pliant Nkomo).³² An alliance between Tongogara and Nkomo would have looked attractive to the strong Karanga element in ZANLA. That was a mortal sin to Mugabe, and indeed the threat of such a “south-south” alliance—that is, Masvingo and Matabeleland Provinces—became Mugabe’s obsession well into the 1990s. Tongogara was likely to gather support from Front-Line States leaders such as Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere and Mozambique’s Samora Machel, who had leaned on Mugabe to adhere to the peace agreement or lose their support but never trusted him. Machel was in tears when he heard the news of the “accident” in which Tongogara died. Thus there were good reasons for the paranoid power freak that Mugabe had become to order Tongogara’s murder. It removed a potential hazard on his road to power, dissuaded others tempted to breach party discipline on the eve of the crucial electoral battle, and taught Front-Line States leaders a lesson: Mugabe ought not be treated like a schoolboy again, and he would no longer tolerate any interference in ZANU’s internal affairs.

The highly suspect “car accident”³³ took place after Tongogara failed to win the vote in the Central Committee, and just before he was due to fly to Salisbury to oversee the assembling of ZANLA guerrillas (Mugabe had dispatched him away from Maputo to the guerrilla camps near the border, purportedly to explain the contents of the peace agreement). Although Mugabe insisted that there was no split between Tongogara and the rest of ZANU-PF’s leadership, Samora Machel suggested the contrary at the ZANLA chief’s burial when he urged the Central Committee to revise its position and work for unity, if only to honor Tongogara’s memory. Although showing ostensible grief at the time and in spite of the official cult status rendered to the war “hero” after independence, Mugabe stuck to his electoral strategy. Tongogara’s death also benefited others: the late Simon Muzenda, who had been promoted to the Central Committee to fill the gap left in 1978 by the arrest of prominent Karangas (Gumbo and Hamadziripi), was to be a lifelong vice president “representing” the Karangas; Rex Nhongo (Solomon Mujuru), a Zezuru close to Mugabe (himself a Zezuru), became ZANU’s top military man and subsequently the head of the new Zimbabwean army. Nhongo had been ZIPA’s chief when Tongogara was jailed in Zambia, and again his deputy upon his return as the supreme military commander at the time of the Geneva conference. He had been close to the ZIPA camp commanders from March 1975 until October 1976, when he changed sides (according to Wilfred Mhanda) after Mugabe offered to appoint him head of the army. From then on he took part in Mugabe’s brutal suppression of all dissenters. If indeed he were the one carrying the bomb that killed Chitepo, as alleged by the OAU report, he probably would not have balked at organizing Tongogara’s murder. Whatever the details, the alleged crime was likely to cement solidarity bonds between members of the ZANU leadership for the following decade. It set the rules of the game in Zimbabwean politics: be on Mugabe’s side or pay the price.

Factionalism and Purges in ZANU Since 1980

Given the legacy of the 1970s, there was no room for dissent within the ruling party, even after the war was over and the Independence elections duly won. Mugabe had retained control of the liberation front in 1975–78 by violent means, both directly and indirectly and elections for the Central Committee, Politburo, and presidency were not competitive ballots. He was wary of losing control and would crush dissenting voices before any structured opposition could take hold. It was, in practice, almost impossible to oppose Mugabe from within. ZANU-PF internal proceedings were derived from Lenin’s concept of “democratic centralism” and its congresses and national conferences followed a ritual similar to the proceedings of former Communist parties in Eastern Europe. The Politburo controlled both the agenda and the nominations, and party leaders would not hesitate to flout the party constitution to silence critical backbenchers. Before primary elections to select the party candidates for the local councils and Parliament were introduced in 1989, the people were given the names of their MP from a Politburo-vetted list in line with the one-party-state philosophy. Therefore, primaries really but temporarily opened a democratic space at a grassroots level, and several unpopular Cabinet ministers were trounced in the 1989 and 1994 primaries.

However, the selection of ZANU-PF candidates at the constituency level became heavily corrupt and manipulated, and the primaries were used by provincial and national barons as a conduit for the elimination of vocal outgoing MPs.³⁴ Such was the fate of Margaret Dongo, who was barred from standing for the ruling party in the 1995 parliamentary elections.³⁵ The party local apparatus was officially “restructured” in 1994 in order to manipulate the primary election in Harare South. Some fictitious branches were created to pack the voting assembly with supporters for her rival, CIO operative Vivian Mwashita. Violence was directed at Dongo’s supporters and the full propaganda machinery put to use. Dongo did not waver and stood eventually as an independent candidate and won the election. Most outspoken backbenchers in the second, third, and fourth legislatures were sidelined at the following primary elections. Even the reform-minded Speaker of Parliament from to 2000, Cyril Ndebele, who infuriated the leadership when he refused to censure Dzikamayi Mavhaire in February 1998, after the Masvingo MP had said in Parliament “Mugabe must go.” Ndebele invoked the Privileges, Immunities and Powers of Parliament Act that guarantees freedom of speech in the House of Assembly. Besides, Ndebele, who was the driving force behind the work of the Parliamentary Reform Committee, was a known supporter of the empowerment of Parliament to counterbalance the Office of the President. Political purges had been a recurrent process within the ruling party, as Politburo “big men” perceived any critical voice as a threat—to themselves let alone to Mugabe.

Prior to the 2000 parliamentary elections, Border Gezi, ZANU-PF’s secretary for the commissariat and Mashonaland central governor, was tasked to discipline the party provincial executives who had supported the “reformers” since 1998. During the first quarter of 2000, he toured the provinces and “restructured” (in fact, purged) the provincial executives by promoting Mugabe’s loyalists, many of whom had a CIO background and/or belonged to the “War Vets”—members of guerrilla forces during the liberation war. The same exercise was repeated or continued in the first quarter of 2001, especially in provinces where the party had not performed well in the parliamentary elections—such as Harare and all of Matabeleland. Predictably, all outspoken MPs were sidelined before or during the party primaries ahead of the June 2000 elections, especially those who had supported true constitutional reform, such as Mike Mataure (see Chapter 3). A few managed to secure another position, like Rita Makarau, who was appointed a High Court judge, but most of the others fell into oblivion. The ZANU-PF caucus has, since 2000, been dominated by hard-liners who would rubberstamp any repressive legislation presented to them by the government. Prior to the parliamentary elections in March 2005, heavily manipulated primaries again sidelined supporters of the Mnangagwa faction and promoted supporters of the Mujuru faction, including an inordinately large number of Zezuru candidates and Mugabe’s family members.³⁶ The fact that a number of constituencies were reserved for some women candidates (in most cases unknown entities) helped the Politburo to further control candidacies. The same process was repeated for the November 2005 Senate elections and the March 2008 general elections.

To criticize Mugabe’s decisions or his style of government was always taking a risk, not only of being excluded from the party, but also of losing your job and sometimes your life. There is a litany of alleged car crashes and other rather suspect “accidents” that conveniently helped Mugabe rid himself of annoying people, although it is difficult to understand why some were not touched and others died. It was probably linked to the actual threat they represented in Mugabe’s view. Hence, when Edgar Tekere formed an opposition party in 1989 he was lambasted and harassed but not killed—perhaps he could be bought back. But the respected Bulawayo ZANU-PF member of Parliament and former ZAPU leader Sydney Malunga, who was a strong critic of the corruption in government, died in 1994 in a very suspect car accident; the driver having lost control after swerving to avoid a so-called “black dog” crossing the road. His death prevented him from standing for Parliament in 1995,³⁷ and from them on, when Dongo suspected possible attempts on her life, she would allude to “meeting a black dog.” It was later used as a veiled threat by ZANU-PF thugs. Another prominent minister, Chris Ushewokunze, was killed in a car accident allegedly caused by abuse of alcohol in January 1994, but many suspected foul play. He was intellectually brilliant and bold enough to confront Mugabe in Cabinet meetings.³⁸

Kinship ties were no protection once you incurred Mugabe’s wrath. For example, Philip Chiyangwa, the outspoken indigenous businessman and ZANU-PF provincial chairman, although a relative of the president and long-time protégé, was jailed and tortured when suspected of plotting Mugabe’s demise with South African spies.

Fearing for their lives and convinced that there was no political life outside ZANU-PF, none of the dissenting backbenchers have crossed the floor to join the opposition parties—Margaret Dongo chose to create her own party. The first to do so were Simba Makoni (when he stood as an independent for the presidential election in 2008) and former minister Dumiso Dabengwa, who supported him publicly. Admittedly, ruling party MPs and ministers were also blackmailed into staying quiet when they were indebted to the state financial institutions. Loans solicited for personal enrichment or to finance primary election campaigns (where gifts in various forms played a pivotal role in rallying the party rank and file) could be called back at any time, and most politicians were not in a position to repay them. This fate befell the Eddison Zvobgo in April 2001, after he progressively lost political control over the province of Masvingo: most Zvobgo’s faction candidates lost in rigged party primaries prior to the parliamentary elections in June 2000. Subsequently, the veteran Cabinet minister was booted out of government and his trusted ally, ZANU-PF provincial chairman, Dzikamayi Mavhaire, was suspended and later replaced by Samuel Mumbengegwi of the rival faction of the late Simon Muzenda and Josiah Hungwe. Eventually Zvobgo lost his seat in the Politburo and was reduced to a mere backbencher’s status. His close ally Mavhaire had survived the party primaries, but in a constituency eventually won by the MDC, which also won the mayoral election in 2001. This prompted the pro-Mugabe faction to hold Zvobgo responsible for the MDC foray in a province that had been a so-called “one-party-state area” since independence. In 2002, Zvobgo opposed a bill to rein in the media in a parliamentary committee but voted with the rest of the party when it was passed, and although he refused to campaign for Mugabe in the presidential election, he did not support MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai either. Like Zvobgo, many ZANU-PF politicians had accumulated wealth and properties they feared losing if they defected to the opposition.

Although dissent was not allowed to develop, ZANU-PF was never a monolithic organization. Since the early 1990s the ruling party has been deeply divided by factional struggles in most provinces.³⁹ It took the form of petty quarrels rather than genuine debates over ideological differences or policy issues, but some of them ended in suspect deaths. In Masvingo the Zvobgo/Mavhaire faction clashed for most of the 1990s against another faction led by Muzenda and Hungwe. Mugabe always supported the latter (hence his appointment of Hungwe as a provincial governor) to prevent Karangas from rallying unanimously behind Zvobgo. As previously mentioned, Muzenda and Hungwe were able to seize control of the province in full only in 2001. Confrontation was also very tense in Manicaland in 1994–99, between the Didymus Mutasa–backed faction and the one aligned with Kumbirai Kangai, until the latter was arrested and then remanded for a corruption scandal at the Grain Marketing Board in 2000.⁴⁰ Mutasa was promoted as party secretary for administration, and subsequently as a powerful minister of state for national security, lands, land reform, and resettlement in 2005. As a senior figure personally loyal to Mugabe, he counterbalanced the Mujuru faction without serving Mnangagwa’s ambitions.

The fight was over the spoils (economic rewards or positions of power), but ultimately the party “big men” were trying to position themselves for the future succession struggle. However, Mugabe played on these rivalries in a Machiavellian fashion. By allowing the party factions to settle scores at regional level in the selection of party executives and delegates to the ZANU-PF congresses and national conferences and in the parliamentary primaries, Mugabe managed to “provincialize” the other Politburo members and to remain the only national figure. They gave him a hand when relying on the regional/ethnic identities to advance their narrow-minded agendas and create a clientele. Although not a neutral referee, he was the only one who could blow the whistle when factionalism threatened to turn into a violent feud. Playing one faction against another and keeping approximate balances between cross-province factional alliances, Mugabe would alternate promotions and demotions and in the process give all provincial leaders a share of the spoils. Not directly affected by the defeat of a particular candidate, Mugabe emerged after every national election in full control of the ruling party.

Mugabe is not a tribal chauvinist, and he relied at various points in time—for example, in 1996—on politicians from Matabeleland to rein in the ambitions of his fellow Shona. He was always keen on using Karanga (Muzenda and Mnangagwa) or Manyika (Mutasa) trusted lieutenants in top structures of ZANU-PF, and he is more interested by his political survival than by building up Zezuru power. What was called the “Mashonaland East faction” in the mid-1990s, led by Solomon Mujuru and Sydney Sekeramayi, minister of defense at a time when Mujuru’s successor at the helm of the armed forces, General Vitalis Zvinavashe, was a Karanga, could have spearheaded this Zezuru power. Yet, Mugabe made sure that they fought for the spoils with another Zezuru gang from Mashonaland West, where his own home village Zvimba is. However, a number of Zezurus have been promoted through the years to key positions in the state, such as his former secretary in the presidency, Charles Utete (a behind-the-scenes de facto prime minister in the 1990s), the police commissioner Augustine Chihuri, Generals Constantine Chiwenga and Perence Shiri at the head of the army and air force, and judge Godfrey Chidyausiku at the helm of the Supreme Court. Mugabe uses family ties and kinship bonds alongside other forms of loyalty. Chihuri, Chiwenga, and Shiri above all owe their careers and wealth to the president,⁴¹ and their personal loyalty is more important than tribal solidarity. This is not to say that ordinary people do not read it otherwise and that tribal politics will not become prominent in the future.

A good example of Mugabe’s manipulation of factionalism is the hidden succession struggle. When Joshua Nkomo passed away, Mugabe promoted the late Joseph Msika (next in command in the former ZAPU) to the vice presidency, but the real fight was the election of the party national chairman in December 1999. John Nkomo, supported by the Mashonaland East (Zezuru) faction led by Mujuru and Sekeramayi defeated Mnangagwa, and subsequently the former minister of justice lost his Midlands seat during the June 2000 parliamentary elections (to an MDC candidate). However, Mugabe immediately appointed him speaker of Parliament and in December 2000 ZANU-PF’s secretary for administration—number five in the party hierarchy. His supporters in the party were also promoted to the Politburo, when his former rival Zvobgo was kicked out and Mnangagwa’s controversial Midlands lieutenant Frederick Shava⁴² became director of the ruling party’s administration. Mnangagwa made further gains in August 2002, when John Nkomo lost Home Affairs in exchange for a powerless ministry.

However, Mnangagwa became too assertive when in late 2002 he and retired army chief of staff Zvinavashe secretly approached the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, to negotiate a settlement including an exit package and security guarantees for Mugabe. This move was supported by South African president Thabo Mbeki but had not received Mugabe’s nod. In any case, Tsvangirai, who feared a trap, revealed the plot to the press in January 2003. When Muzenda died in October 2003, Mnangagwa, being the most prominent Karanga in government, demanded the post of vice president left vacant. However, Mugabe had not forgiven Mnangagwa’s attempt to strike a deal with the MDC behind his back. In early 2004, the anticorruption campaign conveniently targeted Mnangagwa’s close business associate Mutumva Mawere, who had to flee surreptitiously to South Africa while his properties were impounded.⁴³ Mnangagwa was accused also of shady deals in gold and foreign currencies, and a special committee was appointed to investigate his management of ZANU-PF’s business empire when he had been party treasurer.

In the meantime Mnangagwa had secured the support of a majority of provincial party chairmen who could nominate him at the party congress and enrolled “Young Turks” opposed to the Mujuru/Sekeramayi faction, such as Jonathan Moyo and Patrick Chinamasa or Philip Chiyangwa. To placate this threat, Mugabe appointed Joyce Mujuru as vice president in September 2004, purportedly for the sake of gender balance, and in spite of her relative junior position in the original ZANU hierarchy. This choice satisfied the Mujuru faction while filling the position with somebody lacking the stature and abilities to threaten Mugabe.⁴⁴ A secret meeting organized by Moyo in Tsholotsho (Matabeleland) on 18 November 2004 to plan a strike back at the Mujuru faction was infiltrated by the CIO and exposed, and all the plotters (except Chinamasa) were subsequently punished. Jonathan Moyo, who had a long-standing feud with General Mujuru, lost his Cabinet and Politburo positions and was expelled from the party in February 2005 when he vowed to contest the seat in Tsholotsho as an independent (which he won).⁴⁵ The five provincial chairmen involved in the plot were suspended and later expelled from the party.⁴⁶ Chiyangwa was implicated in an alleged spying network and jailed from mid-December 2004 to late February 2005. Mnangagwa himself was demoted in the party hierarchy and lost his position as speaker of parliament to John Nkomo.

However, following the parliamentary elections in which Mnangagwa failed once again to secure a seat, Mugabe reappointed him a nonconstituency MP and granted him a low-ranking position in Cabinet, if only to prevent Solomon Mujuru’s faction from feeling too powerful. The latter had control over the ZANU-PF candidacies in most constituencies in the subsequent 2005 elections and therefore strong influence over the two houses of Parliament, and the former army chief enjoyed large support in the national security agencies. This could have meant a threat to Mugabe, and once again in late 2005 and early 2006 the purported anticorruption drive was used to clip the wings of the Mujuru faction this time. When Mugabe’s attempt to have his presidential mandate extended until 2010 was resisted by some of the ZANU-PF cadres at the December 2006 party conference, the Mujuru faction was deemed responsible. Throughout 2007 and 2008—especially after the first presidential election turn and the ensuing violence—Mnangagwa was returned to his previous status of the right-hand man and potential successor. However, Mugabe despises his lieutenants’ abilities, and he trusts none of them to shield him from prosecution for human rights violations and guarantee his personal security. This is in part—besides his ingrained arrogance—why he postpones his retirement forever. At least until the fateful elections of 2008, he saw himself dying in office and suggested it by joking publicly, in July 2006, about his lieutenants’ having to resort to witchcraft to hasten the succession. When his henchman Elliot Manyika announced at a Central Committee meeting on 30 March 2007 that Mugabe would be ZANU-PF’s candidate in the 2008 presidential election, Mujuru had to go along with it, while Mnangagwa fully supported the idea, in order to gain time and fully redeem himself in Mugabe’s eyes—hence his role in the run-off campaign. Ahead of the party congress in December 2009, the province executives competed to endorse Mugabe once again—even calling him “Supreme Leader”—while the death of Vice President Msika on 12 August gave a new impetus to the endless struggle between the main two factions over the appointment of his successor and the leadership of the women and youth leagues.

Annihilating the Opposition Parties

At independence, ZANU-PF emerged as the dominant political force from the 1980 elections. However, Mugabe formed a government of national unity with ZAPU and a few whites, a decision widely perceived as gesture of goodwill. The rhetoric of “national unity” certainly appealed to a majority of black Zimbabweans longing for peace at last, even though a distorted record of the liberation struggle backed it.⁴⁷ Mugabe also made his famous broadcast speech calling for reconciliation of all races in order to build a nonracial society and pledging to guarantee the white minority rights in future Zimbabwe, an undertaking reiterated at the independence ceremony.⁴⁸ Two Rhodesian Front politicians—in addition to Denis Norman, a farmer unionist who had lobbied for a negotiated settlement, at the agriculture ministry—were included in the Cabinet and Mugabe went as far as consulting Ian Smith—leader of the opposition in Parliament—on policy issues until March 1981.⁴⁹ However, there were perfectly rational motives behind this “Mr. Nice Guy” attitude. There was a strong economic rationale for the “reconciliation” with the whites, but it was primarily a political ploy preparing the ground for ZAPU’s forced incorporation into ZANU. The two main methods for getting rid of a political opposition are incorporation—voluntary or forced—and suppression, used alternately to guarantee highest efficiency.

Abel Muzorewa’s United African National Council (UANC),⁵⁰ which had seemed so potent in 1978, was reduced to a subregional party, with only three seats in 1980, and was no longer a threat.⁵¹ Naturally, the political influence of the former white settlers was more of a concern. For the major part of the 1980s the experienced MPs of the former Rhodesian Front regrouped in the Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe (CAZ) and offered indeed some counterweight to the ruling party’s dominance in Parliament. However, a formal alliance between ZAPU and the Ian Smith-led CAZ was difficult to contemplate for the black nationalists, although Smith and Nkomo consulted each other frequently. Besides, the abolition of the separate voters roll and the reserved seats in 1987⁵² technically put an end to white party politics in Zimbabwe. That removed an irritant (the government castigated the white electorate for returning 15 CAZ MPs out of 20 contested seats in the 1985 elections, and Norman then lost his Cabinet job), rather than suppressing a real threat to ZANU-PF power. In the meantime, Mugabe had confronted and subdued a more serious rival, and so complete was his triumph that the forced incorporation of ZAPU set a precedent—“no life outside ZANU-PF”—and certainly hampered the development of any serious opposition from 1987 to 1999.

Subjugating ZAPU

Mugabe decided that ZANU would fight the 1980 elections alone, instead of running for Parliament under the common banner of the Patriotic Front with ZAPU. Whatever the political arguments set forth, the truth of the matter was that Mugabe was not prepared to come second to Joshua Nkomo, his senior in the nationalist struggle, and let him become the first prime minister of an independent Zimbabwe. Once ZAPU was defeated in the founding elections and ZANU successfully established itself as the dominant partner in the coalition, it was perfectly logical to invite ZAPU leaders to join the Cabinet, not only for the sake of national unity but also to keep an eye on them. However, their subsequent elimination as an independent political force was from the outset Mugabe’s utmost priority. The one-party-state objective required their forced incorporation. Besides, he could not accept the risk—however remote—of an alliance between ZAPU, the whites, and UANC to challenge his still fragile grip on state power. The rival liberation front would be brought into subservience and the sooner the better.

Therefore, everything was done in the first two years to push ZAPU leaders to err and give Mugabe the excuse to strike mercilessly. The coalition government was an astutely deceptive maneuver to prepare the final annihilation of ZAPU. Joshua Nkomo, having called before the elections for a united front that he too hoped to dominate, was not in a position to decline the offer. Nkomo was first offered the ceremonial presidency—a golden cage—and refused it, only to land in Home Affairs in a Cabinet where his party was blatantly underrepresented. He was further humiliated at the Independence ceremony, where Mugabe was in the spotlight while the “father of the Nation” was left in the anonymity of a back seat. These were the first steps of the strategy of tension, with repeated inflammatory statements and clashes between ZIPRA and ZANLA elements. In the same vein, Nkomo was demoted to a junior Cabinet position of minister for the public service in January 1981. This was the first cycle of a pattern of inclusion-subjugation that Mugabe has consistently practiced with his opponents.

ZANU strategists (in particular Emmerson Mnangagwa, security minister and former head of ZANLA’s intelligence, Enos Nkala, who had a long-standing score to settle with Nkomo, and Edgar Tekere, then a ZANU firebrand) found favorable ground in the outbreaks of armed violence in the assembly camps, where guerrillas were cantoned after the ceasefire.⁵³ These incidents were linked to the conditions of the protracted process of demobilization and integration in the new national army (ZNA).⁵⁴ In fact, the government favored its own guerrillas from ZANLA, and numerous military personnel affiliated with ZAPU were humiliated, beaten, or even murdered by their ZANLA colleagues. Many of these ZIPRA elements later defected from the ZNA and became “dissidents” to protect their own lives and out of desperation.⁵⁵ Mugabe later alleged with his usual cynicism that their behavior proved that ZAPU had plotted an insurgency.

In February 1982, the government claimed to have uncovered arms caches on ZAPU properties in Matabeleland and former ZIPRA assembly points and used it against ZAPU leaders as evidence of a plot in preparation. This was a weak excuse since government heads had prior knowledge of these arms caches and an ad hoc committee, including Mugabe and Mnangagwa on ZANU’s side, met in early 1982 to discuss the matter.⁵⁶ Besides, the discovery of arms caches belonging to former guerrilla armies—or to the South African ANC with which ZAPU had strong ties—was routine in the years following the end of the war and ZAPU alone was not to be blamed. Both guerrilla armies had concealed weapons near the assembly points in the eventuality of their party losing the 1980 elections—to resume war if need be. Nevertheless the two most senior former ZIPRA commanders (Dumiso Dabengwa and Lookout Masuku) were arrested in March and detained until the end of 1986.⁵⁷ Most ZAPU Cabinet members then dramatically resigned. Mugabe called the ZAPU ministers in the government, especially Joshua Nkomo, “a cobra in the house.”⁵⁸ The party’s farms and properties were seized by the state—most of them never to be returned, even after the 1987 Unity Accord, which sanctioned ZAPU’s defeat. Fearing for his life after a raid on his home, Joshua Nkomo left for exile in March 1983, to return only in 1985.

ZAPU leaders were apparently caught by surprise by the crisis unraveling. They refused to endorse the activities of the “dissidents” and the government never established that a direct connection existed between the unrest in Matabeleland and ZAPU’s leadership. Nkomo himself did not believe that these “dissidents” had anything to do with his party. ZAPU leaders knew too well what the balance of forces in the country was; launching a new guerrilla insurgency once the ZIPRA forces had been disarmed and largely demobilized—hence the timing of Mugabe’s attack—was nonsensical. In any case, verbal attacks and threats by ZANU-PF leaders against ZAPU began long before February 1982. A unit called the Fifth Brigade was tasked to perform scorched earth tactics in Matabeleland (see Chapter 2); it was in reality a political army operating outside the normal chain of command, led by a ZANU cadre, Perence Shiri, who owed his fast promotion not to his abilities but to his personal allegiance to Mugabe to whom he reported directly. The Fifth Brigade began training as early as August 1981, purportedly to deal with the then nonexistent “dissidents.” An agreement with North Korea to train the brigade was signed as early as October 1980 and kept secret: Mugabe made his preparations for the brawl long before any “dissident” problem arose.

One of the benefits of “reconciliation” for Mugabe was the crucial role played by white civil servants in ZANU-PF’s takeover of the state apparatus in all sectors, including security. Although General Peter Walls (former head of the Rhodesian army) took early retirement in July 1980 and was sent into exile in September the same year—after he revealed his distrust of Mugabe—some white commanding officers in the army, the police, and even the CIO were retained for a while. Thus, when fighting broke out among rival guerrilla armies, former Rhodesian army units under white officers’ command dutifully moved into the camps at Mugabe’s request and assaulted the ZIPRA forces—whom the government blamed for the violence. Later on, military operations against the alleged ZAPU “dissidents” in Matabeleland began with some units of the integrated national army under the command of white officers willing to demonstrate their loyalty, such as Lt. Colonel Lionel Dyke,⁵⁹ until the partisan Fifth Brigade was ready for deployment in January 1983. As Mugabe hinted to Smith once, professional soldiers led by Rhodesian officers loyal to the new constitutional government played a central role in his security.

By late 1982, several hundred former ZAPU guerrillas had taken refuge in the bush, thus giving the government the excuse it was looking for to violently attack Matabeleland. State violence targeted not only the former ZAPU guerrillas but the whole Ndebele community, which was accused without proof of helping and supporting the “dissidents”—and this was made painfully clear by numerous statements from top government officials. In the ensuing military operations, the Fifth Brigade terrorized civilians by committing countless war crimes but made no serious effort to chase and capture the “dissidents,”⁶⁰ in spite of the disproportion of forces: only 122 “dissidents” turned themselves in countrywide to benefit from the 1988 amnesty. At the peak of the phenomenon, there must have been no more than a few hundred in all of Matabeleland. What government propaganda presented as banditry, and many observers analyzed as an undeclared civil war, was in fact a premeditated mass political purge intended to uproot ZAPU and isolate its leaders from their popular support base. The modus operandi of the killings suggests that they were not excesses perpetrated by some unruly soldiers, but a planned policy of terror.⁶¹ ZAPU’s representation in Parliament was to be severely reduced if not totally annihilated. Prior to the 1985 elections, party branches were dismantled, party officials arrested, and ZAPU supporters intimidated both in Matabeleland and in areas outside Matabeleland where the party had received a significant share of the vote in the 1980 elections: north of Mashonaland West, southern Midlands, and some Harare townships. It worked there, but not in Matabeleland, where massive violence was counterproductive as the people voted nevertheless for Nkomo’s party.⁶²

The regime brushed aside criticisms of its brutal treatment of innocent civilians and alleged the existence of threats to its national security, pointing to South Africa’s destabilization activities. As always in effective propaganda there was an element of truth. Small South African army units perpetrated raids on Zimbabwean territory. Saboteurs sent by the apartheid regime bombed an arsenal at Inkomo Barracks near Harare in August 1981, attempted to kill Mugabe in December the same year, and managed to destroy several aircrafts of the Zimbabwe Air Force in July 1982 at Thornhill Air Base in Gweru.⁶³ However, there was no link whatsoever between pro-ANC ZAPU and the then South African government. The South African Special Forces recruited among Matabeleland refugees in Botswana and trained them in Transvaal as a guerrilla unit called “Super-ZAPU,” which operated intermittently in Matabeleland South and North.⁶⁴ However, Super-ZAPU was not recognized as genuine by other “dissidents” and ceased to operate in mid-1984. In any case, government security agency atrocities were by far the most compelling factor for people taking refuge in Botswana and later joining Super-ZAPU.⁶⁵ The apartheid regime did not miss the opportunity to weaken an avowed enemy, but the impact of its destabilization is overstated (especially in comparison with similar South African operations in Angola and Mozambique). The international context also facilitated the cover-up by Mugabe’s regime of the state-sponsored atrocities: not only did Harare enjoy support from the Eastern bloc and China, but conservative Western governments in the United Kingdom and the United States did not want to antagonize Mugabe for fear of opening another battlefront for the besieged Apartheid regime. The ZANU-PF government imposed an efficient information blackout, supported by the sealing off of the affected area.⁶⁶ Smoke-screen field trips were organized by the Ministry of Information to deceive foreign press correspondents in Harare.⁶⁷

Violence resumed in the fifteen constituencies that returned a ZAPU MP, and it did not stop completely until the Unity Accord was signed on 22 December 1987, becoming totally effective with the ruling party’s 1989 congress, when ZAPU and ZANU structures were amalgamated. After the 1985 elections, Mugabe knew that he could not eradicate ZAPU so easily and that he would have to co-opt ZAPU leaders into the ruling party, but he wanted them as submissive junior partners not as equals. There are interesting similarities between his attitude toward ZAPU at the time and his tactics toward the MDC after the 2002 presidential election, and even more so in the 2008 power-sharing negotiations. Mugabe has never been willing to negotiate with his opposition and share power on a fair basis—as demonstrated again throughout 2009 by his biased implementation of the September 2008 agreement on the inclusive government. In 1986 pressure was put on ZAPU through the detention of MPs and Bulawayo city councillors and scores of supporters, while negotiations were brokered between the two parties by church and civic leaders. The breakdown of the unity talks announced by Mugabe in his 1987 New Year’s message, the subsequent banning of all ZAPU meetings, and the closure of their offices clearly signaled that no less than a political surrender was demanded. ZAPU leaders had no other option given the amount of suffering in the Ndebele populated provinces.⁶⁸ Besides, they had no contingency plans to resume fighting and could expect no support from abroad, especially from the neighboring states. Zimbabwe had by then emerged forcefully as a new leader of the Front-Line States fighting apartheid. In addition, most of the ZAPU leaders were tired of war as much as the people and wanted to enjoy the spoils of state power. The Accord secured their co-option into Cabinet, Politburo, and Central Committee.

Therefore, Mugabe’s war of attrition in Matabeleland was intended to force a merger on ZANU’s terms, which is precisely what the “Unity Accord”—a misnomer emphasizing the propaganda line that served to delegitimize any emerging opposition afterward—amounted to.⁶⁹ Although the Unity Accord brought the state violence to an end, it also silenced voices from Matabeleland: the need to foster unity became an excuse for not acknowledging the past. Until the publication of the CCJP/LRF report in 1997, the subject was taboo even for Ndebele intellectuals.⁷⁰ As a result of such “unity” ZAPU leaders were politically emasculated and they never again enjoyed significant influence within ZANU-PF. Joshua Nkomo’s elevation to the vice presidency was purely ceremonial and counterbalanced by the appointment of Simon Muzenda, Mugabe’s dedicated lieutenant, to the same position. Although Politburo and Central Committee members coming from ZAPU have sometimes been credited for a moderate influence in the ruling party politics (especially Dumiso Dabengwa or John Nkomo), they never confronted Mugabe and were easily whipped into line. Joseph Msika’s and John Nkomo’s official endorsement of the violent farm occupations since they began in 2000—in contradiction to their alleged inner feelings—underlines their political weakness. So by the late 1980s, Zimbabwe was a de facto one-party state and the situation remained similar until June 2000, when the MDC emerged as an effective contender for power.

Subverting Emerging Opposition Parties in the 1990s

From 1987 to 2000 opposition parties never obtained more than three seats at a given time in Parliament. There were more than twenty such organizations in Zimbabwe on the eve of the 1995 parliamentary elections. Yet, most of them were little more than a one-man party. Opposition MP contributions to parliamentary debates were minimal, while some outspoken ZANU-PF backbenchers, such as Margaret Dongo or the late Sydney Malunga (formerly a ZAPU member), exposed the ruling party’s poor governance record. In the 1995–2000 legislature, the two opposition survivors were largely lackluster absentee MPs.⁷¹ In fact, opposition parties did not have any significant impact on the political scene at all and issues of governance were raised more effectively by segments of civil society. Yet there have been several attempts to build a credible alternative to the ruling party prior to 1999. It is worth recalling these unsuccessful experiments, to understand the daunting task the MDC was facing and its own partly inherited shortcomings.

The first significant opposition to emerge was the Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM), created in April 1989 by Edgar Tekere, a former ZANU-PF firebrand expelled from the Politburo for criticizing the widespread corruption in government ranks. Born in the midst of 1988–89 students’ and workers’ protests against corruption, censorship, and the one-party state project, ZUM got a significant share of the vote during the 1990 parliamentary and presidential elections, but it failed to break ZANU-PF’s hegemony. Veteran nationalist leader Ndabaningi Sithole returned in 1992 from his self-imposed exile in the United States to revive the “original” ZANU, however his ZANU (Ndonga) only achieved a gain of two seats in Parliament in 1995 (like ZUM in the previous legislature), in the district of Chipinge populated by Ndau, Sithole’s fellow tribesmen. Formed in March 1993, from the merger between the Harare-based Forum for Democratic Reform Trust, and the Bulawayo-based Open Forum, the Forum Party of Zimbabwe (FORUM) emanated from civil society organizations with a substantial element of white liberals⁷² and former junior ZAPU cadres, many of whom later found their way into the MDC. Led by the veteran nationalist and retired chief justice Enoch Dumbutshena, the FORUM failed to gain any seat in 1995, although it received a significant backing in several middle-class suburbs in Harare, Bulawayo, and Gweru. In September 1994, the United Parties (UP) attempted to melt together the old UANC with a splinter group from FORUM and some defectors from the collapsing ZUM. UP was Abel Muzorewa’s second attempt to unite the opposition, after a failed merger with ZUM in January 1994.⁷³ However, the party’s popularity was never tested, since it boycotted both the parliamentary elections in 1995 and the presidential election in 1996, and it fizzled away in the late 1990s.

After Margaret Dongo won her court case and the subsequent by-election in Harare South, she created the Movement of Independent Candidates in 1996, with a view toward attracting ZANU-PF dissenters, and she sponsored candidates for the Harare council elections. Because she was a former guerrilla and a founding member of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA), the vocal independent MP could lay credible claims on the nationalist legacy. However, she failed to attract a significant following outside her Harare South constituency. Being a gifted grassroots politician, she lacked the sophistication—and the resources—necessary to weave a nationwide network. She hurriedly launched the Zimbabwe Union of Democrats (ZUD) in December 1998, in part to preempt the creation of an opposition party backed by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). After a promising beginning, ZUD was riddled by factionalism and was soon supplanted by a fast-expanding MDC. In 2000 Dongo responded to MDC overtures with unrealistic demands—17 constituencies reserved for her party—and she lost her parliamentary seat in the process. By then, most ZUD members had joined the newly formed MDC.

A combination of factors explain these successive failures: lack of funding;⁷⁴ poor organization, especially the absence of permanent party structures at a grassroots level (Dongo confessed in interview how difficult it was to set up local cells and branches); inability to penetrate the rural areas where the ruling party patronage structures were paramount; sometimes the low political caliber of their candidates; and finally repeated leadership squabbles—though not more than within ZANU-PF—that damaged their reputation in the electorate. Many opposition party leaders lacked credibility, either because they were aging politicians or because they were perceived as opportunists settling scores with Mugabe. For example, Patrick Kombayi, who successively defected from ZANU-PF and ZUM, was an embarrassing and unreliable recruit for the FORUM: at one time he would stand in a ZANU-PF primary election for Gweru’s executive mayor, and at another he would castigate Mugabe’s regime and call for international sanctions. He had taken an active part in the Matabeleland massacres during the 1980s and shared ZANU-PF’s intolerant political culture. Abel Muzorewa and Ndabaningi Sithole were tainted by their involvement in the “internal settlement” in 1978–79.⁷⁵ Some leaders, like Tekere, had autocratic tendencies and antagonized their own followers. Needless to say, ZANU-PF capitalized on these quarrels and would give maximum publicity to opposition “renegades” ostensibly (re)joining the ruling party. Most opposition parties at best enjoyed region-based support—or urban middle-class support in the case of the FORUM—and never succeeded to expand it (although ZUM in 1990 and FORUM in 1995 got a real share of the vote bigger than what the official results acknowledged; see below). In addition, they have never been able to put aside their differences and form a united front against ZANU-PF. They wasted money and energy competing with each other in supposedly winnable—mainly urban—constituencies while scores of rural ones were left to ZANU-PF candidates, who were elected unopposed. There was no electoral alliance again in 2000—except with ZANU (Ndonga) for the Chipinge South constituency—but the MDC succeeded in marginalizing every other opposition party.

Another weakness was the lack of credible manifestos and policy proposals. For instance, ZUM initially articulated the people’s opposition to rampant corruption in the government and the one-party-state project, but it did not go beyond this populist stance to offer meaningful alternatives to government policies.⁷⁶ However, the FORUM and ZUD had more elaborate manifestos but limited means to disseminate them to the electorate. More important, perhaps, the opposition before 1999 lacked a clear political strategy as the episode of the partial boycott of the 1995 elections demonstrated.⁷⁷ Although the boycotting party grievances about the unfair electoral framework were valid and largely supported by civil society, their late decision to boycott was perceived as a petty maneuver. The fact that they did not actively campaign for the boycott and concentrated their attacks on political parties still contesting did nothing to dissipate this impression. Although the FORUM’s attitude—contesting against all the odds—appeared more consistent with the raison d’ être of a political party, its leaders had no post-election strategy. In particular, they had no contingency plans (or money) to systematically challenge the election results in court, like Margaret Dongo in Harare South, to expose the electoral fraud. This lesson was not lost on MDC leaders after the 2000 parliamentary elections.

However, opposition party difficulties were primarily the result of a political environment deeply alien to pluralism. ZANU-PF’s political culture is built on imposed unanimity, ingrained intolerance to dissenting views, and some underlying violence.⁷⁸ This political culture crystallized during the liberation war, when dissenting voices among guerrillas or outside their ranks were systematically branded “traitors” and “sellouts.” During the liberation war, ZANLA guerrillas made an extensive use of the latter label to denigrate not only those suspected of having betrayed them to the Rhodesians but also supporters of other nationalist groups (Muzorewa’s UANC or ZAPU). Alleged sellouts were severely beaten and often summarily executed to teach other villagers a lesson. Suspicion was a method of political control. Therefore, when government called its opponents “sellouts” in the post-independence era it had some sinister implications and went beyond the ordinary political slander.

The idea that those who do not fully support the regime set themselves automatically “outside the nation” remains a pillar of ZANU-PF political culture.⁷⁹ Like the FORUM and the MDC in later years, ZUM was lambasted in the government media and its members were dubbed agents of apartheid South Africa trying to return Zimbabwe to colonialism. For ZANU-PF any opposition party is by definition an enemy of the state and a lackey of the whites. In spite of the early years’ “reconciliation” policy, white farmers were held in suspicion, especially at election time when they were portrayed as a fifth column. White human rights activists were branded “racist” Rhodesians seeking revenge, even though most of them had opposed Ian Smith’s regime. This extremely intolerant atmosphere deterred many reasonable people from getting involved in politics. Sometimes retribution was not limited to words, and harassment could take the form of financial punishment, such as the problems Enoch Dumbutshena faced in 1995.⁸⁰ Genuine pluralism is something alien to this party because it never moved away from the war mentality of the 1970s. The one-party state was dropped as a constitutional project, but the mentality survived almost intact. ZANU-PF activists proclaimed during the election campaigns of 1985, 1990, and 1995 that various townships or neighborhoods were “one-party-state” or “no-go” areas. The infamous War Vets—members of ZNLWVA and ZANU-PF thugs—adopted exactly the same mantras to prevent the opposition from campaigning in the rural areas in 2000. Only this time the rhetoric was backed by widespread violence.

Mugabe and the party hierarchy always made it clear that they would never relinquish power to another political party and lose their privileges. In 1995 (at a time the country was described by many as undergoing a democratic transition!), the governor of Masvingo Province, Josiah Hungwe, emphatically declared: “Our party enjoys immense popularity. That is why we will put up resistance if the opposition wins the election. There is no way we are going to accept that result.”⁸¹ For anyone who paid attention, Mugabe consistently adopted the same stance. For example, in 1995 he demanded “a massive 99.9 percent vote to frighten away the fringe opposition.”⁸² Threats of “another war” form one of the most consistent elements of discourse of the ruling party leaders and Mugabe himself since April 2000, in order to intimidate the opposition parties and the white farmers.⁸³ When the old autocrat insisted that “the MDC can never, ever be the government of this country” at a meeting in Bindura on 7 April 2000, he was basically reemphasizing his long-established stance. Nowadays nobody doubts that ZANU-PF leaders are prepared to kill to prevent such an outcome, but this has not been a sudden change of heart.

Another leading factor often ignored by foreign observers was the CIO infiltration and its manipulation of potential divisions within the opposition. Many of the breakaway factions of the rising star of the moment (ZUM in 1990–91, FORUM in 1993–94) were in fact sponsored by the secret police. Margaret Dongo, a CIO operative herself until the late 1980s, confided that it was part of her assignment then to oversee trade unionists on the CIO payroll, and that she warned Morgan Tsvangirai in 1999 that the ZCTU was still seriously infiltrated by the CIO.⁸⁴ These fears were fully confirmed during the ZCTU congress in February 2001. According to Dongo, any new opposition party would be quickly infiltrated by several agents posing as opposition activists not only to spy on the party activities but with the aim of creating mayhem. The savagely violent anti-MDC campaign, led since February 2000 by the state apparatus (CIO, uniformed police, army, registrar general’s office), sheds new light on this controversial subject. For example, it is alleged that among the people who in the mid-1990s repeatedly migrated from ZUM to FORUM and from the latter to UP, there were some CIO agents who played an active part in the opposition’s internal quarrels.⁸⁵ The same maneuver was clearly at work in Margaret Dongo’s ZUD in 1999. She eventually exposed the late Kempton Makamure (a frustrated former leftist activist with an antiwhite prejudice) whom she had trusted, unfortunately, with executive functions in the party. The CIO also dissuaded disillusioned ZANU-PF middle-rank cadres from crossing the floor to ZUD.⁸⁶ More recently the CIO has certainly played a role in the rift within the MDC (especially the origin of the money paid to unruly youths to attack members of what became the so-called “pro-senate” faction remains a mystery).⁸⁷

ZANU (Ndonga)’s narrow tribal base did not make it immune from infiltration. Mugabe’s security apparatus tried to destroy Ndabaningi Sithole’s reputation through the years with all sorts of ludicrous accusations even though the historic figure was no longer a political threat. Mugabe never forgave him for resuming his political career when he came back from exile instead of joining ZANU-PF as Joshua Nkomo had done. After the Churu farm saga in the mid-1990s,⁸⁸ blown out of proportion to ruin Sithole’s credit in the eyes of his own community, he was arrested in October 1995 for allegedly plotting to assassinate President Mugabe. A confession extracted from William Nhamakonda, a member of the so-called “Chimwenje” dissident group, formerly operating from areas held by the Mozambique National Resistance (RENAMO) in Mozambique, was used to implicate Ndabaningi Sithole.⁸⁹ Although the latter denied any link with the Chimwenje, he was convicted for treason in early 1997 and sentenced to two and a half years in prison. The verdict relied on forged evidence, part of which was obtained through the use of torture against his alleged accomplices. However, the judge suspended the sentence on account of Sithole’s deteriorating health, and the sinister manipulation ended when Sithole died in December 2000. There is a striking similarity between Sithole’s trial in 1996, the judicial charade whereby Tsvangirai was repeatedly accused of plotting against the regime, and the trials held against ZAPU leaders in the 1980s—in particular the joint trial of Dumiso Dabengwa and Lookout Masuku in 1983, or Sydney Malunga’s trial in 1986.

ZANU-PF’s top leadership has a particular taste for this method of ridding itself of opponents. The systematic harassment of all opposition, even before it becomes a significant threat to the regime, not only points to the existence underneath the surface until 2000 of a police state, but also underlines also the huge obstacles of any emerging force trying to compete with ZANU-PF. This was compounded by the ruling party’s control over the media, which prevented the opposition parties from campaigning and reaching the masses. However, the biggest obstacle perhaps was the twisted constitutional and legal framework and the control it gave to Mugabe’s cronies over the electoral process.

Controlling the State

Post-independence Zimbabwe was never a genuine pluralist democracy, and “democratization” was never on the ruling party’s agenda, even in the 1990s after the one-party state proposal was reluctantly shelved. Since Mugabe became prime minister in 1980, he has consistently undermined the institutional framework contained in the Lancaster House agreement: a liberal constitution—not devoid of loopholes and weaknesses that civic organizations wanted to correct in 1999—that provided for a balance of powers, an independent judiciary, and multiparty and free elections. Not only did Mugabe change the constitution to suit his whims but he used Rhodesian legislation to serve his purpose: the Law and Order Maintenance Act (LOMA) and the State of Emergency—renewed every six months from February 1980 until July 1990—are cases in point.⁹⁰ The government made full use of the Emergency Powers Act (1965) to produce a wide range of regulations that amended existing legislation or imposed arbitrary measures. The end result was a thinly disguised authoritarian regime where power to decide, punish, or reward was ultimately concentrated in Mugabe’s hands. In spite of the rhetoric, enhancing genuine popular participation was of no concern to him. On the contrary, the concentration of powers also allowed him to alter the electoral process in order to keep ZANU-PF in power forever.

Institutionalizing Personal Rule

The Lancaster House agreement of December 1979 provided for a Westminster type of parliamentary democracy with a ceremonial head of state, a prime minister with executive powers, a Cabinet responsible to the lower chamber (the House of Assembly), and a Senate as the second chamber. This format, common in former British colonies, did not fit with the one-party state project, and, more important, it hampered Mugabe’s capacity to rule at will. Therefore, the party “chefs”⁹¹ were eager to speed up the necessary changes. However, a two-thirds majority in Parliament was required for the most important ones. In 1987 ZANU enlisted the support of five white “independents” to pass Constitutional Amendment No. 6 abolishing the twenty parliamentary seats and the separate voting roll reserved for the whites.⁹² The subjugation of ZAPU allowed more sweeping constitutional changes to take place in 1987. Constitutional Amendment No. 7 instituted an “executive presidency”: Mugabe concentrated the powers of the former nonexecutive president and those of the prime minister in his hands.⁹³ In addition, many sections of the constitution were thoroughly rewritten by Eddison Zvobgo, Mugabe’s legal expert and diehard supporter,⁹⁴ to enlarge the president’s area of control, creating what an analyst dubbed “a presidential monarch.”⁹⁵

The president appointed and dismissed government ministers at will but hardly needed them to run the country. Although he could address the Parliament whenever he wished, he was shielded from the MPs’ questions and was not responsible to the House of Assemby, which he could dissolve at will.⁹⁶ He enjoyed wide-ranging powers to institute new legislation without going through Parliament under the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act of 1986,⁹⁷ although he could not change the constitution without Parliament’s approval. The president could veto any bill presented by MPs and the Parliament could overrule this veto only by a two-thirds majority of its total membership. Mugabe was virtually untouchable as he could dissolve the Parliament once the legal process to remove him from office had begun, thus effectively dissuading parliamentarians to ever think of such a prospect. Therefore, neither the separation of powers nor the principle of responsible government was guaranteed by the constitution.⁹⁸ Only the Supreme Court, through its power to interpret the constitution, offered limited safeguards. This move toward a presidency with near-absolute powers, and the subsequent weakening of Parliament and the judiciary has been a common trajectory in African postcolonial states.⁹⁹ However, because of delayed independence, it took place in Zimbabwe about twenty years after other authoritarian presidential regimes in Africa had been roundly criticized. ZANU-PF could have drawn lessons from their fellow Africans’ mistakes, but constitutional reform was the first step toward the institutionalization of the one-party state.¹⁰⁰ The political surrender of ZAPU and the co-option of its leaders into the ruling party had actually removed the last significant force with a capacity to contain Robert Mugabe’s near-absolute power.

Although President Mugabe reluctantly dropped the one-party-state project in September 1990, because it encountered vocal opposition both in the public opinion (stirred by ZUM) and within the ruling party, the “executive presidency” has remained the backbone of authoritarian rule in Zimbabwe. Constitutional Amendment No. 9 of 1989 abolished the Senate, originally intended to protect the political rights of minorities and counterbalance a more partisan lower chamber, removing another protection against power abuses. Through the addition of the thirty Senate seats it then expanded the House of Assembly to one hundred and fifty members, and the added seats were used for political patronage: Mugabe directly or indirectly—for the traditional chiefs¹⁰¹—appointed these MPs. This provided the ruling party with an unfair advantage since any other party winning a majority of the 120 elected seats could still find itself lacking an overall parliamentary majority, and moreover the majority to overrule his veto, remove him from office, or amend the constitution. On the contrary, Mugabe needed only 46 of the contested seats to retain an absolute majority in Parliament. Winning 75 seats of 120 was an impossible task to achieve for the nascent MDC in June 2000. Short of this a victorious opposition would have found it impossible to govern the country and legislate, and the ZANU-PF regime made sure it never came close to achieving such numbers.

The ZANU-PF regime reintroduced the Senate for political expediency as part of Constitutional Amendment No. 17, passed in late August 2005. Out of the 66 seats of the new Senate, only 50 were to be contested within a constituency system on the basis of 5 constituencies per province (which led to an overrepresentation of the rural areas in this chamber). Another 10 seats were reserved for chiefs selected by the provincial colleges of chiefs, and the last 6 were to be appointed directly by the president. This amendment was meant as a minimal gesture to accommodate those demanding constitutional reform, both inside and outside the country, while strengthening Mugabe’s grip. A vote of no confidence was made more improbable with the requirement of a two-thirds majority in both houses.¹⁰² The MDC would have to try harder to win majority in two houses rather than in only one. Moreover, the new Senate provided also semiretirement positions for aging ZANU-PF politicians at a time Mugabe once again wanted to rely on younger and more loyal figures, and some solace for the losers in the party primaries before the March 2005 general election.

The combination of extensive presidential powers and the ruling party’s domination of Parliament has reduced the House of Assembly to a rubber-stamping role, with important bills being rushed through Parliament without much debate in the relevant parliamentary committees—or ignoring the latter’s advice. In the few instances when backbenchers resisted the dictates of the executive they were soon whipped into line. They could only tackle the Cabinet minister during question time, the most lively part of the debates reported in the parliamentary gazette Hansard, and some of the backbenchers like Malunga excelled in this game. Some select committees produced useful reports rarely followed by any action. However, the growing dissatisfaction of the ZANU-PF caucus forced the Cabinet to agree to the establishment of a Parliamentary Reform Committee in early 1997. With the full support of the then speaker, Cyril Ndebele, the committee chaired by Mike Mataure, organized public hearings and produced some interesting proposals to increase the role of Parliament and improve the legislative process, including some constitutional reforms.¹⁰³ However, the report was tabled in Parliament only in 1999 and its recommendations were never fully implemented.

Important government decisions were made outside Cabinet meetings that endorsed the president’s will—to a point that high ranking civil servants often ignored their own minister’s instructions and rather obeyed orders emanating from the Office of the President,¹⁰⁴ which has been enlarged through the years operating like a parallel power structure with direct links to the permanent secretaries in the various ministries.¹⁰⁵ The latter are carefully selected ZANU-PF cadres and certainly not neutral functionaries. Mugabe has become extremely skillful at staging controversies over policy issues in the Cabinet or the party organs, which would appear in the media, thus enabling him to better impose his own will behind closed doors.¹⁰⁶ Those few of his lieutenants from the liberation war who can talk face to face with him and voice their concerns never confront him in public. Praise and reprimand are used alternatively to seduce or, on the contrary, destabilize Cabinet ministers and party officials. Often Mugabe has played younger generations against the old guard and vice versa, especially in Cabinet or Central Committee appointments. This balancing act has been necessary for Mugabe to control the factional struggles mentioned before, but it has also allowed him to keep the upper hand in Cabinet proceedings: any minister is worried enough to be constantly watching his back and lashing out at his colleagues, rather than colluding with others against Mugabe. Besides, the appointees perceive positions in a bloated government—around forty ministers in the 1990s—as a fast track to self-aggrandizement (see Chapter 7). Through this process and the sudden elevation of unknown cronies, and the equally abrupt disgrace of erstwhile close aides, Mugabe has become the untouchable cockerel (the ZANU-PF symbol) in the farmyard. The so-called succession debate further contributes to these dynamics.

Hegemony Through Manipulated Elections

Once he won the founding elections, Mugabe never had any intention of relinquishing power. Although he was obliged to shelve his plans to establish a formal political monopoly, all possible means were used to control the outcome of the general elections. Thus no elections in Zimbabwe have ever been “free and fair.” Even the independence elections under international supervision were marred by violence and intimidation, mostly from ZANU-PF, a reality overlooked at the time by most diplomats and commentators. The outside world was quite happy to uphold the fiction of a multiparty democracy in the making until the trick was fully exposed by the political crisis that came in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

The conventional wisdom had it in the mid-1990s that the opposition parties’ weaknesses accounted for the most part of their marginalization in Zimbabwean politics. On these grounds, most observers have discounted the claims from opposition parties and civic organizations that the electoral process was seriously flawed and the balance was heavily tipped in favor of ZANU-PF. Margaret Dongo’s exposure of the rigging system put in place in Harare South by ruling party cadres and partisan civil servants and her subsequent triumphal election in a rerun ridiculed assumptions that ZANU-PF enjoyed undiluted electoral support.¹⁰⁷ However, many still saw the manipulation of the electoral process in Sunningdale as a series of isolated incidents. The reality is that the 1995 elections were rigged in the sense that the process was manipulated to ZANU-PF’s advantage, from registration of voters to announcement of results. Had opposition party candidates done their homework, like Margaret Dongo, not to mention journalists from the independent press, the truth would have unraveled long before 2000.

Another common but inaccurate explanation was the so-called voter apathy in the post-1980 elections, both in terms of the numbers bothering to register as voters and in terms of the share of the latter actually voting. In the 1996 presidential election, Robert Mugabe was returned to power with the support of only 27 percent of registered voters. In fact, the large numbers that stayed away from the polls, especially in urban areas, did so to express their dissatisfaction with the regime and at the same time their frustration over the lack of a credible alternative. The opposition parties’ attempts to dislodge ZANU-PF from power were seen as preposterous. By making sure these parties did not win constituencies—even though this would not have jeopardized ZANU-PF’s hegemony—Mugabe’s strategists cultivated popular beliefs that the electoral route was closed. The February 2000 referendum’s results provided the breakthrough: the surprise victory of the “No” vote contributed to further mobilize the urban electorate in support of the MDC.

Indeed, the systematic rigging and the extent of intimidation that marred the 2000 and 2005 parliamentary and 2002 presidential elections came as a shock for many. It was then more obvious because the robust MDC challenge to the ruling party’s grip provoked a panic reaction within the ruling elite. However, if there was a change of scale in the manipulation of elections after the lost constitutional referendum the means and methods were already in place before February 2000. The study of the 1995 general election already pointed to a sophisticated system of controlling all phases of the electoral process before and after election days. It is a system where the state security agencies are involved in the electoral process and work in cahoots with partisan civil servants such as Tobaiwa Mudede, the registrar general, and supervisory bodies lacking even a modicum of independence. Since 2000 the rigging strategy has been delineated in meetings of the Joint Operations Command (JOC), which comprises the army, police, prison authorities, home affairs officials, and the CIO, and is chaired by Mugabe. There have been numerous NGO reports (especially from the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a coalition of 35 organizations, and the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, a coalition of 17 organizations), and some reports from international observer missions (EU in 2000, Commonwealth in 2002), which all pointed to the various techniques used by ZANU-PF to influence the election outcome. We will summarize their main findings that suggest a consistent, permanent, and now familiar pattern.

The registration of voters process, overseen by Registrar General Mudede, a functionary loyal to Mugabe and born in the same area, has been used repeatedly to increase the number of registered voters in the areas perceived as pro-ZANU-PF—such as the Mashonaland provinces—therefore allowing some gerrymandering to take place through the delimitation of constituencies (which is based on registration and not census figures). This manipulation has affected all elections since 1980, and once again in 2005 with three constituencies cut out of MDC strongholds.¹⁰⁸ Although Mudede has been ordered by the courts to clean the voter rolls and allow the public to check their accuracy, his office has deliberately kept the voter rolls in shambles,¹⁰⁹ in such a way that there was always a need for supplementary voter rolls, to which the opposition parties had no access and which were used to doctor ballot figures in selected constituencies. This supplementary voter roll was ruled illegal in 1995 and has been relentlessly criticized by human rights NGOs and election observers. As in the previous elections, there were between one and two million more people on the voter rolls in 2005 than the total number of potential voters in the country—given the rate of emigration and increased mortality linked to AIDS and malnutrition—with still many duplications and names of deceased people appearing on the rolls.¹¹⁰

For the presidential elections in 2002 a good number of white citizens were stripped of their Zimbabwean citizenship, hence of their right to vote on the basis of the Citizenship Act 2001. This policy was generalized prior to the 2005 general election: 150,000 lost their right to vote when descendants of migrant workers from the neighboring countries and Zimbabweans of European descent were declared noncitizens.¹¹¹ For the 2002 presidential election, proof-of-residency requirements, which had been tightened up, were used to disenfranchise thousands of urban dwellers—known to be massively pro-MDC—especially new voters. In rural areas, however, an oral confirmation by village headmen or farm owners was accepted as a proof of residence, allowing an easy registration of voters controlled by ZANU-PF. In addition, Mudede and his aides also made it as difficult as possible to opposition candidates to field their nomination papers at various elections.

In the run-up to all national elections, the state and the ruling party prevented the opposition parties from campaigning efficiently by enforcing a ban in the government media and using the new media legislation to weaken the independent press. Another means was the harassment of opposition supporters by the police and the ZANU-PF militias. This was particularly true in the June 2000 parliamentary elections and the 2002 presidential elections, when the rural areas in several provinces were sealed. To further curtail opposition parties’ activities, new repressive laws were implemented, such as the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) of 2002, which replaced LOMA. It made it an offense to criticize the president and gave arbitrary powers to the police to ban opposition parties and civic organization meetings and demonstrations. POSA also prohibits public statements “inciting public disorder or public violence or endangering public safety.”¹¹² The violence was turned down immediately before and during the 2005 parliamentary election, and the MDC was allowed to hold some campaign rallies as the government felt itself under the scrutiny of its Southern African Development Community (SADC) and African Union (AU) counterparts.

As stressed in the above-mentioned study of the 1995 elections, the ZANU-PF-controlled state has used various forms of patronage to control the vote in rural areas, such as free tillage, free seeds, and fertilizer packages. However, this blackmailing of the most destitute among the electorate reached a new low in the run-up to the 2002 and 2005 ballots. Known or suspected opposition supporters were denied food aid where it was most needed. The breakdown of the vote at the polling station level in 2005 allowed a fine tuning in the subsequent retribution against communities supporting the opposition, making the ruling party campaign threats more serious. The traditional chiefs and headmen, who are on the government’s payroll, have been co-opted furthermore into the ZANU-PF machine since the passing of the 1999 Traditional Leaders Act. They received hefty pay rises before each general election and have been relied upon since 2000 to coerce their clansmen to vote in favor of ZANU-PF.¹¹³

On election days various techniques were used to tip the balance for ZANU-PF from one constituency to another, to increase the margins through tampering with the supplementary voter rolls. The number of polling stations for the presidential elections in 2002 was reduced in the big cities, to lower the effective turnout in opposition strongholds, and the MDC had to seek an urgent order from the High Court to have the polling stations reopened for a third day of voting (but even here, the registrar general did not fully comply with the order). Not every voter managed to cast a vote in the urban areas in 2002. The postal voting system also provides room for foul play: it is restricted to the members of the police, army, and public service who have “good reason” to be away from their constituency on the polling day, also government employees on a foreign posting, thus excluding more than three million Zimbabweans of the diaspora who are considered unlikely to vote for the ruling party. Opposition parties and civic organizations have no control over the postal voting process, and the government can tamper with these ballots and use them in areas where they can make a difference.¹¹⁴ Similarly the provisions for assisted voting intended for illiterate or disabled persons are widely abused by presiding officers to influence the people’s choice. Electoral officers are chosen according to their loyalty to the regime,¹¹⁵ and include an increasing number of military, CIO, and War Vets.

Counting and announcement of the results offer also some good opportunities for rigging. Interference with the counting of ballot papers before counting was completed in selected constituencies in 2005 led to allegations of ballot box stuffing.¹¹⁶ A statistical analysis conducted by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) on the basis of the data collected by its 6,000 observers deployed in the polling stations shows that the published election results did not make sense in nearly 30 constituencies.¹¹⁷ The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) provided no convincing explanation for these inconsistencies, and it refused to release a detailed breakdown of the voting by polling station in the disputed constituencies. However, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum concluded in its postelection report that these irregularities were “not significant enough to affect the result” and that “the MDC [did] not appear to have lost the election due to a rigged ballot.”¹¹⁸ The MDC defeat could be better explained by other government tactics such as the political use of food aid in the months prior to the election, effective propaganda linking the MDC to colonialist interests, and threats of retaliation.¹¹⁹

Despite Mugabe’s endorsement of the Principles and Guidelines for Democratic Elections, adopted by SADC in August 2004, the amended Zimbabwean electoral law still did not comply with the minimum requirements for free and fair elections. In a typical window-dressing exercise the ZANU-PF introduced in December 2004 some limited reforms: a new ZEC, the reduction of polling days from two days to one, the creation of an Electoral Court, the use of translucent ballot boxes and the counting of votes at polling stations.¹²⁰ The new act was designed to legitimize the upcoming elections in the eyes of African leaders, and thus alleviate the pressure exerted on Mugabe by his SADC neighbors, without compromising his party’s control of the electoral process. For example, Robert Mugabe appointed the chair after consultation with the Judicial Service Commission (JSC)—stacked with presidential appointees—while he also appointed the four other commissioners from a list of seven nominees submitted by a Parliamentary Committee dominated by ZANU-PF members.¹²¹ This was a far cry from the independent commission demanded by SADC guidelines. Moreover, the ZEC did not carry out voter registration, which remained in the hands of the registrar general’s office. There remained also many overlaps between the functions of the ZEC and the Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC), existing under the country’s Constitution—a source of confusion (they both appointed a chief elections officer in early 2005!) and an opportunity to evade further scrutiny. Had the government sought a compromise agreement with the MDC on the creation of an independent electoral commission, it could have succeeded in amending the constitution and removing the redundant ESC prior to the 2005 election. In any case, the electoral process became increasingly run by the military (even ZEC’s chairman appointed in January 2005 was former army officer George Chiweshe),¹²² with the police, and the CIO, under the National Logistics Committee and the JOC, rather than by the impotent rival electoral commissions.

The control of the electoral process by Mugabe’s close aides has deprived the MDC of likely victories in all national elections since the June 2000 parliamentary elections, where it narrowly lost with 57 constituencies against 62 for the ruling party (in addition to the 30 MPs appointed directly or indirectly by the president), and one for the late Ndabaningi Sithole’s ZANU Ndonga.¹²³ This remarkable achievement in a political climate of violence brought a real opposition back to Parliament for the first time since 1987, and deprived the ruling party of the capacity to further amend the constitution—a true embarrassment for Mugabe when the succession debate developed in 2003. Although ZANU-PF managed to retain all its parliamentary seats and gain a few more in subsequent by-elections between 2001 and 2004, the required two-thirds majority remained beyond its reach until the parliamentary elections of 2005. The MDC also gained control of local government in the country’s six largest cities, through the mayoral and council elections between 2001 and 2003. However, in Harare, Chitungwiza, Chegutu, and Mutare, MDC-led councils were subsequently dismissed and replaced by government-appointed commissions or “caretaker” mayors, as part of ZANU-PF’s attempts to regain control of the cities.¹²⁴ It is also likely that Morgan Tsvangirai was the real winner of the presidential election in March 2002, although Robert Mugabe’s popularity had risen, after reaching a record low in October 2000. Rigging on a large scale, as reflected in the Commonwealth and Norwegian observer missions’ reports—and countless reports produced by local NGOs—remained necessary to produce the official outcome (55.2 percent of the vote cast for Mugabe against 41.4 percent for Tsvangirai).¹²⁵ The MDC electoral petition filed in April 2002 contained ample evidence of such practices,¹²⁶ but it was ditched by a partisan High Court judge after months of procrastination.

According to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, ZANU-PF polled nearly 60 percent of the vote in March 2005, an increase of 11 percent over the 2000 results, and the MDC’s vote fell 9 percent to 39 percent. MDC representation in the House of Assembly was therefore reduced to 41 seats. Whether these results were doctored or were the logical outcome of years of intimidation and propaganda, the MDC emerged severely weakened from its third electoral defeat in a row. The stunned opposition party then failed to formulate adequate responses to the Murambatsvina tragedy in May–July 2005; even the MDC-led municipalities could not protect the people from ZANU-PF’s wrath. The general strike it co-organized with the ZCTU and the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), on 9–10 June, was a dismal failure, highlighting the party’s perennial organizational problems. In this respect, the controversy and factionalism that surfaced in October 2005, and which led to MDC’s split into two rival parties in early 2006, was a symptom of the opposition’s already weak position. With the MDC deeply divided, and through the use of its repressive legislation and the biased electoral system,¹²⁷ the government obtained the outcome it desired in the November 2005 Senate election. ZANU-PF won 43 seats and the “pro-Senate” faction of MDC 7 (of 26 candidates) in the context of a record low turnout since a significant share of the electorate heeded to boycott calls by the Tsvangirai-led MDC faction. At his faction’s congress in March 2006 Tsvangirai announced a new strategy of “peaceful, democratic resistance” and the organization of mass protest to force Mugabe out power throughout the winter (June to September).¹²⁸ As so often in the past, nothing materialized on the ground because Tsvangirai’s party did not have the grassroots political structures necessary to lead a sustained campaign of mass protest.

Enjoying a two-thirds majority in both houses of Parliament, the ruling party could then change the Constitution at will. However, Amendment No. 18 was passed on 19 September 2007 with the support of MDC, thanks to mediation by the SADC. The amendment synchronized the presidential and parliamentary elections (with the effect of forcing ZANU-PF parliamentary candidates to support Mugabe in the presidential contest), removed presidential appointees in the lower house, and increased the number of seats in both houses—a means to foster Mugabe’s patronage, play on MDC’s divisions, and dissolve potential opposition in a ZANU-PF dominated Parliament. Yet the real purpose of the Act was to provide for an election procedure of a successor to Mugabe, through a two-thirds majority in the two houses, jointly sitting as an electoral college, should the president die, resign, or be impeached before the end of his term. The amendment also increased the powers of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission—removing the redundant ESC and transferring formally to the ZEC the control over delimitation and registration—but fell short of the MDC’s demands for a new constitution and a bipartisan electoral commission. ZANU-PF and MDC negotiating teams agreed on a draft constitution on 30 September 2007¹²⁹—known afterward as the “Kariba draft”—but the relationship soured, and by the end of the year it was clear Mugabe would not countenance constitutional reform prior to the elections.

As a result of the Mbeki-sponsored talks, however, the Electoral Act was also amended to provide for electoral observers in polling stations; more transparent procedures for counting ballots at the polling station—immediately after the end of the vote and with the results being displayed at station’s entrance—and the right to demand a recount; a guarantee of the opposition’s right to campaign unhindered around the country; and a more flexible access to the state electronic media during the campaign period. These limited changes nevertheless had an impact on the outcome of the March 2008 elections (see Conclusion). However, the government remained firmly in control of the electoral process beginning with the appointment of ZEC members, all of them Mugabe loyalists who, as usual, worked closely with the registrar general and other partisan officials. Interference from the JOC in the electoral process also was as important as in 2005—as the run-off in the 2008 presidential election later demonstrated.

Through the years Mugabe has established his personal control over the liberation movement, and then the state and the political arena in Zimbabwe, leaving any opposition from within or from outside the ruling party without breathing space. For sure it was not outright dictatorship: Mugabe maintained the façade of parliamentary democracy (including the old-fashioned, English style opening ceremony of Parliament) and just enough political bickering within the ruling party, although no one dared to challenge him. However, the outer limits of freedom were reached very fast in the late 1990s, and it became obvious that a truly democratic constitution, free press, independent judiciary, and transparent and fair elections were not compatible with the perpetuation of Mugabe’s rule. By closing the electoral route for the opposition, Mugabe has left the MDC without any viable, alternate strategy, and, incidentally, has dissuaded potential ZANU-PF dissenters eager to get rid of the aging despot from striking any deal with the opposition. By 2007 the divided MDC lacked viable political perspectives in spite of Mugabe’s fast-growing unpopularity. The cunning autocrat propelled the succession debate by suggesting repeatedly (as early as 1999 in ZANU-PF closed-door proceedings on the constitutional reform) that he would soon retire from active politics, but only to force his lieutenants to make their bids, and then play upon their rival ambitions. These factions’ leaders know very well that Mugabe trusts nobody—in line with the political culture of recklessness and deceit he has promoted within his own party—and will expect to die in office. Therefore, they fight each other primarily to prevent their rivals’ ascent to power, a fairly common sight in any decaying personal rule.