Zimbabwe election: "The greatest fraud of 2005"

Zimbabwe election:

  "The greatest fraud of 2005"

FOR THE third election in succession, the Robert Mugabe-led Zimbabwe
African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) has thwarted the will
of the people and retained power through rigged elections. This time it
obtained a ‘landslide’ – 78 out of the 120 seats contested.

Weizmann Hamilton, Democratic Socialist Movement, (CWI) South Africa

With the 30 members of parliament apppointed by the president, Zanu-PF
has 108 seats in the 150-member parliament – more than the two-thirds
needed to change the constitution. The opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) led by Morgan Tsvangirai fell to 41 seats from
the 58 won in 2000.

Despite the much-spoken about decline in violence, claims of a
peaceful election are a cynical exaggeration.

The Solidarity Peace Trust’s March 2005 report documented "some
1308 incidents of alleged violence. MDC members were alleged to have
been shot, stoned, bludgeoned, or burned to death by Zanu-PF
supporters-including two members of Morgan Tsvangirai’s campaign team
who were burned alive at gunpoint by Zanu-PF agents and CIO [Central
Intelligence Organisation] operative Joseph Male."

If the level of violence had declined (in the 2000 parliamentary and
2002 presidential elections over 200 were killed with over 1,000 violent
incidents) this was because the main objects of the Zanu-PF strategy had
already been achieved

Given that the opposition MDC displayed no appetite for mass action,
offered no leadership and is reportedly also divided, the absence of
organised mass resistance, combined with a catastrophic economic
situation, had succeeded in cowing the population.

Having twice defeated Zanu-PF and Mugabe only for their votes to be
disregarded, what the masses needed was leadership. Instead the MDC
deepened the demoralisation and caused total confusion by at first
announcing a boycott and then reversing their decision six weeks before
the election.

As the chosen alternative for the role of local servant of
international capital, the MDC demonstrated a distinct lack of appetite
for mass action. Trapped between the expectations of the masses and the
pressure of imperialism, the MDC made a last-minute decision to
participate in the elections to prevent divisions in the party from
breaking out into the open.

This was despite the fact that all 39 cases filed in connection with
the elections in 2000 and 2002 (parliament and presidential
respectively) had failed even where the courts had upheld charges of
fraud. Eleven out of 17 judges were pressured into resigning, their
replacements given land seized from the white commercial farmers.

The mass industrial action of the late 1990s moved on to the
political plane, gave birth to the MDC in 2000 and defeated the
government in the referendum on a new constitution in February of that
year.

In response Mugabe tightened his hold on power by combining left-wing
demagoguery through the so-called ‘land reform’ programme, a campaign of
terror and subversion of the judicial process, an amnesty for
election-related violence and manipulating constituency boundaries to
reduce seats in MDC-controlled urban areas and increasing them in rural
areas.

Critically, the MDC was refused access to an electronic copy of the
voters role.

In this situation the majority of voters had lost confidence in the
electoral process and stayed at home. In the capital, Harare, a MDC
stronghold, only 35% voted. As is well-known, the government also used
the food shortages to intimidate voters threatening to deny food aid to
anyone who voted MDC.

ANC government

THE ZIMBABWEAN crisis has had an enormous impact in South Africa,
deepening the divisions in the Tripartite Alliance of the African
National Congress (ANC), South African Communist Party and the Congress
of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).

A South African government observer delegation had embarrassed
themselves by echoing President Mbeki’s claims that the elections would
be free and fair even before their departure for Zimbabwe. It was forced
to apologise to the MDC who threatened to boycott them.

The Zanu-PF regime’s expulsion of Cosatu’s fact finding mission was
fully supported by the ANC government compelling Cosatu to step up its
campaign in support of the Zimbabwean masses.

After the elections

THE ECONOMIC crisis and Mugabe’s desperate pretence at
anti-corruption measures and selective purges have led to divisions
inside Zanu-PF itself.

The MDC was unable to exploit these weaknesses in Zanu-PF nor
maintain the morale of the masses in the face of Zanu-PF repression.
This sense of powerlessness was worsened by the failure of the MDC to
mount a serious campaign of mass action.

The MDC is reported to be divided between its trade union contingent
on the one side and students and intellectuals on the other. The
National Constitutional Assembly which played a critical role in
defeating Mugabe’s referendum in 2000, favoured a boycott of the
election. These divisions are likely to deepen.

Buoyed by these results, Mugabe has rejected any talk of
incorporating the MDC into his government pledging to rule until he
turns 100!

Despite the populist, quasi-leftist, anti-imperialist rhetoric – with
slogans such "the anti-Blair election" – the government has
gone back cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund to bail them
out, promising to increase the repayment of foreign debt. Thus a
neo-liberal economic programme – the very policies that ruined the
Zimbabwean economy – is once again on the agenda.

Whilst the Democratic Socialist Movement fully supports the right of
the Zimbabwean masses to vote for the party of their choice, we have an
internationalist duty to point out that a MDC government would carry out
the same economic polices as Zanu-PF did in 1991-95 with the same
results.

At some stage, the demoralisation will give way to a renewed
determination to resist. The call by Bulawayo Bishop, Pius Ncube, for a
peaceful uprising probably reflects conclusions being drawn on the
ground. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions should mobilise for a mass
action campaign to bring down Mugabe.

Social change

THE MOST effective way to carry forward the struggle will be through
the building of a mass workers’ party on a socialist programme.

Only on the basis of a genuine socialist programme combining the
nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy and all the
commercial farms under workers’ control and management, and the
distribution of land to the landless with proper state support in terms
of seeds, feed, agricultural implements and training, can the working
class offer the farm workers and poor peasants a basis for unity.

Capitalist policies, whether implemented by a Zanu-PF government, or
in coalition with the MDC, will only bring more misery to the masses. A
socialist programme would lay the basis for an appeal by Zimbabwean
workers to their class bothers and sisters in southern Africa especially
the South African working class – potentially the most powerful on the
African continent.

A socialist revolution offers the only possibility for the permanent
eradication of starvation, poverty, disease and war and lasting
prosperity for all.