The Home Of The ZimEye

The rest of the world watches fascinated as the United States goes through perhaps its most gripping Democratic Presidential nomination ever, with a young African American Senator taking on one of the country’s foremost political dynasties.

From the beginning, Senator Barack Obama has had several things going against him, not least the colour of his skin and the question of whether white America is ready for a black President.

Again, in the Clintons, he faced a seasoned political machinery while his ‘hope’ and ‘change’ message is a clear assault on the Washington establishment whose instinctive reaction is to fight tooth and nail to preserve its privileges.

When he says he wants to change the way Washington works, Obama is issuing a direct and definite threat to the establishment and its politics of patronage.

He may well get past Hillary Clinton.

But Washington has a plan B in the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, and it will be interesting to see if the Obama phenomenon is formidable enough to get past that hurdle.

However, one of the major criticism the Clinton camp and indeed several analysts have levelled at Obama is that his change message is too abstract, general and decidedly short on detail.

Observers say it is only a matter of time before America wakes from its slumber and realises that the idea of a black President for the world’s only super-power resides only in the realms of fantasy literature.

One cannot fail to discern unhappy parallels and indeed similar traits in Dr Simba Makoni’s decision to join Zimbabwe’s presidential race and his campaign strategy.

To begin with, it is difficult to locate the political space for an independent Presidency for Zimbabwe.

Former Information minister, Professor, Jonathan Moyo says the idea is, at the very least, rather bizarre.

A political machinery in the form of a party gives a candidate critical organisational infrastructure and it is baffling to imagine how Makoni hopes to manage without the obvious advantages that come with having that kind of institution behind you.

Should he win, the former finance minister says he will appoint a government bringing together the country’s best talents from political parties and individuals in parliament.

This assumes that political parties will allow their parliamentary representatives to join Makoni’s government and one can only hope that the good doctor has received the necessary assurances in this regard.

With regard to policy, Dr Makoni speaks in abstract terms about the need to get Zimbabwe working again.

He says his proposed National Authority will help facilitate the re-engagement of Zimbabwe’s people and the removal of a pervasive atmosphere of fear that grips the nation.

Makoni says this is what is needed to address the myriad of problems that Zimbabwe grapples with today.

He talks in general terms about re-engaging the international community and refuses to give any specifics about how his administration would deal with critical issues such as the emotive land question.

The media has been so taken by the idea of someone from within Zanu PF standing up to challenge President Mugabe that there has been very little if any actual interrogation of Dr Makoni, the person and his campaign message.

Zimbabwe does not know what kind of a person Simba Makoni is; what he stands for.

The electorate knows that President Mugabe will go to his grave ranting about Britain, America, Blair, Bush and Brown in that order.

We know that Morgan Tsvangirai will wave his red card and chant ‘Mugabe Must Go’ till the cows come home.

Yet what can we say about Makoni?

In the few substantive interviews he has given to date, Dr Makoni has declined to be drawn on the specifics of his agenda.

He says he intends to get the country’s industries operating again but gives little if any detail on how he will go about this herculean task.

Historians insist that we cannot move forward unless we understand where we are coming from.

A national consensus on the causes of the country’s socio-economic crisis is therefore necessary before Zimbabweans can agree to work together to address the country’s challenges.

It is generally agreed that three principal issues had a direct causal effect on the Zimbabwe crisis.

The first was government’s agreement in August 1997 to give monetary compensation to the country’s liberation war veterans and then, a year later, the decision to join the Democratic Republic of Congo war.

Immediately after these two momentous decisions, government moved more decisively to take land from white farmers and re-distribute it to the black majority.

While the three decisions easily pass the principle test, they dismally flunk any planning analyses.

Government’s failure to plan and budget for these programmes triggered a ‘run’ on the country’s dollar.

If one adds the very angry reaction of western Governments to the land reforms in particular, it is easy to understand why the country is in the present comatose.

The situation was not helped by the tendency of the new landlords to use their farms as trophy assets and weekend braai spots. Farm productivity necessarily nosedived.

With tobacco production down to less than 60 million kilograms from around 200 million and access to world credit markets closed, the country quickly ran out of foreign currency.

Other issues such as the rule of law, corruption, economic mismanagement, human rights abuses and the manipulation of electoral processes are, really, just incidental.

Poor economic management, corruption and human rights abuses are labels the West uses with regard to just about every other African country and most of the developing world, yet none of these suffer inflation levels of over 100 000%.

Admittedly, several other African governments are generally corrupt, routinely manipulate elections and pay scant regard to human rights, but we have not seen the West rush to impose travel sanctions on their leaders.

Kenya’s Mwai Kibaki and Nigeria’s Umaru Yar’Adua, to name but just the two, are free to travel to Europe, yet western governments accuse them of manipulating elections to retain power or get into office.

So clearly the reason western countries are angry with Mugabe is that they dared kick white farmers off the land.

Therefore the removal of Mugabe from office will not, of itself mollify the United Kingdom and its allies.

Britain wants these white former farmers to get their farms back or, at the very least, receive full compensation for what they lost.

This is the only basis on which the West will re-engage with Zimbabwe.

To pretend otherwise is to mislead the nation.

We should remember that unlike North Korea and Iran, Zimbabwe has neither oil nor a nuclear bomb, so the West is not under any pressure to re-engage with us.

Dr Makoni should therefore tell the country how he intends to mollify the West over the land issue.

It is not enough to make oblique references to the need for a ‘just and equitable’ land reform programme.

People deserve to know the practical implications of that policy abstract.

To get back to the Obama campaign, the Illinois senator will not talk about the fact that he is black and that race relations are a major issue in America.

He prefers to cast himself as a ‘transformational’ candidate- one beyond race.

Makoni, and indeed all the other candidates, should not be allowed to similarly gloss over the land issue and get away with oblique policy proclamations.