President Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) was severely mauled by the nine-month-old, trade union-backed Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Zimbabwe's June 24-25 general election.
ZANU-PF barely maintained its majority among the country's 120 elected parliamentarians, taking just 62 seats. The MDC won 57 seats and one seat went to a minor opposition party.
Only the massive and widespread pre-election violence unleashed by ZANU-PF thugs and elements of Mugabe's security and intelligence services against MDC activists and supporters, urban dwellers, farm workers, teachers, health workers and civil servants allowed the ruling party to survive. Its thin majority could have easily been a 20-seat deficit.
At least 31 MDC activists — including at least one MDC candidate — were killed following the Mugabe regime's defeat in the February constitutional referendum. More than 6000 acts of violence and intimidation were recorded.
Violence directed against farm workers, teachers, health workers and civil servants in rural areas resulted in more than 30,000 people fleeing to cities and towns. These people were disenfranchised because voters in Zimbabwe must vote in the electorate in which they are registered.
Farm workers and their relatives were targetted by ZANU-PF goons because their votes would have been decisive in the countryside — they account for around 20% of the electorate. Tens of thousands of less educated rural people believed ZANU-PF thugs' false claims that people who voted for the opposition could be identified.
Challenge
Overall, the ZANU-PF majority was secured from about 30,000 votes of the estimated 3 million cast (a 60% turn-out). ZANU-PF won 15 seats, most of them in its rural Mashonaland heartland in the north, with majorities of 57% or less. It won four seats despite polling less than 50% of the votes.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai said his party would challenge the results in 27 seats where ZANU-PF had won through intimidation, violence and cheating.
Mugabe's undemocratic presidential powers give him the right to appoint 30 MPs, which will give ZANU-PF an undeserved comfortable majority. However, the MDC's unprecedented electoral success has deprived the ruling party of its ability to unilaterally amend the constitution, for which it needs a two-thirds majority of the 150-member parliament.
The scale of ZANU-PF's drubbing was breathtaking in Zimbabwe's urban areas and in Matabeleland in the south. MDC candidates won all 19 seats in the capital, Harare (with majorities ranging from 66.9% to 82.1%), all eight seats in Bulawayo (with majorities of 76.6% to 86.8%) in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe's second largest city, and three out of four seats in Mutare, a major town in Manicaland in the east. This reflects the depth of the MDC's support among the urban working class and poor.
The MDC won all but two of rural Matabeleland's 15 electorates. The sweeping support for the MDC in Matabeleland came despite ZANU-PF thugs threatening a repeat of the Gukurahundi — the Mugabe regime's military campaign against the minority Ndebele people and the rival Zimbabwe African People's Union in the early 1980s which resulted in the massacre of up to 20,000 people.
In Manicaland, ZANU-PF managed to have just six MPs elected against the MDC's seven. One seat was won by ZANU-Ndonga, a right-wing opposition party. Tsvangirai unsuccessfully contested his Manicaland home town seat of Buhera — a seat considered unwinnable — and obtained more than 45% of the vote.
ZANU-PF victories were concentrated in Mashonaland in northern Zimbabwe, where it won 31 of the 34 available seats, Masvingo in the south-east, where it picked up 12 of the 14 seats, and the Midlands in central Zimbabwe, where it won 11 of the 16 seats.
The ZANU-PF's use of violence and intimidation was particularly severe in Mashonaland, Midlands and Masvingo, even though it is the party's heartland. Nevertheless, several defeated MDC candidates scored more than 40% of the vote. Minister of state security Sydney Sekeramayi squeaked past his unknown MDC opponent in his Mashonaland East electorate by just 63 votes.
Senior heads roll
Of the 29 ministers, deputy ministers and provincial governors who stood in the election, 11 lost their seats. The most prominent casualty was justice minister Emmerson Munangagwa — considered Mugabe's possible successor — who was beaten in his Midlands seat by a margin of two to one by an MDC candidate who had been forced into hiding by ZANU-PF thugs. Home affairs minister Dumiso Dabengwa garnered just 4000 votes against his MDC opponent's 24,000 in his Bulawayo seat.
The MDC landslide also engulfed several senior ZANU-PF party functionaries, including four of the party's 10 provincial chairpersons (Harare, Masvingo, Midlands and Bulawayo), and the ZANU-PF Women's League chairperson and deputy chairperson.
The enormous loss of parliamentary seats — a key source of resources for ZANU-PF's corruption and patronage networks — will weaken the ZANU-PF. The loss of heavyweights like Munangagwa and Dabengwa will complicate the search for a credible successor to the 76-year-old Mugabe, who must move on sooner rather than later.
Mugabe is reported to be demanding the heads of the ZANU-PF's provincial chairpersons in the provinces where the party's performance was poor. Harare chairperson Tony Gara's future was already grim following Mugabe's severe embarrassment when only 5000 turned out to a rally in Harare on June 17. The following day, more than 40,000 people attended an MDC rally at the same venue addressed by Tsvangirai.
Others in ZANU-PF see that their futures would be better served by Mugabe's departure. According to the June 29 Financial Gazette, at least eight ZANU-PF MPs are demanding that Mugabe resign and have threatened to defect to the MDC if Mugabe contests the next presidential election, due in 2002. Other ZANU-PF MPs are reported to be prepared to vote with the MDC if the ZANU-PF "old guard" resists reforms.
While Mugabe has been delivered a brutal blow, the wily campaigner is not out for the count yet. The MDC's conservative economic policies and willingness to deal with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and abide by their economic prescriptions may yet backfire.
Bitter pill
One possible ZANU-PF strategy was signalled by Mugabe's chief spin doctor, Professor Jonathan Moyo, in an interview with the London Independent on June 28. He hinted that ZANU-PF may simply implement the MDC's policies and let the party take the blame for the consequences: "The MDC just does not know what a problem they have created for themselves by promising change to the volatile urban areas. The MDC says it wants an austerity package — that is what we will give their supporters because they have given us the latitude to give them the bitter pill", Moyo said.
Moyo was referring the MDC's "100-day stabilisation plan" that commits an MDC government to "fast-track" the restructuring of all state-owned enterprises to be ready for privatisation within two years, reduce "non-essential" government spending, and negotiate with the IMF, World Bank and other donors for debt to be restructured. In the longer term, it commits the MDC to the elimination of all price subsidies, the reduction of company taxes and income taxes for "middle-income earners", the introduction of a goods and services tax by 2001 and the outsoucing of a wide range of government activities. The MDC believes it can slash Zimbabwe's budget deficit from above 15% of GDP in 2000 to less than 3% by 2002!
On July 2, Tsvangirai said that the MDC had turned down an overture from Mugabe for the MDC to join a coalition government in order to help Zimbabwe climb out of its "economic abyss". "It would be inappropriate to form a government of national unity with Mugabe", the MDC leader told the Pan African News Agency. "We do not want to be associated with the debts they have incurred over the years." Tsvangirai added that ZANU-PF is still attempting to entice individual MDC members with offers of cabinet positions.
The MDC will now set its sights on the 2002 presidential race; Tsvangirai has already announced his candidacy. Local government elections are also due in Harare and Bulawayo soon and the MDC is almost certain to achieve a clean sweep.
BY NORM DIXON