Whatever the final results of the June 24-25 general election in Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party's commanding political position has been deeply damaged. Under pressure from the fledgling trade union-backed Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), ZANU-PF is showing signs of stress.
Mugabe and ZANU-PF have relied heavily on promises to launch a radical redistribution of rich white farmers' land to win votes from Zimbabwe's landless and peasant majority. The occupations of some white farmers' land by ZANU-PF-aligned "war veterans" have been widely seen as being stage-managed. Once the election is over, the MDC charges, Mugabe will again postpone serious land reform — as he has done time and time again since taking power in 1980.
Doubts about Mugabe's commitment to land reform are not restricted to MDC supporters. According to a report in the June 8 edition of Zimbabwe's Independent newspaper, rifts have appeared between ZANU-PF and some war veterans. Even Chenjerai Hunzvi, the leader of the National Liberation War Veterans Association and a ZANU-PF central committee member, has begun to distance himself from Mugabe.
The Independent reported that Hunzvi, addressing a rally of ex-combatants in Bulawayo on June 4, issued an ultimatum that Mugabe must immediately resettle landless people on the more than 800 farms marked for repossession by the government. Hunzvi said that ZANU-PF risked losing his group's support if the resettlement did not begin before the election. "If we let this chance slip away by not getting land before the election, we will have been used by ZANU-PF", Hunzvi said.
Many MDC supporters believe that Hunzvi is positioning himself for Mugabe's likely back-down on land redistribution after the election, and is also responding to discontent among rank-and-file veterans. As Mike Khange, a veteran who attended Hunzvi's Bulawayo rally, told the Independent: "No one here in his right senses can say they really trust ZANU-PF. We know these people from a long way back and we should continue to pressure them to allocate land to us now."
Norman Nyathi, another former liberation war fighter, pointed to the contradictory statements coming from the ZANU-PF leadership as evidence that the land issue is being used as a "campaign tool". "What they are now fearing is that if we remain on the farms, that may end up causing problems for them. We are not moving because we want land now. We don't want to be used by anybody."
Zimbabwe vice-president Joseph Msika, who chairs the ZANU-PF-stacked National Land Acquisition Committee, declared that Hunzvi had no right to order the government to move faster to redistribute land.
In Bulawayo on June 7, disgruntled war veterans gave ZANU-PF officials a dose of the medicine that they have been administering to MDC supporters and farm workers. Provincial ZANU-PF chairperson Edison Ncube and administration secretary Sipho Ncube were severely beaten and hospitalised.
The war veterans were unhappy about ZANU-PF candidates being undemocratically foisted upon the region and the misuse of Z$2 million of campaign funds to favour cronies. ZANU-PF provincial vice-chairperson Edward Simela denied knowledge of the attack: "I don't know what you are talking about. What I know is that [the Ncubes] are not feeling well." Similar charges have been made in Masvingo province.
Other senior ZANU-PF politicians have also begun to distance themselves from Mugabe. Edison Zvobgo, ZANU-PF secretary for legal affairs, told a rally in Masvingo that the MDC could topple the governing party. Zvobgo has a significant faction inside ZANU-PF and some rumours claim he may be prepared to split and join the MDC. (Whether the MDC would accept an opportunist like Zvobgo is another question.)
Mugabe has personally ordered the expulsion of more than 30 ZANU-PF members who have defied the party to stand as independents. Fifteen are said to be Zvobgo supporters from Masvingo, where the party is split between supporters of Zvobgo and supporters of the provincial leadership.
BY NORM DIXON