A Predictable Tragedy. Daniel Compagnon

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