Zimbabwe coalition pockets of resistance: Who is in charge?

Zimbawe Military Commanders: Have they been brought under Civilian Government control? There is no tangible evidence to back that up at present.

It is evident that President Mugabe’s project 2010 is back on its rails thanks to the formation of the coalition government with his erstwhile political competitors.

An even more frightening reality is that the One Party State democracy paranoia that informed Zanu PF to employ vicious bully boy politics in the country has been fortuitously realised through the coalition government now in charge of the country or is it not in charge?

For a country that boasts the highest literacy levels in Africa it is . surprising that its highly educated populace is failing to identify who exactly is in charge of the affairs of the State at the moment.

It is even worse than that. Most of the so called highly literate Zimbabweans are not capable of defining what in their informed view the State is.

The problem they face is if they refer to dictionaries the definition they find does not match with their experiences.

In the Encarta dictionary the State is defined as;

“an area forming part of a federal country such as the United States or Australia with its own government and legislature and control over most of its own internal affairs;” and/or
“a country or nation with its own sovereign independent government;” and/or
“a country’s government and those government-controlled institutions that are responsible for its internal administration and its relationships with other countries.”

The State of Zimbabwe like most other States is much more complex than this definition implies.

Generally the geographic political administrative hegemony exercised by an administrative authority legal or otherwise is what is normally is referred to as the state.

On 13 February 2008 Zimbabwe witnessed the constitution of the coalition government formed by “mutual agreement” between Zanu PF and the MDC political formations.

Disputes that are raging on after its consummation suggest there is something remiss about the mutuality before and after its consummation.

This is the only legitimate government in the country at present. It should thus naturally follow that the coalition government is the state going by the third section of the Encarta dictionary definition of a state.

But the reality in Zimbabwe at present seems to suggest otherwise.

There is no consensus within and outside the coalition government that it indeed is the state.

There is a school that believes that President Mugabe as Head of State and the constitutional powers he wields is the defacto State. This is the view held by most Zanu PF adherents and promoted by state owned media.


President Mugabe: Is he still solely in charge? Never

The Saturday editorial in the herald by Caesar Zvayi puts it succinctly;

“I will not go into detail about the powers of the two men apart from reminding the nabobs that Tsvangirai took his oath of office before Mugabe, just like any of the ministers, while Mugabe took his oath before the custodian of the supreme law of the land, the Chief Justice.

If that does not contextualise the balance of power, then I do not know a simpler way of putting it for the nabobs.

Anyway, over the past 10 years we have been fed this ‘‘contest’’ that was supposed to have culminated in Mugabe paying obeisance to Tsvangirai or alternatively seeking asylum in some far off land, but as we all know Mugabe is still here. Talk about missing the point.”

President Mugabe and his wife Grace are leading this school of thought. They have been on record telling the nation that the President remains the Head of State and government in the coalition government.

“Amai Mugabe took the opportunity to explain to the people about the inclusive Government. She said there were distortions about the inclusive Government with some people saying President Mugabe had surrendered power to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of MDC-T.

She said President Mugabe was still the Head of State and Government.

President Mugabe, she said, agreed to form the inclusive Government with the two MDC formations to pull the country from the quagmire of economic sanctions.

But the parties are different entities with different ideologies. She urged the people mainly the Zanu-PF supporters to rally behind the President and the party. She urged Prime Minister Tsvangirai to call for the lifting of the illegal sanctions saying he is the one who called for the imposition of sanctions on the country,” disclosed another installation in the same publication.

She was obviously what her husband had told Zanu PF supporters at the recent 21st February Movement extravaganza on the occasion of his 85th birthday celebration in Chinhoyi.


Mugabe Mutambara and Tsvangirai: Are they in charge? Not now maybe in future.
There is another school that believes that the human face of the State of Zimbabwe is its government.

The school of thought argues that the coalition government is jointly and severally accountable for all government actions and inactions to the nationals and interested international social, political and economic watchdogs.

They argue that internal division of labour and specialisation as well as political diversity within the leadership is matter of academic interest which do not absolve the government of its unitary accountability obligation.

Yet another school of thought that is pervasive is that the coalition government is a fragmented collective of politicians with divergent ideologies and power motives to be called a State in the strictest sense of the definition of a government as a state.

They advance that the coalition government is political arena for polarised political parties to settle their political differences and decide which among them commands the national endorsement to be the face of the State.

Closely related to those in this school of thought are those that believe the State institutions are autonomous and act independent of each other within the geographic boundaries of the state. They thus form an aspect of the state no other institution can legitimately seek to subordinate.

This school of thought believes that the Judiciary, Legislature and Executive pillars of government have counterbalancing powers that unify the state. Others add the Military as a distinct pillar of the State that is equally autonomous and critical in state power balancing matrixes.

In all these different schools there exists strong proponents constitutional sovereignty. This is not surprising because all the schools of divergent thought are built around one or more constitutional provision of the State.

The State of Zimbabwe is thus the Constitution and for as long as there is disagreement on constitutional practice matters the state will remain at loggerheads.

President Mugabe is the Head of State alright but he is not the sole representative of the State. He is not even the Head of the Inclusive government. The Premier is.

To argue that the person before whom one takes an oath of office is the supervisor of the deponent of the oath is political mischief informed by malice and mischief.

The constitution of the country defines who is entitled to officiate at swearing in ceremonies but does not make such administrators principals of deponents.

That the Chief Justice or Speaker of Parliament can swear in an elected President does not make the two officials bosses of the President neither does the fact that the Clerk of parliament can swear in Parliamentarians and the Speakers of the two houses make him their supervisor.

Anyone constitutionally empowered to enforce legal provisions of a given country is in effect a state actor and thus at that level the state.

That is why the current confusion on who is the state in so far as the detention and harassment of political activists deemed to be loyal to the Premier’s party should not be there.

The current Constitution allows the Police and State security agents to arrest people wantonly and with impunity. The Attorney General is empowered to prosecute anyone other than the sitting President without reference to anyone.

That does not mean he is immune to corrupt persuasion by interest groups to prosecute as a means of sectarian persecution.

The Military establishments are not accountable to anyone other than the President who is immune from prosecution while in office. In any event the Military Commanders are credited with guaranteeing the ascendancy and or retention of the country’s presidency by anyone with the ambition to hold that post.

Is it any wonder then that they and not the President are in charge of the State?

They have suspended the country’s constitution in the past in defiance of an electoral outcome they detested and now they are sabotaging the efforts of the compromise coalition government that emerged from the ashes of their silent Coup of 29 March 2008.