Prepaid Water Meters: No longer Giving a Thirsty Traveler a Free Glass of Water.

Prepaid Water Meters: No longer Giving a Thirsty Traveller a  Free Glass of Water.

By Takura Zhangazha*

The Harare City Council  (HCC) through its Water Department was recently reported in a local weekly as intending to introduce prepaid water meters by year end. This, soon after the much vaunted but under- analyzed and ongoing installation of prepaid meters for electricity. This stated intention of the HCC is most unfortunate and tantamount to the privatization of water,  a development which would most certainly have the ancestors wondering what on earth our elected and appointed officials might be thinking.

While there can be no argument against trying to find solutions to the challenge of citizens' access to clean and running water, this latest proposal by the capital’s city council may be more a matter of seeking to address an illness via its symptoms. 

Introducing prepaid water meters will not solve either the resource problems over and about either water treatment or its direct access by Harare residents. Neither will it build a much needed new reservoir that is envisioned to supply greater Harare with water. Unless of course the intention of council is to clandestinely increase the council rates and water bills under the guise of what can only be misleadingly referred to as sustainable water usage via prepaid meters.

Some amongst the social and political commentariat have openly welcomed these newfound policy maneuvers of central and local government on the basis of either ‘able to pay’ comfort zones or poorly thought out understanding of market economics.

 And these debates began when the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) and its subsidiary commercialized units began implementing the prepaid meter system. The issue then as it remains now was in tandem with the ‘use what you can pay for’ dictum. And it all appeared logical except that it has had the effect of making electricity available to only those that can pay for it. And in paying for it, consumers must now not only be frugal with the commodity but also deprive themselves of what now appears to be a luxury of cooking meals via electric stoves.

The prepaid electricity policy of ZESA has neither reduced power-cuts nor increased our electricity generation capacity.  It has instead being a case of literally passing on the cost to the consumer without a proper assessment as to how and why electricity distribution has remained so inefficient.  For some consumers it may appear to be better to have the little electricity that they can afford than having no electricity at all (if there are no blackouts). This however does not make the policy any more democratic or responsive to the glaring need of improving the livelihoods of majority poor families.  And this is the elephant in the room.

The convenience that the prepaid meters has given ZESA has probably been akin to a sigh of relief for the parastatal where regardless of its own inefficiencies, it passes on the cost to the consumer, and remorselessly so.  For each transaction or top up of the prepaid meter, there are the fixed charges of the rural electrification levy together with a specific percentage of incurred debt that will have been accrued by the consumer.  So essentially there is no new democratic departure point in the prepaid meter system. Its just merely a smarter way to give the impression that it is the consumer that had always been a problem when the reality of the matter is that the challenges of electricity production in Zimbabwe do not begin with the end user.

It is this sort of archaic model that the HCC wants to impose on residents for water consumption, and by dint of the same probably export the model to other municipalities.  Given that access to clean running water is a basic human right and directly relates to the right of all Zimbabweans to health, it is a development that does not bode well for recently elected local authority leaders. Water, like electricity needs calm approaches of balancing both cost and access. Prepaid meters are neither calm nor cost effective for overall supply of either water and electricity (hence the blackouts and dry taps).

To seek to inadvertently privatise water under the guise of prepaid billing systems is patently undemocratic.  Water is already a lucrative commodity via mineral water companies which sell it at commercial rates. For the HCC to want to adopt such an approach demonstrates that they are seeking an easier but symptomatic route out of the water crisis at the expense of the majority urban poor in Harare. 

What the HCC intends to do is pass on the cost to the consumer while at the same time failing to resolve the overall water crises the capital city faces. And even then, the very problem of water supply does not have its genesis in the consumer, but in central and local government authorities who converted pre-2008 water bills from Zimbabwean to United States  dollars without evident  public consultation on conversion rates. 

Should the HCC go ahead with its plan either in pilot or full form, it will be a sad day for democracy in Zimbabwe. Of all the things to privatise, water must be sacred. But for some, they perhaps fail to realize that it is not money that makes us equal but common democoratic values and collective humanity. And it all begins with giving each other a glass of water without thinking of how much it will cost.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity. If you would like to use this article please attribute it to takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com 

A Belated Opinion on Zimbabwe’s not so new Cabinet.

By Takura Zhangazha*

A colleague asked if I had an opinion on Zimbabwe’s recently appointed cabinet. It’s a debate that I had been deliberately avoiding because there are a lot of more important and controversial opinions on the matter. These range from outright praise of President Mugabe’s choices to downright dismissal of the same. All of these initial assessments have largely stemmed from partisan standpoints. Some of them self righteous in victory, others bitter in defeat.

The reasons given by President Mugabe for his appointments have also had the effect of allowing him latitude to outline what he expects from his cabinet. This,  with the caveat that if he feels any of the ministers are underperforming, he will dismiss them. How the President will measure under-performance is not publicly known. Suffice to say, cabinet ministers are rarely fired. Instead, they tend to have their ministerial portfolios changed.

So if there is any particular certainty about what will happen to the new or re-appointed ministers, it is that they may most likely not serve in the same capacity for the duration of the five year mandate of this government.

It is however necessary to try and glean some political meaning of both the expectations as well as the capacity of cabinet to undertake work that makes Zimbabwe’s politics either more democratic or makes the economy responsive to the people’s needs.

For all the private and public assessments of the capacity of specific ministers to be able to offer the aforementioned improvements in their specific portfolios, there is one thing that stands out for scrutiny.

This being that before cabinet is disaggregated into individual characters, it should essentially be judged on the functional principle of collective responsibility.  

This means before we seek to analyse this single party executive arm of government on the basis of the personal characters of the persons in it, we must not only look at its shared agenda (party manifesto) but also its ability to function as a collective. Both in relation to its ability to shoulder an organic responsibility for the successes or failures  of its policies.

Given the manner in which it was appointed, it is least likely the cabinet will function any differently from previous ones. True to fashion, this new cabinet will tend more to function fully on the basis of the individual ministers awareness that they are in it solely on the basis of the benevolence of the President. And therefore before they achieve anything else as part of a collective, they are most likely to function and work in order to retain their individual positions as opposed to maintaining a semblance of collective responsibility. Even in the aftermath of an inclusive government.  

So with the passage of time, it will be individual ministers who will be measured as being either good or bad, and not the entirety of cabinet.  Any transgressions or failures to deliver will unfortunately not be measured on the basis of a collective government programme of action. Instead the judgment calls will be on which minister is savvy enough or fits a particular civil society stakeholder lexicon. 

This is why for example, the comparisons of Ministers Kasukuwere and Nhema have centered more on their assumed personal characters than the policies that they, on behalf of the cabinet, pursued in their previous capacities.

An added consideration when analyzing our new cabinet is what has inadvertently been cited by some analysts as its ‘revolving door’ framework (though not in those words). There are not many persons who are new to cabinet in President Mugabe’s team in the executive. Most of its members, save for at least five, have previously served in cabinet in one capacity or the other. 

This means that there is most likely a sense of entitlement to cabinet posts wither by virtue of proximity to the presidency, experience or particular roles played during the July 31 2013 campaign period. This less in terms of what is intended to be deliberately and conscientiously achieved and more in relation to what gives the appointed ministers a modicum of justification for their appointment. 

It is therefore more likely that their performance will be more in keeping with the default tradition of previous cabinets.  This is a tradition which generally emphasizes marking and keeping one’s turf without stepping on the toes of the President. While on the other hand the Zimbabwean public will also carry on with its own tradition of creating sarcasm and humour over and about cabinet ministers performances or roles (a tendency which has already been evidenced by the dry humor about Minister of State, Josiah Hungwe’s portfolio)

As I stated at the beginning of this article, the new cabinet was a matter I was willing to leave to others to debate and analyse. The colleague who requested an opinion from me on the same matter perhaps views these matters differently. I am however of the firm view that the cabinet will not differ spectacularly from previous ones (inclusive or otherwise). The more important task for Zimbabweans is to bring this cabinet to account. Not only in terms of the ruling party’s manifesto but more significantly on the basis of social democratic values and principles.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity. If you decide to use this article elsewhere please acknowledge that you got it from takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com. 

Zanu Pf's New-found but Fragile Revivalist Hegemony

By Takura Zhangazha*

When President Mugabe was sworn in on August 22 2013 some in his party’s circles and sympathetic analysts equated the inauguration ceremony as being the equivalent of the historical 1980 arrival of a newly independent Zimbabwe. In reality it turned out to be a comparatively less celebrated ceremony and more an immediate post-election event minus any euphoric expectations of the future. Almost two weeks after the inauguration, there is limited reason to expect that it still remains carved in the collective memory of a majority of Zimbabweans. What obtains is more or less a wait and see attitude about what the now singular ruling party can and will do for all Zimbabweans.

So as it is, its recent sweeping victory (contested and as real as it is) signifies, more than anything else, a return of Zanu Pf to singular political hegemony over our country.  And this is not new political territory for the ruling party or the people of Zimbabwe. The only difference is that it has occurred after a drawn out four year period of power sharing guaranteed by the regional body, SADC.  This makes the electoral triumph of Zanu Pf bitter sweet. However, that they had found themselves in a situation where they had to share power in the first place was (and probably remains) evidence of their weakened political hegemony.

With this electoral victory there are however signs of concerted attempts by the ruling party at a ‘revivalist hegemony’.  This was particularly evidenced by their quick reference to the recent inauguration ceremony as being akin to that of 1980. The reality of the matter is that it is not going to be an easy road for this new found  revivalism in Zanu Pf.

The reasons why it is a difficult task for the ruling party are many and begin with understanding that electoral victory alone is not enough to define hegemony. And that power acquisition can sometimes end up as being power for its own sake while counter-hegemonic forces (if there are any) work toward taking over.  

Perhaps the leaders of Zanu Pf realize this, even if by default. This ‘default’ mode was more defensive and in aide of their retention of their hold on power than it was organic. It relied fundamentally on three pillars. Namely, stubbornly holding onto the nationalist (liberation war) narrative and its justification for the use of violence; the compulsory acquisition of land and the ongoing though haphazard economic indigenization programme. All of the latter pillars are the ones that have in part led to some pundits (including a former South African President) explaining why Zanu Pf not only won the July 2013 election but also why they seem to be on the ascendancy again, even without internal leadership renewal.

It is however the aftermath of the victory that is most problematic for Zanu Pf’s hold on its new-found revivalist hegemony. The pillars upon which the election rested required a visible and lived counter hegemonic project in the form of the MDC-T as well as the inclusive government.  Going into the next five years without such an opposing view and action point is in itself a serious challenge for the ruling party.  Particularly with regards to constructing a new cultural edifice around not only the legitimacy of its electoral retention of power but also its usage of the latter.

The questions that emerge is how does Zanu Pf shift its electoral strategies into sustainable economic and democratic realities not only for those that voted for it but for all Zimbabweans? Or alternatively  Is it capable of overcoming its electoral contestation mode in order to govern without direct reference to a real or imagined opponent for the better of all Zimbabweans?

The answers to these questions, depending on where they come from, will be fraught with emotion and arbitrary defensiveness if not outright dismissal. What however remains apparent is that for all its victory celebrations (which we shall certainly be seeing a lot of in the coming months), Zanu Pf faces a monumental challenge in broadening and even democratising the imperatives of its hegemony.

Five years is not a long time in politics. It is most certainly true that Zanu Pf will not be able to sing the same songs over and about indigenization, land reform or the liberation struggle in 2018.  At least not to the same guitar or drum rhythms. It is party that is going to be judged less on the basis of its past or electoral rhetoric as pitted against a strong counter-hegemony. Instead the judgment calls will be more on the basis of its ability to perform democratically and in the best interests of all Zimbabweans.

So as it is, while many may be pleasantly surprised or thoroughly shocked by Zanu Pf’s victory in the July 2013 elections, a deeper analysis points to a fragility of the same. The ruling  party’s return to full government may be indicative of the revival of its complete hegemony over Zimbabwean politics but a return is not the final arbiter of its effectiveness. It’s the performance of the same that is. And on that, I am certain there will be new counter-hegemonies to challenge for state power in 2018.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity. If you decide to use this article elsewhere, please acknowledge that you got it from takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com

The Struggle for a Social Democratic Zimbabwe Continues. It has to and it will.

By Takura Zhangazha.*

When the inclusive government came into existence, discourse over and about the ‘struggle’ shifted significantly. Whether this discourse was about narratives of ‘arrival’, or alternatively, ‘continuity’, the conversations that were had were always inconclusive. In the aftermath of the July 31 2013 harmonised elections, questions that are now coming back to haunt or even re-focus many comrades relate to fundamentals. What is the struggle? Where is it placed? Has it come full circle? How does it continue (if it still exists)? All of these questions can only be answered on the basis of self knowledge, organic values, and democratic principles.

In saying the above, I am aware of the ‘judgment calls’ that will be made on any assumed self righteous assessment of the state of affairs in the mainstream national political opposition .This is because the answers are in and of themselves judgment calls on those that were leading the struggle .A struggle which I remain persuaded exists and does not end with the 2013 electoral defeat of the MDCs (and components of civil society) by Zanu Pf. This is because the struggle for a social democratic Zimbabwe has always been much more holistic and more important than all of the parties that were part of the July 31 2013 electoral contest.

At this juncture, it becomes important that I define the ‘struggle’. Our post independence struggle has been a struggle for social democracy in Zimbabwe. It is a struggle that has its roots in the values of the liberation struggle wherein, social and economic justice was the key deliverable for a majority of the people of Zimbabwe (even if by default).

 It is a struggle that celebrated the achievement of national independence and a joyous desire to participate in the return of our people to the making of Zimbabwean democratic, people centered and self determining history .Where we welcomed our first majority rule government we remained cognizant of not only its challenges but also its primary mandate which was to fulfill the aspirations of the liberation struggle. This was and remains a mandate of all subsequent post independence governments.

 In our collective understanding of these matters, we measured Zanu Pf (as the ruling party) on the basis of its ability to address and achieve the aspirations of our nation’s founding values and principles.

 A decade after independence we were to find it necessary to challenge the political narrative of Zanu Pf and the fundamentals of the manner in which it was  governing the country. We were there both in spirit and form at the formation of the Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM) and sought to challenge the ruling party’s hegemony. We sought to initiate a narrative that the country did not belong to one party or specifically that the collective understanding of our national liberation was not singular.

Interpretations of the values of the liberations struggle were always going to be varied but without undermining the revolutionary historicity of the same. Similarly, the fact of participation in the liberation struggle was not the singular prerogative of the right to govern as regularly argued by our former liberation movements. Contrary to this view we recognized the posterity component of the struggle.  One in which we knew and felt that the progenitors of the same said struggle knew and know that the ‘baton stick’ will be carried forward by subsequent generations. 

Unfortunately, this latter understanding of our national politics let alone of the significance of the liberation struggle did not find resonance in the ruling Zanu Pf party .This was where and when it had  disembarked from the revolutionary path and undertook elitist policies that negated the values of the liberation struggle.

Key among these elitist policies was the implementation of the World Bank initiated and sponsored Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes (ESAPs),which were to come to affect those of us born in the years preceding independence and those of us who are now collectively referred to as the ‘born free’ generation. Particularly in relation to employment, education, health, public transport and a democratic future.  

The issues that emerged in the decade after our independence were no longer about towing  any specific ‘party line’ but leading the country to social democratic prosperity. A challenge which the ruling Zanu Pf party was to prove incapable in tackling. 

We therefore, and correctly so, took to exercising our liberation struggle won rights of assembly, association and expression, to oppose the hegemony of Zanu Pf .  This was done through not only opposing ESAP via the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade unions (ZCTU), but also challenging the systematic narrative of political and human rights abuses stemming not only from our new found knowledge of the tragic events and state brutality  that occurred in the Matebeleland regions in the early 1980s but also the failure of the state to meet socio-economic performance legitimacy requirements.

 We correctly began to question the meaning of the liberation struggle for the majority. We remained aware of the ineptitude of government but were even more significantly aware of the challenges and responsibilities of alternative national leadership.

 That is why toward the 20^th anniversary of our national independence the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was formed.

The primary mission of the MDC was to embark on the historical path of fulfilling the remaining social democratic aspirations of the liberation struggle. Formed against the backdrop of a National Working People’s Convention, the MDC sought to re-engage Zimbabweans on the outstanding liberation struggle aims and objectives (including the outstanding matter of the land question).

True to its founding intentions, the MDC went to the people and began the process of reclaiming the country from the elite and back to the masses. This is why, in the elections of the new millennium, the MDC was to gain ground in both Parliament as well as eventually end up as part of the Executive branch of government with the assistance of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in 2009, only ten years after its formation.  This ascension to national government office, controversial as it was, became evidence of how and why the MDC had gained national legitimacy in relation to being viewed by a majority of Zimbabweans as the movement to fulfill the remaining intentions of the liberation struggle.

In this, the MDC was not a creation of the West as Zanu Pf would want to allege. Instead, it was an evident demonstration of the people’s sentiment, one which was seeking political alternatives, hence the rise of the MDC to executive national office in a short space of ten years.

It was however not an easy road to effective and power acquiring counter-hegemony for the MDC. Mistakes were made, and most of these relate to the departure by the mainstream MDC leadership from a social democratic historical path and narrative of the people centered pursuit of political power and office. Both in terms of their internal genesis as well as the national understanding of the initial intention to fulfill the aspirations of the liberation struggle. The lack of historicity to their presence on the national political stage has been in part their undoing. And  this against better advice.

Where discussions about their agreeing to the SADC mediated Global Political Agreement (GPA) have tended to justify their electoral defeat, these can only be described as exercises in political dishonesty. The reality of the matter is that the latitude that the MDCs had during their tenure in the inclusive government was intended to allow them to demonstrate their ability to not only govern but to demonstrate greater commitment to the holistic aspirations of the liberation struggle. Both as envisioned in the past as well as in lived reality.

 The above is a key point to explain, because, whereas it was and has been claimed that the mainstream opposition did not have any ideology, the truth is that its genesis was premised on the basis of social democracy.  Both in relation to  its articles of constitution as well as in its political origins via the labour, womens’ and student movements. That the leaders of this counter-hegemonic project failed its own aspirations is an indictment of their ahistorical approach to it.

This point brings me to the particular issue of the struggle as I have defined above. It continues. It has to. Not because of individual egos or particular party aspirations. But more because this struggle for social democracy has and still belongs to the people of Zimbabwe. Therefore whether this generation of leaders genuinely and organically takes it up or not, it shall certainly be taken up by subsequent ones. Its new path however must be one that acknowledges past successes and failures, and one that specifically departs from celebrating cults and individuals instead of principles, values and objectives.

                 

The struggle therefore continues but only in the sense that it must renew itself both in relation to its recommitment to its founding values and principles as well as in relation to its leadership. And this should be taken to mean that no one, no matter how many scars or wounds they bear, is above the struggle. Even founders of the post independence struggle for social democracy cannot claim to be beyond criticism. This is why, in the aftermath of July 31 2013, those that were tasked to lead the social democratic movement(s) must demonstrate the necessary national contrition and step aside.

Those who take up the mantle of leadership of the renewed and organic social democratic movement must now think more in the long term and holistically about both the prospects of the struggle as well as those of the country. This entails taking into account the fact that the setback of 2013 is less about elections and more about the lack of articulation of an organic democratic alternative for the people of Zimbabwe. They must go back to the masses, engage them on the most basic of issues and restructure the struggle, less in the pursuit of international recognition, but in the interests of the majority who are the ultimate judges of what national and local changes they both need and want.

In leading this necessary next phase of the struggle for social democracy, the new leadership must pursue organic intellectualism and outright respect for the everyday citizen as opposed to the arrogant and inorganic leadership that was demonstrated before and particularly during the tenure of the inclusive government.

ENDS//

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity.

Money, not Mind Occupies our Universities.

By Takura Zhangazha

The pursuit of knowledge of the academic kind is generally viewed as a virtue/arete. By this the inference is not a just a moralistic one but one that also resides in Plato and Aristotle's understanding of the pursuit of knowledge. Therein knowledge is not knowledge for its own sake but for the good of society in a non-ambivalent search for truth. 

Zimbabwe’s tertiary institutions and to be particular, its universities have been traditionally viewed as institutions that should be doing just that, pursuing virtue. It is this impression that generally lends anyone who has acquired a doctorate in one academic field or the other everlasting reverence from adoring relatives, friends and work colleagues. In fact this admiration expresses itself in the truth that once one is referred to as a doctor or professor, it is a perpetual social title even in non-academic conversations and circles.

The assumption is that these qualifications have been acquired from institutions that are not only credible but ranked among the best and most competitive in terms of academic excellence and academic freedom. The reality is that our universities are no longer the harbingers of the unbridled and open pursuit of knowledge or virtue. This, for a number of reasons.

The foremost of these reasons being that none of our present (and even planned) tertiary institutions value the all important principle of academic freedom. It is a principle that is the sine qua non of any decent institution of higher learning and entails the unfettered pursuit of knowledge both for its own sake as well as with the intention of improving our understanding of the societies in which we live, for the common good. Where this principle is recognized and enforced, students, academics and non academics will be able to associate, assemble and express themselves freely. 

Unfortunately, not a single academic institution in the country, at the moment, has demonstrated the above cited characteristics that are key for the enjoyment of academic freedom.

Most campuses are literally like prison compounds with students and staff being monitored as to who they associate with, what ideas they peddle and who they invite from broader society to interact with the university. Student unionism, staff associations are either prohibited or severely restricted or only permitted where and when they parrot central university administration’s political and policy preferences. As a result of such an environment there has been no active pursuit of knowledge as a virtue in all of our universities. Instead what obtains is the pursuit of knowledge merely as a qualification to the extent that the oft repeated phrase by students is that ‘one is better off if they keep quiet and finish their degrees’ no matter the injustices they experience or witness.

The second and equally debilitating reason as to why our universities are no longer citadels of academic excellence or virtue is their unbridled pursuit of profit. This at the expense of most things academic. Ever since the government significantly reduced funding for universities, their new-found business models treat students and lecturers like commodities off a factory production line. Except that the commodities pay to be on the conveyor belt without a specific guarantee that they will be the full article after production. 

What this has led to is a culture of profiteering at the expense of knowledge production. This particularly so where and when it comes to what most universities refer to as the ‘parallel programmes’ for undergraduates. These, coupled with the now ubiquitous post graduate programmes in Business Administration and Development studies are the new university ‘cash cows’. This would not be a problem were these fundraising models being utilized for the promotion of academic freedom. Unfortunately however, they function in tandem with the repressive academic environment at the universities where the most visible and most critical element of university administrations remains the uniformed and punitive security guards.

Where arguments have been made about the right to education, this fundraising model remains one that limits the enjoyment of this right by citizens. It prioritizes the ability to pay over and above the right to an education to the extent that students more often than not fail to complete their studies due to financial constraints. Where they scrape through it is at great cost to not only their purse but also their academic aptitude and freedom (especially with the cadetship scheme).

In the final analysis, our universities perhaps are the default victims of state ineptitude and indifference toward higher education. But this does not absolve those in charge of them of complicity in the demise of academic freedom and the prioritization of inimical profit above all else. It would do well for vice chancellors to have that two line poem by Dambudzo Marechera posted on their doors, ‘Pub Conversation: My name is not money, but mind.’

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)

Zimbabwe’s Social Media, Elections and Mobilisation

Zimbabwe’s Social Media, Elections and Mobilisation.

By Takura Zhangazha*

Zimbabwe’s social media has had an ambiguous role in political events in the last twelve months and particularly with the yet to end July 31 2013 harmonized electoral period. Local ICT experts have lauded the expansion of mobile telephony and 3G internet as signifying definite improvements in citizens access to information and freedom of expression. Given the fact that the country faced a highly contested electoral period, the use of social media applications came to be dominated by matters related to politics and the targeting of voters. In other spheres such as in the mainstream media, social media was used to increase online readership and in part re-brand their titles into trendy multimedia publications. Civil society organizations also utilized the increasingly fashionable social media for voter education campaigns as well as to communicate variegated positions on the state of affairs in the country.

For those that were the end receivers of news received via Twitter, facebook or whatsup (among others), they took to it less to act on information received and more to express their own opinions on anything (from the religious to the political). In most instances it has become a platform more for information, entertainment, rumour-mongering and sensationalism that has transcended levels never seen before in Zimbabwe’s media and communications history. This ,to the extent that social media has left many a user upset, confused, seeking legal recourse or trying to contact the complaints email of one social media company or the other.

But perhaps what is of immediate concern are its political dimensions in Zimbabwe. Its arrival signified a major shift in how political news and events in the country are received and interpreted. Because it does not have a specific journalistic ethos as regards its content, the news that social media users put into the public domain were more for communication of opinion, personal matters than serving to professionally and ethically inform a somewhat unlimited number of persons.  This would then point to the fact that the arrival of social media led to the expansion of the right of Zimbabweans to receive and impart information in a manner that was more personally empowering and without direct censorship.  It is a right that in this electoral period Zimbabweans enjoyed all too well (if they could afford to get connected).

The overall impact of such usage of these media platforms on the overall election is something that pollsters and academics will take some months to give a verdict on, but it is important to place a few matters on the table.

The first of these is that social media usage and its evolution in Zimbabwean political matters was largely one of mimicry. Its political utilization was framed within the framework characterized by the Arab Spring, particularly the Tunisian version of it.  Except that here it was more for incremental change than any perceived or anticipated revolution. So the initial political usage of social media within the context of elections was more or less framed within the ambit of access to information and not action on information. This means that its usage in Zimbabwe was not in the aftermath of a specified injustice but in anticipation of a political event and therefore it had to be introduced and not enhanced.

This introduction of civic/political education and mobilization social media platforms literally unleashed a stream of what I would like to call ‘immediate/defensive consciousness’ related to various but specific political affiliations. And this is the second point to place on the table. More often than not, social media did not necessarily change the political viewpoints of users, it gave them a platform on which to reinforce or defend them against rival ones with greater urgency and immediacy. In the process it also served as a medium of rivalry even beyond political parties but also between differing civil society actors.

The penultimate issue relates to the emerging question of whether in Zimbabwe’s case, social media leads to action from the virtual and into reality. When one looks at the electoral period, beginning with the March 2013 Constitutional referendum, social media was important in generating public interest in various political issues but did not however significantly replace the direct need for either door to door lobbying, campaigning or political rallies. It was used more often than not after a major event and not as an event in and of itself. The campaigns to lure the youth to register to vote and eventually do so via social media could not be left merely to the internet by way of mobilizing. There had to be a prioritisation of physical mobilization and accepting the social media as ‘toppings’. Emphasis had to be placed on the real before turning to the virtual.

The final matter to be placed on the table is a rather controversial but necessary one to make. This being whether social media platforms have created new platforms for critical engagement or have merely extended the reach of propaganda. In the case of our country, for now, social media has reflected not only the mainstream views in our society but also the rival mainstream ideas about elections and/or their results.  This binary character to the ‘critical thought’ one encounters on these platforms means for now, whatever the hegemonic and counter hegemonic trends in real society, these will come to be represented in the new or alternative media.

So as it is, and during our electoral period (which has not yet ended) social media has been most useful as an alternative source of information for many citizens. It has also allowed greater participation by citizens  in debates that their opinions may have never seen it into any newspapers, radio or TV stations. It has not however, been as great an agent of direct change. For now, it remains direct and real mobilization that works.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)

In praise of Thabo Mbeki.

By Takura Zhangazha.*

Former South African President Thabo Mbeki is rarely acknowledged for the positive role that he played over and about mediating the Zimbabwean political crisis from 2007 to 2009.  In making this assertion I am aware there are those who have controversially and without direct evidence accused President Mbeki of being sympathetic more to Zanu Pf during his tenure as the SADC appointed facilitator/mediator of our political crisis. I prefer to consider President Mbeki’s role in our country from a more objective standpoint.

The Global Political Agreement when it was eventually signed in September 2008 was not the sum-total of SADC mediation under Mbeki in Zimbabwe. The mediation process, for those with shorter memories, began in earnest in March 2007 when SADC after meeting in Tanzania and in the wake of the brutal assault of members of the opposition on March 11 of the same year, seconded President Mbeki to Zimbabwe.  

The secretive character of the mediation correctly raised eyebrows in civil society circles but to all intents and purposes, the responsibility for Constitutional Amendment number 18 which brought into being the holding of harmonized elections resided with the political parties. Mbeki merely provided an engagement framework.

By the time we held our first harmonsied elections in 2008 the impact of the SADC mediation was all too apparent, and where the Presidential election result was in dispute, it fell upon President Mbeki to assist in resolving the impasse. The different opinions over the eventual GPA that was signed after three months of negotiations are well recorded and known. 

What would however be unfair is to put the blame for the inadequacies of MDC-T’s placement in government on the shoulders of the mediator. Our national leaders had to etch out an agreement at some point given what they had all referred to as their non-negotiable matters. That Mbeki demonstrated the relevant patience with these same said leaders and kept ‘liberal interventionists’ at bay must be applauded.

The essence of Mbeki’s mediation was guided by what may appear as a dictum, but was of fundamental importance. The principle was that Zimbabweans and their leaders had the capacity to resolve their problems without direct intervention or by way of international dictat. 

That is why the responsibility to lead was not so much with the SADC facilitator but with the political leaders in Zimbabwe and their supporters. As the SADC facilitated inclusive government comes to an end, there are many questions that are left for historians and political scientists to answer or address. A key one would be whether or not the government worked. Because its primary mandate was initially never intended to last a full four years or even be in tandem with the constitutionally given five year time-frame for elections, the blame for its continuation resides at the doorsteps of its principals and not with President Mbeki.

 For added measure, its eventual long duration was to indicate that indeed the political parties in the inclusive government may have agreed to get along for longer than had been stipulated. The dragging and regular politicization of the constitutional reform process is the best possible indicator of this assertion.

Disputes that emerged within the context of the inclusive government were Zimbabwean ones and not engineered externally. 

This is a key point to make because while in its initial stages the inclusive government was an unpopular entity, the reality that it became over the years has vindicated Mbeki’s approach. This in the sense that there was need to ensure that the country remains stable and that reforms that were to be made were to be done collectively by the three political parties represented in our Parliament. That the reforms undertaken by the inclusive government have been inadequate and elitist in nature is not the fault of SADC let alone President Mbeki.

In my assessment the inclusive government failed to be organic in its leadership of the country and missed many an historical moment to change the course of the country toward less disputed elections and a democratic culture. The outgoing government undertook its tasks without the requisite seriousness that was necessary in order for its tenure to be more meaningful and less politicized.

It is however the framework that was provided by Thabo Mbeki’s mediation role as facilitator that must be praised as the inclusive government’s tenure comes to a close. It was a framework in which all parties could demonstrate their commitment to democracy as well as their specific ability to lead both as members of cabinet and as national leaders. How they have fared is not an indictment on SADC or on President Mbeki. The latter did what was pragmatically possible, given the circumstances. And for that, I salute Thabo Mbeki.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)