By Takura Zhangazha*
Presidential spokesperson for the Zimbabwean government,
George Charamba this week made what would be relatively startling remarks. Quoted in a story carried by the Herald newspaper
titled. ‘Plot to Destabilise Economy Exposed’, Charamba is, inter alia, reported
to have said,
“ We have realised that there is a clear nexus between
runaway market activities and runaway opposition politics, that more and more,
the security threat to this country, the destabilisation to this country is
finding expressing through the market, so there is heightened smuggling of
gold, there is heightened transactions, there is release of precious foreign
currency into the black market, all to create a generalised instability which
have the effect of creating disenchantment on the part of the Government..”
While it read like a familiar script from state officials
against the mainstream political opposition in Zimbabwe, it has a different
tone of tongue lashing. Especially where
he goes further to reportedly state, “The
politics are being shaped from the market…you will realise that we are in a
phase where destabilisation has assumed a market form. The calculation was a
health sector led generalised public strike, we are aware of such plots.”
I have quoted his statements at length because they reflect either
a sense of panic at the top of the government (presidency) or a new found
intention at redefining the relationship between private capital and the ruling
Zanu Pf party via the state.
In both likely circumstances, Charamba is not speaking for himself. Even if his words may also betray his
personal opinions on the matter to a keen reader.
It would however be easier, if not popular(list), to view his comments
as reflective of a sense of panic in the ruling establishment. All happening in a national political economy
in which the political elite and private capital/ big businesses are panicking
over control of mobile money, foreign currency exchange rates and the suspension
of the symbol of global financial capital, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE).
It is a narrative that fits into a neo-liberal framework of anticipating
that where a government acts arbitrarily against what would be private capital
(in this immediate case, components of Masiyiwa’s empire: Econet and Cassava),
a national economy collapses.
So the ‘market’ that Charamba refers to here is probably comprised
of three key players. The state (and its regulators), domestic fixed and financial
private capital (local big business) and thirdly, the latter’s global
financialised off-shoot as represented by the ZSE. Including what would be
considered its hegemonic outfits in the form of political parties, consumers and other forms of Gramscian civil society. All being together in an axis of and for
profit.
In all of this there are those who would hope that the ‘economy
screams’ in the hope that Zanu PF loses its hold on political power in the country.
Hence the accusations of plots to destabilize the country. While on the other hand those sympathetic with
Mnangagwa hope he can keep not only power but his own party and its patronage
system somehow intact.
Hence anyone sensing a panicking within Mnangagwa’s
government cannot be considered off the mark.
Even if they may sound conspiratorial about coups, potential coups and foreign
interventions in Zimbabwe’s domestic political affairs.
Where one takes the view that Charamba’s statements are
indicative of a potential changing of the rules of the relationship between the
state and private capital (market), it is probably a more ideological view of
matters.
In this, it would be clear that what is not going to change
is the open for business free market policy of central government. At least not
in ideological intention. Instead what
appears to be an issue is the assumed dishonesty by private capital toward the
olive branch that Mnangagwa had been offering since assuming and retaining
power thus far. Coming from Mugabe’s purportedly
radical indigenisation programme, his successor thought he had private capital
in his palm. It turns out big business would want to have its unfettered
financialised and extractive profit more than seek to help him retain
power.
Hence, if one reads between the lines of Charamba’s reported
comments, there would be both a warning and intention of a new approach to government’s
neo-liberal project. It would be a change that most likely would be characterized
by a reconfiguration of who the state does business with or allows to extract
more profit from state wealth. And this
would, academically at least, take the form of state capitalism i.e a
neoliberalism that follows the free market, but with the state/government parceling
out profit motivated opportunities of the same.
So there is probably an attempt in central government to
redraw the rules of doing business in Zimbabwe.
But because they are courting global private capital, it is least likely
that this change of the relationship between the state and business will be
more significant beyond regulatory warnings and threats. Fundamentally, established domestic capital
and global financialised capital are looking at this as a storm in a tea
cup. All the while angling for better
concessions from the state to continue to open up national wealth for their
profit motivated pillaging of the same. Almost
as though the state is inviting them to the dinner table and saying, ‘let’s play
nice, we can all eat together’. And in
this, as long as Zanu Pf insists on neo-liberal economics as a panacea to Zimbabwe's economic challenges, it is least likely
to win against private capital. Or those that it thinks are conspiring with the
latter.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)
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