Zimbabwe: Tsvangirai Reform Agenda Faces Zanu PF Resistance

Kholwani Nyathi

27 March 2010

ANALYSIS

Harare — PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has cobbled up an ambitious plan that might see government relaxing draconian media and security laws by the end of the year but analysts say its success is threatened by hardliners in Zanu PF who are determined to preserve the status quo.

The government work plan for this year, which Tsvangirai's office indicated would be launched in parliament this week, also proposes monitoring mechanism for the performance of cabinet ministers.

Under the plan, the government will introduce at least 17 amendments to laws including the notorious Public Order and Security Act and repeal the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act used to ban critical newspapers and journalists.

Ai ppa would be replaced by the proposed Freedom of Information Act and the Media Practitioners Act.

President Robert Mugabe has used the draconian legislation, most of it inherited from the colonial regimes, to extend his power and to ruthlessly silence his opponents.

Zanu PF and the two Movement for Democratic Change formations have been given a Monday (tomorrow) deadline to conclude the long running negotiations on the outstanding issues from their power sharing agreement.

The disputes centered on the allocation of key posts and the status of Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, Attorney General Johannes Tomana and MDC's choice of deputy agriculture minister, Roy Bennett has retarded the transitional government's reform agenda.

"It will be a real battle because I forsee Zanu PF resisting these changes because they will diminish the party's power," he said.

"But if they are introduced through parliament, Zanu PF will lose the battle because MDC-M is likely to fight in Tsvangirai's corner.

"However, a lot depends on what is going to happen in the GPA talks that end on Monday. If the changes that Tsvangirai is proposing are covered by the agreements reached in the talks there should be no problem."

He said what could complicate things for Tsvangirai was that most of the legislative changes affected Zanu PF ministers who have tried to undermine Tsvangirai's authority since the formation of the unity government last year.

The Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity under Webster Shamu, the Zanu PF political commissar is seen as one of the biggest outposts of resistance to change as illustrated by officials who have tried to prevent the Zimbabwe Media Commission from fulfilling its mandate of licencing new newspapers.

Brilliant Mhlanga, a Zimbabwean academic based at the University of Westminster in the United Kingdom said the fact that Tsvangirai wanted to use the Council of Ministers (CoM) to push the reforms might prove to be his undoing.

Tsvangirai chairs the CoM, which is responsible for policy formulation in the inclusive government. Mhlanga said the body's authority was being overstated.

"It is clear that the structure called the CoM was in fact, created simply to present conditions of pretence," he said.

"It is indeed, a clear statement of hoodwinking the international community into blindly seeing those changes which they wish to see as happening, when nothing is actually changing. It is a situation of a difference that remains the same."

Zimbabwe is preparing for an election next year and electioneering might also derail the legislative agenda.

The International Crisis Group, a global organisation led by retired statesmen, in its latest report warns that Zimbabwe is facing political and security risks that might scuttle the current transition.

It says the military and other Mugabe loyalists are using their symbiotic relationship with the state apparatus to exercise veto power over the reformists

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