by Bayano Valy – SANF 05 no 26
Zimbabwe opposition leader, Morgan Tsvaringai, is upbeat about his party’s prospects for a parlimentary majority in the 31 March elections, despite public opinion polls giving the edge to the ruling Zanu PF party.
Buoyed by a large turnout of about 25,000 people at a rally in Harare, Tsvaringai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said that he would use a victory at the polls to work with other countries to rescue Zimbabwe’s economy.
“We can’t uplift the economy without establishing relationships with other countries,” he said.
He did not say which countries he had in mind, whether regional or overseas. Zimbabwe enjoys good relations with most countries in Africa and Asia, but there is a rift with Europe and North America over the land recovery programme.
Analysts have pointed out that Zimbabwe is already on the road to economic recovery, although there is still a long way to go. Gone are the days of queues at petrol stations and shops, scarcity of bank notes and foreign exchange that hurt industrial and mining production.
Although inflation is still rampant at over 100 percent, it has been radically reduced from its high of over six times that figure, and is steadily going down, through close monitoring of a new monetary policy by the Reserve Bank.
To stem the haemorrage to the economy, in 2003, President Robert Mugabe appointed a respected banker, Gideon Gono, as governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe with a clear mandate to reverse the damaging tide.
Gono introduced a stringent monetary policy designed to turn around the economy, and he has achieved some positive results. Inflation which stood at 600 percent in 2003, had by December 2004 been lowered to 132.7 percent and is still going down.
Zimbabwe’s real Gross Domestic Product could record between three and five percent growth in 2005, a sign of a recovering economy.
The MDC leader, undaunted by the rosy picture painted by the Governor of the Reserve Bank, says that is too little and too late. Only an MDC government would have a vision of how things can be done to improve the lot of Zimbabweans and uplift the country’s economy.
“This is perhaps the only economy where we’ve got millionaires who are poor, and where there’s an expiring currency,” he said, referring to Gono’s measures to print high-denomination bearers cheques as a temporary measure. New currency notes are to be introduced next year.
Furthermore, “Mugabe and Zanu PF must not be allowed to continue privatising the patriotic commitment of Zimbabweans.”
He was responding to charges that MDC is a proxy party for foreign interests, notably Britain. “Mugabe cannot say that I’m less of a patriot than him,” Tsvangirai said. “Those who accuse us of selling our country, we want to tell them we don’t want that.”
Speaking of the government’s land reform programme aimed at correcting colonial injustices and returning arable land to black Zimbabweans, he did not criticize the concept of land reform but said that it had not been done properly.
Tsvangirai, who has been accused by the ruling party of wanting to return the land to its previous owners, said MDC’s vision for the land reform programme is for “one farm, one family.”
He said he recognises that Mugabe has contributed greatly for the liberation of Zimbabwe from colonial rule, which resulted in independence from Britain 25 years ago, but “he has failed the country over the past five years.”
Tsvangirai cited a litany of allegations to buttress his case, including charges that Mugabe has been starving MDC supporters and repressing the opposition. “What was the purpose of liberation?”
So MDC is seeking a parliamentary majority to enable it to ask Mugabe to resign. “If we get a majority in parliament,” he said, “Mugabe has no other option but to go.”
He promised that if MDC wins the elections it will provide free primary education, as well as further vocational training as an option to higher academic education.
The MDC manifesto promises to deliver food, jobs, education, health and dignity to Zimbabweans.
Our social welfare programme will address the plight of rural Zimbabwe, he said.
Meanwhile, MDC Information head, Nkanyiso Maqeda, said the turnout at the rallies seems to show that the party has a probability of winning easily in 60 of the 120 constituencies, and it is hoping to win a further 15 in some other contested areas.
Zimbabwe’s five political parties are contesting for 120 of the 150 seats in the national legislative house. The 30 non-constituency seats are filled by 10 chiefs elected by the Council of Chiefs, 10 provincial governors (appointed by the president) and 10 other presidential appointments.
In the 2000 parliamentary elections, ZANU-PF won 62 seats while MDC garnered 57. A small, regionally based party won one seat. A total of 16 by-elections have since occurred leaving the ZANU PF:MDC current ratio at 68:51 seats.
In the last parliamentary elections, the urban areas voted MDC while the rural areas remained the heartland of their liberation movement, ZANU-PF. A similar picture seems to be building for this election, although both parties are trying to woo the voters in their area of previous weakness.
Political anlysts and commentators predict a slight majority for Zanu PF with 65-72 seats to 46-55 seats for MDC, and the remaining seats to smaller parties and independent candidates. However, there are a number of seats that may be too close to call .
The country’s parliamentary elections have been contested every five years since independence in 1980, while the presidential poll comes every six years, with the next one due in 2008. (SARDC)
