IRIN Focus on post-election situation

With the opposition contesting the results in at least 20 constituencies following last month’s parliamentary elections, experts in Zimbabwe said this week it could take several weeks before President Robert Mugabe is able to appoint a new government. Although there is no constitutional time limit stipulating when a new cabinet should be named, the experts told IRIN the significant gains made in parliament by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had complicated the process. In the race for 120 seats contested, the labour union-based MDC formed just nine months ago captured 57 seats against 62 for Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party and 1 clinched by an independent, the veteran African nationalist, Ndabaningi Sithole. In the outgoing legislature, ZANU-PF held all but three seats. There are however 150 seats in parliament. Ten of these are reserved for traditional chiefs, while Mugabe has the constitutional right to appoint the remaining 20. The complicating factors “Only once those 20 are appointed, will he be in a position to form a new government and it remains to be seen whether any MDC people will be included among those 20,” said John Robertson, a leading commentator and economist in Zimbabwe. “So it could take some time, especially given that at least six seats may be subject to a re-run.” Opposition newspapers have also cited potential splits within the 62-member ZANU-PF parliamentary caucus. Although ZANU-PF has not publicly commented, the reports have quoted some provincial governors as saying the differences are mostly between the younger wing of the party and their elders as well as over the country’s economic crisis. Mugabe has traditionally appointed a large cabinet to accommodate each of the 20 regions of the country. But at least half a dozen senior cabinet ministers lost their seats to MDC candidates in the election, and it remains to be seen whether any will be reinstated in parliament, the analysts said. Mugabe, 76, and ZANU-PF have been in power for 20 years since independence from Britain in 1980. Although his current presidential term ends in April 2002, they said a presidential election could be brought forward by either a split in the ruling party, or a move in parliament by MDC for a confidence vote. MDC leader says Mugabe should be impeached Morgan Tsvangirai, the 47-year-old MDC leader told the ‘Daily News’ in an interview published on Wednesday that Mugabe ought to be impeached following a wave of pre-election violence in which 33 people died and some 6,500 were displaced. Calling for a commission of inquiry to establish who initiated the pre-election violence, the newspaper quoted Tsvangirai as saying: “We need to investigate and find out the truth about who was behind the pre-election violence. The president was responsible for initiating this violence, so there is every reason for impeachment. “It was unconstitutional and it was a violation of the rule of law. The culprits must be prosecuted and never again shall we have an election which is characterised by that level of violence. It shows immaturity and a high level of intolerance.” The rural violence has abated since the election. Earlier in the week, MDC officials confirmed to IRIN that Tsvangerai had rejected government overtures that he take up one of the nominated seats and join a government of national unity. They said he had also instructed his party followers in parliament not to accept any seats in a new ZANU-PF government. Robertson said the political tide apparently running against Mugabe and his party, Mugabe would find it difficult to bring in the fresh blood that some of his new MPs believe necessary to revamp ZANU-PF’s image and push through progressive economic reforms. The liveliest parliament in 50 years “The one factor that is certain in all of this is that Zimbabwe is going to have the liveliest parliament it has had in 50 years. We have not seen anything like it during Mugabe’s 20 years, during the previous white Rhodesian regime under Ian Smith, not since the British-rule days of the late 1940s and early 1950s,” Robertson said. In a recent editorial, the official daily ‘The Herald’, which backed ZANU-PF during the election, said: “A strong opposition will keep ZANU-PF on its toes, make it refine its policies and programmes and ensure that they work. But the opposition also has to be responsible, attacking where there is slipshod work, but being prepared to support national goals genuinely and honestly.” Both sides and their supporters, it added, “now have to show the same maturity to make the new dispensation work”. Legal delays can hurt the economy But the legal challenges, and the possible re-run of some elections, are expected to take weeks, raising concerns about economic uncertainty at a time of rising inflation expected to reach 70 percent, unemployment levels around 50 percent, and a growing budget deficit. Economists have cited concern that the government has still failed to devalue the Zimbabwe dollar currently valued at 38 to the US dollar. An exchange rate of 50 to the American dollar is considered more realistic to boost exports. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has said that in the first quarter of 2000 the budget deficit reached close to US $386 million, implying an annualised deficit of nearly 19 percent of gross domestic product. EU cautions Zimbabwe Meanwhile, in its final report on the Zimbabwe elections this week, the European Union (EU) also called for an investigation into the violence, which it said had continued sporadically in the countryside since the voting on 24-25 June. An EU spokeswoman told IRIN that Pierre Schori, the former Swedish government minister who led the EU election team, had told the 15-nation body headquartered in Brussels this week that future European aid “will be linked to the restoration of law and order and the removal of farm squatters”. A small group of European monitors, she added, will remain in Zimbabwe until at least 14 July. In his final 50-page report, released at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France on Tuesday, Schori reiterated the mission’s interim statement issued on 26 June that the election process had been flawed and affected by violence and intimidation. As a result, the report concluded, the term “free and fair” was not applicable to the Zimbabwe election.