POWER SHARING: THE REAL OUTSTANDING ISSUE

“DEAL SEALED” was the front headline in the Herald when the Global Political Agreement (GPA) was signed. I can still recall the day like it was yesterday. I remember that on that fateful day I was sitting on my college balcony when a close friend of mine, Charles Saki who had a copy of the Herald dashed in with the news. It so happened that on this day I had almost forgotten about any talks that had been taking place because I had lost track of the developments due to procrastination or should I say bickering over who should be what and with what executive power especially among the political parties. So as far as I was concerned, the so called talks were nothing to look forward to. I remember the furore as people took to the streets to celebrate what seemed like an escape from the claws of corruption, dictatorship and starvation of the ZANU PF regime into the “promised land”. The main prognosis of the Zimbabwean economy at the time was mismanagement of public funds compounded by a lack of transparency within the central bank as sound economic policies were shelved in place of arcane and individualistic ones. So this new development of signing of an agreement was a defining moment for the people of Zimbabwe as it was a sign of hope for a better life. The GPA later gave birth to what became known as the inclusive government comprised of the three political parties namely ZANU PF, MDC-M and MDC-T.The inclusive government marked a historical epoch which many have described as positive in that it brought with it, the use of multiple currencies which made commodities available. However, one thing that many will forever question is whether or not the inclusive government has lived up to people’s expectations. Many people have been affected by the vicissitudes of what has become known as “outstanding issues” in trying to answer the question The GPA document resembles a perfect deal in the sense that it has provisions that seem palatable in diction that is employed. Power sharing agreements have proved to be very difficult to implement in Africa. Allow me to digress from the Zimbabwean situation for a moment. Power sharing arrangements have proved difficult to translate into practice and have failed dismally in Africa. An examination of recent high-profile peace processes in Sierra Leone, Angola, and Rwanda suggests that power-sharing is a surprisingly unstable form of government that, even at the best of times, provides only a short-term reprieve from violent conflict. Other than as transitional remedies, power-sharing agreements are virtually unworkable. As argued elsewhere, in the aftermath of civil war, power-sharing agreements are difficult to arrive at, are even more difficult to put into practice, and when implemented rarely stand the test of time. Indeed, the problem with power-sharing is even more fundamental. Power sharing does not resolve conflict but instead may only temporarily displace it or disguise disputants' more malevolent intentions. There is much that is intuitively appealing about power-sharing, and it is no surprise that it is repeatedly proposed as a form of post conflict governance. Since each group is given a slice of power and access to state resources, disputants should find, at least in theory, less to fight about. Moreover, since recent efforts at power-sharing have also included provisions that allow each group to contribute its own troops to an integrated military, a semblance of group security is sustained. In fact, despite Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki’s and his Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe's manipulation of their respective elections, power-sharing deals legitimized them to take the highest seats in the government. Botswana President Ian Khama explained the agreements in Kenya and Zimbabwe as "bad precedents for the democracy in the continent." The Kenyan case also shows that structural reforms are very difficult to implement under power sharing. The recent power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe between Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has several similarities with the one signed in Kenya. Even though the historical and political situations in the two countries are profoundly different, in both countries elections were manipulated by the governments and ended up in violence. Both power-sharing deals envisaged the creation of separated center of power and the drafting of a new constitution that could prevent further conflict in the future. Negotiated settlements of civil wars involve multiple and complex challenges. They must cope simultaneously with problems of representativeness, effective governance, and economic development. Under conditions of great turbulence, how can negotiators design institutions that will increase the likelihood of an ongoing bargaining process? One alternative, widely favored in contemporary Africa, is to attempt to reassure weaker parties about their future through the adoption of power sharing institutions, such as executive power sharing or federalism. Such arrangements appear to be logical responses to the need for ethnic inclusion, but at a possible price in terms of dealing with the challenges of governance and economic development. It therefore becomes necessary to examine other alternatives, such as political centralization, territorial partition and various hybrid models to see if these approaches have the potential to offer durable solutions during the consolidation phase of agreements. Power sharing has proved to be very arduous since there will always be acrimony especially when it comes to implementation. For example the GPA explicitly stipulates that the Prime Minister “exercises executive authority, shall ensure that the policies so formulated are implemented by the entirety of government”. Any honest person can agree with me that we haven’t seen the Prime Minister really exercising the so called “executive powers”. The GPA also stipulates that the PM “shall ensure that the Ministers develop appropriate implementation plans to give effect to the policies decided by cabinet: in this regard, the Ministers will report to the Prime Ministers will report to the PM on all issues relating to the implementation of such policies and plans”. The question however is whether ZANU PF Ministers such as Emmerson Mnangagwa, Patrick Chinamasa really report to him. Of course on paper they are supposed to do so but do they really report to him? Since the unity government came into effect we have witnessed a violation of the agreement. President Mugabe made unilateral appointments without consultation with the Prime Minister as provided for in the GPA.The GPA also states that the President in consultation with the Prime Minister “makes key appointments”. We did not see any consultation when Gono and Tomana were reappointed by the president. In addition to all this, they say the Ministry of Home Affairs is co-chaired. How true is that when we have police being used to unleash violence against MDC supporters who happen to have a representation there? Do hardliners such as Chihuri really submit to Mutsekwa? All these questions are not worth asking because the truth is already known. The truth that the MDC must always come to terms with is one outstanding issue-power sharing. Power has not been shared equally and instead of saying Gono, Tomana are outstanding issues, among a gamut of irrational issues, the real issue that they must have sought to address in the beginning was power sharing. If the MDC has been more aggressive and more tenacious towards advocating for power balance within the inclusive government, then we would not have the so called outstanding issues dogging the performance of the inclusive government. If the MDC had seen that power was not being shared from the beginning that was the best time to blow the whistle and call upon SADC to push ZANU PF to respect the agreement. But suffice to say; probably we can give them respite, since they have never been in government before. They were probably living in a fools’ paradise and busy with the fantasies of driving posh cars and being addressed as “honourables” and yet forgot that they were supposed to be equal partners in the agreement. They only announced of a partial “disengagement” late in October, after 9months of unbalanced power matrix. The inclusive government is just an establishment that has brought less change as far as ZANU PF’s hegemenony with regards to the media, security and agriculture is concerned. Of course there might be a grain of truth in saying that real change has come but most institutions have remained intact. The MDC’s role in the inclusive government was to accomplish the 3d’s; destroy that is ZANU PF’s control over state apparatus, displace the torture and unwarranted arrests and dismantle ZANU’s draconian rule. To the present day little in this regard has been achieved. ZANU PF Ministers frequently defy the GPA day and night and nothing is being done. The inclusive government lacks structures that are autonomous from political interference. For example the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee was created to oversee the progress and implementation of the Global Political Agreement but it is toothless in the sense that it cannot carry out its mandate because lack of structures to support its work. We have a situation where we have moribund committees and Ministries created by the inclusive government that lacks any form of power. For example the Ministry of National Healing and Reconciliation is defunct and has delivered nothing since its inception. These Ministries are of paramount importance but what ZANU PF has successfully managed to do is to paralyze these institutions so that they exist only in name but with really little or no progress at all. As the inclusive government celebrates its one year anniversary maybe one thing to reflect and take stock of is, whether power has really been shared especially among the political parties. This question appears more poignant to many because the situation that we have after a year of “power sharing” cannot escape scrutiny. Maybe the MDC needs to rethink their position especially when it comes to power sharing. Will the MDC continue to get a raw deal in 2010? Only time will tell. We just have to wait and see. Rawlings Magede is an intern at Misa-Zimbabwe.He can be contacted on http://no-rawedge.blogspot.com/