Inclusive govt: Disabuse self of blinding myths

First, there is the myth that the so-called Global Political Agreement (GPA) signed on September 15 2008 is the binding reference point for running the country. Second, there is the myth that the turnaround of the economy is possible in the absence of the Zimbabwe dollar. The third myth is that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have the credibility to define the economic and political reforms that are needed in the country. Then there is the fourth myth that the current political dispensation is a transition whose essence is to transfer power from ZANU-PF to the MDC-T.
Although there are some in ZANU-PF who believe in these myths, full-time religious-like takers of the myths are found within MDC-T circles and among that party’s donor supporters whose main myth is that the coalition government represents a transition from Zanu-PF to MDC-T rule.
By definition, it does not make sense to say that a coalition government made up of three political parties, two of which have a more or less similar number of seats in Parliament, constitutes a transfer of power from one of the two parties to the other.  The essence of a coalition government such as the one formed on February 13 is the sharing of power and not its transfer. This point has been made before, but it needs to be made again and again.
The sharing of power under a coalition government typically happens in a pre-transition within which there are three political possibilities: sliding back into the old system, remaining in the pre-transition coalition government for a longer period than initially anticipated or moving into a new order superintended by one of the pre-transition parties or led by any other political formation that was not a formal part of the transition.
MDC-T myth-makers have not understood this important dynamic.  Rather, they have naively assumed that the mere fact of their being part of the coalition government means there is a transition which entails the transfer of power from ZANU-PF to the MDC-T.
It is in this connection that the MDC-T has taken the stance that its political demands are outstanding issues that must be met without any compromise whatsoever. An example of that unreasonable stance based on the myth that the coalition government represents a transition from ZANU-PF rule to its full control of power is the MDC-T’s outrageous call for the unconstitutional and therefore illegal removal from office of Attorney-General Johannes Tomana and central bank governor, Gideon Gono.
Another example of the same is Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s recent appeal to Western donor countries to provide financial support to the coalition government on grounds that failure to make available such support would enable “ZANU-PF hardliners” to derail the presumed ongoing transition from ZANU-PF to MDC-T rule.
The Prime Minister’s reference to “ZANU-PF hardliners” is misleading not only because he fails to acknowledge that his party also has even more dangerous hardliners, but more importantly because he conveniently overlooks the fact that ZANU-PF is an equal partner in the coalition government, which is headed by its first secretary and president, Robert Mugabe. 
But, perhaps, the one forgotten fact obscured by the myth that the mere presence of the MDC-T in the coalition government represents a transition and transfer of power is that no single party won outright control of government at the polls on March 29 2008. The coalition government is with us today precisely and only because the last general election was inconclusive with no outright winner. This is why we are in a pre-transition under a coalition government.
Yet the MDC-T continues to behave as if it won a landslide at the polls in 2008. No wonder that the MDC-T has shown neither qualms nor shame about presenting its patently partisan and even mischievous demands as outstanding national issues that must be honoured in full without any question.
To support the myth that Zimbabwe is in a transition, defined by a transfer of power from ZANU-PF to its rule, the MDC-T has been peddling another myth that the IMF and the World Bank have the credibility to lead economic and political reforms in the country.
The myth about the alleged relevance of the IMF and the World Bank to Zimbabwe’s turnaround efforts, whose leading proponent is Finance Minister Tendai Biti, is most unfortunate. This is because it is coming at a time when there is a new international consensus that — as Bretton Woods institutions created to safeguard American and European economic interests — both the IMF and the World Bank have become outdated, discredited, irrelevant and useless to the new global economy of the 21st Century.
Against this backdrop, Minister Biti’s uncritical swallowing of the IMF line demonstrates not only his poor leadership, which places him as the odd one out among progressive finance ministers from developing countries, but also demonstrates that his MDC-T is so ideologically bankrupt as to be frozen in the past along with the debris of the now discarded so-called Washington Consensus within which the IMF and the World Bank were once worshiped as global financial Gods.
What makes the myth about the alleged relevance of the IMF and the World Bank to Zimbabwe’s reform agenda worse is that these are the same multilateral financial institutions that are legally unable to help Zimbabwe, not because of their global incompetence which is now widely recognised even in Washington and London, but in terms of the illegal economic sanctions imposed on the country by the United States government under the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA).
The argument advanced by Minister Biti that the IMF can provide technical expertise to Zimbabwe is ludicrous because everyone knows that Zimbabwe has better trained, better skilled and more experienced technical expertise in and outside the country than the IMF staff most of whom are celebrated failures in their home countries.
What Zimbabwe needs from the IMF is funding, not technical assistance because we have technical expertise in abundance and we need a Minister of Finance who has the mind and courage to tell the IMF just that. Sadly, Minister Biti does not fit the bill not least because he is too pre-occupied with settling his personal scores with governor Gono.
The IMF itself is aware of this and that’s why it has said it cannot provide any funding until Zimbabwe settles its arrears. Sending incompetent staffers to pry into our strategic national position at institutions such as the central bank under the guise of technical assistance does not improve Zimbabwe’s arrears position, but is in fact, subversive and should not be allowed.
While Zimbabwe does need to mend its relations with the international community, it does not follow that by doing so means that the coalition government must be hopelessly subservient to outdated, discredited and useless institutions such as the IMF through the disorganised offices of Minister Biti. Such subservience, based purely on the myth of IMF-defined and IMF-led recovery, will not improve the performance of the coalition government, let alone turnaround the economy.
Minister Biti’s bad myth of an IMF-based economic turnaround is made worse by his other terrible myth that the continuing economic crisis will be averted when the Zimbabwe dollar is not in currency after he officially killed it in his maiden budget statement earlier this year.
There is no country in the modern world that has ever managed to get out of an economic meltdown either without its own currency or without formal dollarisation as happened in Argentina when it discarded its currency at the height of its economic meltdown. It is common cause that the present multi-currency dispensation is an informal process without the formal blessing of the monetary authorities of the countries whose currencies are in use.
Zimbabweans still remember that their national currency was supposed to co-circulate with the various foreign currencies that are in use, but this stopped when Minister Biti declared the Zimbabwe dollar dead without taking the necessary legal steps of formalising that death.
Nothing is as scarce as cash at the moment. The majority of the population in both urban and rural areas has no cash and that is true for both businesses and ordinary people. In the absence of formal dollarisation, which won’t happen, there is no way in heaven through which the growing liquidity crunch is going to improve outside the restoration of the Zimbabwe dollar.
Of course, there are issues to be considered about the value of the Zimbabwe dollar and how to manage its restoration. Such issues could have been better resolved had the national currency been allowed to co-circulate with the other foreign currencies in use. The tragedy is that the opportunity of doing the right thing has been squandered on the altar of an irresponsible myth of a currency-less economic reform programme which is impoverishing businesses and ordinary people alike.
The message to the coalition government about its mindless pursuit of the myth that it can somehow move the country forward without the use of the Zimbabwe dollar should be clear: no national currency, no economic reform. 
Interestingly, whenever the coalition government’s pursuit of transitional, IMF and currency-less reform myths run into trouble, the refuge of choice is the myth that the so-called GPA signed on September 15 2008 is the bible for the coalition government.
Now that the government must be judged on its performance, the time has come to make the point as loud and as clear as possible that the GPA was useful as a piece of paper only in so far as it enabled the three political parties that signed it, to pass the relevant legislation in Parliament, namely, Constitutional Ame-ndment (Number 19) Act, to facilitate the formation of the coalition government in terms of the laws of the land as was done on February 13.
The fact that the coalition government is now in place in accordance with the Constitution of Zimbabwe means that the GPA has become a useless piece of paper. Continuous references to or reliance on the GPA either in regard to the so-called outstanding issues or any other issue, for that matter, is really a waste of time because the institution of government is based on the law and not on the GPA.
It is, therefore, a dangerous political myth for the MDC and its supporters to continue referring to the GPA as a binding point of reference over the functioning of government or over state institutions, such as the central bank and the Attorney-General’s Office, whose officers are appointed in terms of the law.
Rather than indulging in endless and self-serving myth-making, there is a real opportunity for the coalition government to explore substantive ways of turning around the economy using God-given Zimbabwean natural and human resources.
However, as much as Minister Biti may want to pander to Western donors, whom this week he unwisely labelled as “unscientific and ahistorical” — as if science and history had anything to do with the issues at hand — the fact of the matter is that our national economy will not be turned around outside a clear national agenda of empowering ordinary people and businesses.
Nothing significant will happen if Zimbabwean companies continue to operate under 20 percent while the Minister of Finance continues to demand that these squeezed companies and battered informal traders should pay more and more taxes when they are not creating new or more wealth; nothing significant will happen if the Minister of Finance continues to treat ordinary Zimbabweans as hunter-gatherers who do not deserve to have their national currency back; and nothing will happen if the Minister of Finance continues to look overseas for phantom dollars that will not come when our own soil has real resources  under it crying for economic exploitation in the national interest.
In addition to finding creative ways of utilising our own natural resources, there is a historic opportunity of coming up with a strategy of attracting funding from Zimbabweans in the diaspora.
The fact that the coalition government has done nothing that is policy significant about diaspora funds when there are millions of Zimbabweans working outside the country, demonstrates the breathtaking incompetence of those charged with economic reform in the coalition government.

– Professor Jonathan Moyo is an independent MP for Tsholotsho North.