LITMIR.BIZ

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judge suspended the sentence on account of Sithole’s deteriorating health, and the sinister manipulation ended when Sithole died in December 2000. There is a striking similarity between Sithole’s trial in 1996, the judicial charade whereby Tsvangirai was repeatedly accused of plotting against the regime, and the trials held against ZAPU leaders in the 1980s—in particular the joint trial of Dumiso Dabengwa and Lookout Masuku in 1983, or Sydney Malunga’s trial in 1986.

      ZANU-PF’s top leadership has a particular taste for this method of ridding itself of opponents. The systematic harassment of all opposition, even before it becomes a significant threat to the regime, not only points to the existence underneath the surface until 2000 of a police state, but also underlines also the huge obstacles of any emerging force trying to compete with ZANU-PF. This was compounded by the ruling party’s control over the media, which prevented the opposition parties from campaigning and reaching the masses. However, the biggest obstacle perhaps was the twisted constitutional and legal framework and the control it gave to Mugabe’s cronies over the electoral process.

       Controlling the State

      Post-independence Zimbabwe was never a genuine pluralist democracy, and “democratization” was never on the ruling party’s agenda, even in the 1990s after the one-party state proposal was reluctantly shelved. Since Mugabe became prime minister in 1980, he has consistently undermined the institutional framework contained in the Lancaster House agreement: a liberal constitution—not devoid of loopholes and weaknesses that civic organizations wanted to correct in 1999—that provided for a balance of powers, an independent judiciary, and multiparty and free elections. Not only did Mugabe change the constitution to suit his whims but he used Rhodesian legislation to serve his purpose: the Law and Order Maintenance Act (LOMA) and the State of Emergency—renewed every six months from February 1980 until July 1990—are cases in point.⁹⁰ The government made full use of the Emergency Powers Act (1965) to produce a wide range of regulations that amended existing legislation or imposed arbitrary measures. The end result was a thinly disguised authoritarian regime where power to decide, punish, or reward was ultimately concentrated in Mugabe’s hands. In spite of the rhetoric, enhancing genuine popular participation was of no concern to him. On the contrary, the concentration of powers also allowed him to alter the electoral process in order to keep ZANU-PF in power forever.

       Institutionalizing Personal Rule

      The Lancaster House agreement of December 1979 provided for a Westminster type of parliamentary democracy with a ceremonial head of state, a prime minister with executive powers, a Cabinet responsible to the lower chamber (the House of Assembly), and a Senate as the second chamber. This format, common in former British colonies, did not fit with the one-party state project, and, more important, it hampered Mugabe’s capacity to rule at will. Therefore, the party “chefs”⁹¹ were eager to speed up the necessary changes. However, a two-thirds majority in Parliament was required for the most important ones. In 1987 ZANU enlisted the support of five white “independents” to pass Constitutional Amendment No. 6 abolishing the twenty parliamentary seats and the separate voting roll reserved for the whites.⁹² The subjugation of ZAPU allowed more sweeping constitutional changes to take place in 1987. Constitutional Amendment No. 7 instituted an “executive presidency”: Mugabe concentrated the powers of the former nonexecutive president and those of the prime minister in his hands.⁹³ In addition, many sections of the constitution were thoroughly rewritten by Eddison Zvobgo, Mugabe’s legal expert and diehard supporter,⁹⁴ to enlarge the president’s area of control, creating what an analyst dubbed “a presidential monarch.”⁹⁵

      The president appointed and dismissed government ministers at will but hardly needed them to run the country. Although he could address the Parliament whenever he wished, he was shielded from the MPs’ questions and was not responsible to the House of Assemby, which he could dissolve at will.⁹⁶ He enjoyed wide-ranging powers to institute new legislation without going through Parliament under the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act of 1986,⁹⁷ although he could not change the constitution without Parliament’s approval. The president could veto any bill presented by MPs and the Parliament could overrule this veto only by a two-thirds majority of its total membership. Mugabe was virtually untouchable as he could dissolve the Parliament once the legal process to remove him from office had begun, thus effectively dissuading parliamentarians to ever think of such a prospect. Therefore, neither the separation of powers nor the principle of responsible government was guaranteed by the constitution.⁹⁸ Only the Supreme Court, through its power to interpret the constitution, offered limited safeguards. This move toward a presidency with near-absolute powers, and the subsequent weakening of Parliament and the judiciary has been a common trajectory in African postcolonial states.⁹⁹ However, because of delayed independence, it took place in Zimbabwe about twenty years after other authoritarian presidential regimes in Africa had been roundly criticized. ZANU-PF could have drawn lessons from their fellow Africans’ mistakes, but constitutional reform was the first step toward the institutionalization of the one-party state.¹⁰⁰ The political surrender of ZAPU and the co-option of its leaders into the ruling party had actually removed the last significant force with a capacity to contain Robert Mugabe’s near-absolute power.

      Although President Mugabe reluctantly dropped the one-party-state project in September 1990, because it encountered vocal opposition both in the public opinion (stirred by ZUM) and within the ruling party, the “executive presidency” has remained the backbone of authoritarian rule in Zimbabwe. Constitutional Amendment No. 9 of 1989 abolished the Senate, originally intended to protect the political rights of minorities and counterbalance a more partisan lower chamber, removing another protection against power abuses. Through the addition of the thirty Senate seats it then expanded the House of Assembly to one hundred and fifty members, and the added seats were used for political patronage: Mugabe directly or indirectly—for the traditional chiefs¹⁰¹—appointed these MPs. This provided the ruling party with an unfair advantage since any other party winning a majority of the 120 elected seats could still find itself lacking an overall parliamentary majority, and moreover the majority to overrule his veto, remove him from office, or amend the constitution. On the contrary, Mugabe needed only 46 of the contested seats to retain an absolute majority in Parliament. Winning 75 seats of 120 was an impossible task to achieve for the nascent MDC in June 2000. Short of this a victorious opposition would have found it impossible to govern the country and legislate, and the ZANU-PF regime made sure it never came close to achieving such numbers.

      The ZANU-PF regime reintroduced the Senate for political expediency as part of Constitutional Amendment No. 17, passed in late August 2005. Out of the 66 seats of the new Senate, only 50 were to be contested within a constituency system on the basis of 5 constituencies per province (which led to an overrepresentation of the rural areas in this chamber). Another 10 seats were reserved for chiefs selected by the provincial colleges of chiefs, and the last 6 were to be appointed directly by the president. This amendment was meant as a minimal gesture to accommodate those demanding constitutional reform, both inside and outside the country, while strengthening Mugabe’s grip. A vote of no confidence was made more improbable with the requirement of a two-thirds majority in both houses.¹⁰² The MDC would have to try harder to win majority in two houses rather than in only one. Moreover, the new Senate provided also semiretirement positions for aging ZANU-PF politicians at a time Mugabe once again wanted to rely on younger and more loyal figures, and some solace for the losers in the party primaries before the March 2005 general election.

      The combination of extensive presidential powers and the ruling party’s domination of Parliament has reduced the House of Assembly to a rubber-stamping role, with important bills being rushed through Parliament without much debate in the relevant parliamentary committees—or ignoring the latter’s advice. In the few instances when backbenchers resisted the dictates of the executive they were soon whipped into line. They could only tackle the Cabinet minister during question time, the most lively part of the debates reported in the parliamentary gazette Hansard, and some of the backbenchers like Malunga excelled in this game. Some select committees produced useful reports rarely followed by any action. However, the growing dissatisfaction of the ZANU-PF caucus forced the Cabinet to agree to the establishment of a Parliamentary Reform Committee

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