Zimbabwe - 2008 Elections
In April 2007, South African President Thabo Mbeki, at the behest of SADC and the international community, was designated to serve as mediator between Robert Mugabe's government and the MDC. The mediation aimed to define a mutually agreed upon election date and procedures to rewrite the constitution. While the mediations were ongoing, Mugabe announced that "harmonized" elections would be held on March 29, 2008, despite Morgan Tsvangirai's protests that the mediation was still underway and that there was not enough time to campaign.
As in 2005, the pre-election period was not free and fair. The environment was characterized by violence and a media environment that heavily favored Mugabe. Although Tsvangirai was allowed to campaign, Zimbabwean police did not grant permission to MDC to hold all of its rallies, and some MDC activists were intimidated and beaten in the weeks before the election. Foreign journalists were not granted permission to cover the story from Zimbabwe. Election day was largely peaceful, with international observers from the African Union, SADC, and the Pan African Parliament present; observers from Western nations, including the United States, were not invited.
The "harmonized" elections for the presidency, House of Assembly, Senate, and local government demonstrated a significant shift in the political environment. MDC secured a majority in the parliament, giving the MDC control of the legislative branch. In the presidential race, MDC's Tsvangirai secured 47.9%, while Mugabe came in second with 43.2%. Simba Makoni, who left Mugabe's ZANU-PF party in February 2008 to run as an independent, received 8.3%. The results in the presidential race were not released until May 2, 2008. This lengthy delay called into question the credibility and independence of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC). Initially the MDC challenged the results, asserting that Tsvangirai had secured the majority of votes needed to win the presidency. Because no candidate secured the 50%-plus-one needed, a runoff was set for June 27, 2008.
As of early June 2008, over 50 Zimbabweans had been killed, at least 2,000 injured, and over 30,000 displaced as a result of widespread post-election violence, including state-sponsored violence. Due to these and other events, and out of concern for the lives of his MDC supporters, Tsvangirai announced in late June that he would not contest the runoff election. Voters went to the polls on June 27, and Mugabe was inaugurated for a new term as president on June 29. By the end of 2008, over 193 citizens had been killed in political violence that targeted members of the opposition party. The MDC claimed that approximately 200 other members and supporters were missing and presumed dead at year's end. NGOs also estimated security forces killed between 200 and 300 citizens in the Chiadzwa diamond fields in Manicaland Province.
Following domestic and international protests of Mugabe’s inauguration as president, ZANU-PF and MDC resumed negotiations, with Mbeki as lead SADC mediator. On July 21, 2008 the leaders of the two MDC factions and ZANU-PF signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) which set terms for the forthcoming dialogue. The MOU, unlike the agenda of the 8-month-long SADC negotiations that ended in failure in January 2008, envisaged that the parties would form an inclusive government. On September 15, Mugabe, Tsvangirai, and Mutambara signed a Global Political Agreement (GPA) to establish an “inclusive” or transitional government. Under the agreement, Mugabe would retain the presidency and Tsvangirai would become prime minister. Each would have two deputies. Ministries would be divided among the three political parties.
Between late October and mid-December 2008, approximately 32 MDC and civil society members were abducted by suspected state agents. On December 22, some of these abductees surfaced in jails and were accused of various plots including mounting an armed insurgency from Botswana and committing bombings of police stations in preceding months. In subsequent court hearings and affidavits, these people have testified they were seriously beaten and some were tortured by state security agents in order to extract confessions to these alleged crimes. These events led many to question Mugabe’s sincerity in negotiations. In December 2008, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer called on Mugabe to step down. Prominent Africans, including South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, also called on Mugabe to step down.
After 5 months of negotiations to resolve issues left unaddressed by the September 15, 2008 GPA, the MDC agreed to enter into government alongside ZANU-PF. Many key issues remained unresolved, such as the appointment of senior government officials, the release of political detainees, and the creation of a National Security Council to curtail the authorities of the security chiefs. Despite these issues, Constitutional Amendment 19 was passed by parliament on February 5, 2009, paving the way for the creation of a transitional government. On February 11, MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai was sworn in as Prime Minister, alongside Deputy Prime Ministers Arthur Mutambara and Thokozani Khupe. During the following week, 41 ministers and 20 deputy ministers were sworn into office.
Since February 2009, the new government suffered fits and starts. While dollarization spurred economic recovery, political progress toward GPA implementation stalled. By late 2010 and early 2011, speculation about early presidential elections spurred renewed incidents of political violence and arbitrary arrests of political and civil society activists. In light of stalled implementation of the GPA, South African President Jacob Zuma is leading efforts on behalf of SADC to establish an electoral roadmap with tangible benchmarks for progress that the parties would agree to.
In January 2011, the MDC-M Party Congress elected Welshman Ncube to replace Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara as its party president; however, Mutambara refused to step down from the post of Deputy Prime Minister. In March 2011, the Supreme Court nullified the 2008 election of MDC-T’s Lovemore Moyo as the Speaker of Parliament, granting an appeal by ZANU-PF politburo member and former Information Minister Jonathon Moyo. At the time of the ruling, five other MDC-T MPs were in police custody on various charges as were numerous civil society activists. On March 29, 2011, Moyo was re-elected as Speaker of Parliament by a vote of 105-93. On the morning of the election, the MDC-T’s chief whip claimed at a press conference that ZANU-PF had attempted to bribe five MDC-T MPs with $5,000 each, and the MPs stepped forward to return the money.
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