The collapse of the ANC’s vote in the May elections is no less momentous for non-South Africans. This is because as a subregional power, the results of these elections are likely to reverberate across southern Africa.
By Simukai Tinhu
For some nations, the elections will bring fortunes. But, for others, they will be destabilising, with the regime of Emmerson Mnangagwa and his governing Zanu-PF being the most vulnerable.
Nothing illustrates better the extent to which Harare sees the election as a danger than the spectacle of Zanu-PF’s reaction to the faltering of the ANC at the ballot box. On social media, its elite and supporters went into a meltdown, with the wide-ranging comments on the elections being shaped by one question: Will the collapse of the ANC vote drag Zanu-PF with it?
This panic is not mindless. Since 2000, South Africa has played a significant role in sustaining Zanu-PF in power. A clear example is how, in 2008, the regional power cobbled together a coalition that kept Zanu-PF in government despite Zimbabwe’s liberation movement and its leader at the time, Robert Mugabe, having lost the elections.
Repeatedly endorsing Zimbabwe’s flawed elections has also been part of the ANC government’s repertoire to protect the Harare regime.
But, without a majority in Parliament, the ANC will struggle to continue ramming through policy actions that support Zanu-PF. It will have to yield its positions on Zimbabwe to coalition partners, of which the most significant is the Democratic Alliance (DA).
Serious approach
Whereas the ANC has shown little interest in a responsible foreign policy on Zimbabwe, the DA takes a serious approach, seeing Zanu-PF as a threat to South Africa’s interests. Indeed, over the years, the DA’s leaders have been consistent in their criticism of the Zanu-PF government.
Helen Zille, an eminence in the party, has been the most vocal, describing Robert Mugabe – a politician who embodied Zanu-PF’s destructive governance – as a man who wrecked Zimbabwe more thoroughly than anyone. The current leader, John Steenhuisen, sees Zanu-PF rule as autocratic.
With such dark visions of Zanu-PF and its rule, it is possible to suggest that the DA will not want to see the South African government’s relations with the Zanu-PF regime being business as usual – camaraderie and solidarity between the South African and Zanu-PF governments.
Nor will the DA shy from being directly drawn into Zimbabwe’s affairs. Rather, it is likely that it will want to see an expanded agenda on Harare; an imperative palpable in its leaders’ calls for a tough approach on Zanu-PF.
To give an example, in the wake of the Zimbabwe regime murdering more than 300 of its citizens in 2008, Zille demanded that the ANC government sever all its diplomatic ties with Harare. She even lobbied for the massing of troops at the Zimbabwe border.
The views of Mmusi Maimane, Zille’s erstwhile successor, provide us with more detail on what kind of foreign policy the DA might want to see on Zimbabwe. In 2009, Zimbabwe’s security forces killed innocent protestors in the capital city. Maimane called on the South African government to take Zimbabwe’s human rights violations to the International Criminal Court.
Messy fight
Yet these leaders’ tough language on Zanu-PF’s behaviour also suggests they understand that should the South African government adopt a hardline approach, it would have signed up for a messy fight with Harare.
Indeed, the South African government itself is no stranger to Zanu-PF’s reflex to fight dirty. Fourteen years ago, then-president Jacob Zuma’s ANC government attempted to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis by pushing for political reforms.
In response, Zanu-PF sanctioned government ministers and senior bureaucrats to stifle the efforts by mistreating and intimidating South African delegates sent to negotiate for reforms, a style of international politics that was too boisterous for South Africa. Zuma had to abandon the push for reforms.
Zuma’s stumbling in 2010 offers a cautionary tale about the ineffectiveness of diplomatic formulae when dealing with Harare. The imperative for any attempts at a lasting resolution to Zimbabwe’s long crisis should be to match Zanu-PF’s fervour for nasty behaviour with comparable boldness.
One approach that could prove effective is a threat to shut down the Zimbabwean economy.
With South Africa’s stamp on almost every part of Zimbabwe’s economy – in supermarkets, the car parts industry, and the mining and agricultural implements sectors – if it decides to shut down supplies, its poorer neighbour’s economy will be shattered in an instant, and with it, the Zanu-PF regime. In other words, Pretoria has the capability to impose the kinds of costs that can force Zanu-PF to reform.
In addition, the coalition government can use South Africa’s enormous resources to provide direct patronage to Zimbabweans fighting Zanu-PF’s authoritarian rule. The opposition and the pro-democracy movement can then use the resources to fund election campaigns and to build opposition parties’ electoral and administrative infrastructures.
SADC summit key
Probably, a better forecaster of what could be the new South African government’s foreign policy identity is how Pretoria handles the upcoming SADC summit this August in Harare, where Mnangagwa is expected to take over as chair of the sub-regional organisation.
With SADC’s observer mission having dismissed Mnangagwa’s reelection in 2023, and the DA having criticised President Cyril Ramaphosa’s attendance at Mnangagwa’s inauguration, it is certain that the DA will not want Mnangagwa to be crowned at this summit.
But will it have enough political bandwidth within the coalition, and the resolve to bring up that subject, at least for discussion?
It is unlikely. The foreign ministry is headed by an ANC politician. The implication is that the balance of power in foreign affairs remains tilted in the ANC’s favour.
Moreover, the ANC controls the main centre of power: the Presidency. Its leader, Cyril Ramaphosa – as the head of the party, state and government – is the ultimate decision-maker over foreign policy.
The constraining nature of coalition politics is likely to see the DA reining in some of its anti-Zanu-PF impulses. Indeed, the DA would want to maintain a stable government with the ANC, as the collapse of the coalition will not be in the best interests of either party.
Having said that, South Africa’s changed politics will certainly spark a review of the coalition government’s foreign policy. Zanu-PF might want to brace itself for a second round of troubling times ahead.
As should Pretoria, if it chooses confrontation.
Source: Daily Maverick