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Zimbabwe: Group Warns of Coup, Calls for Coalition

20 May 2008

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Cape Town — There is a growing risk of a military coup in Zimbabwe to prevent opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai from taking power, says the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG).

In a new report released on Wednesday, the ICG calls for African-led mediation efforts to avert the danger by negotiating the establishment of a government of national unity under Tsvangirai's leadership. At the same time, it adds, the mediators should work with Zimbabwe's political parties to define the requirements for a credible run-off election if the attempts to form a unity government fail.

"If Mugabe manages to cling to the presidency through political repression and manipulation," the group says, "he will face a hostile parliament, growing public discontent, mount­ing international pressure and increased isolation.

"The consequences of his staying in office would be catastrophic, not least that the economic decline would intensify, with more Zimbabweans fleeing across borders, while inflation, unemployment and the resulting massive suffering increase."

However, it continues, "a negotiated settlement could establish a Tsvangirai-led transitional government with substantial participation by Zanu PF stalwarts to implement agreed-upon constitutional reforms and hold free and fair elections under an agreed timeframe... As with negotiations for a transitional government... mediation would need to address the modalities for ensuring military loyalty to a new civilian government. Failure to do so would risk a Tsvangirai victory leading to a military coup or martial law and the security services splitting along factional lines."

The ICG report also makes a number of new claims about the aftermath of the March 29 elections. Among them:

• The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) briefed President Robert Mugabe privately on April 1 that he had lost the presidential vote outright. Stunned, Mugabe and his lieutenants ordered the results withheld to give Zanu PF and the military time to decide what to do;

• Vice presidents Joyce Mujuru and Joseph Msika called privately for Mugabe to step down after a negotiated settlement but rural housing minister Emmerson Mnangagwa led hardliners who wanted to cling to power; 

• A Zanu PF faction led by retired general Solomon Mujuru, husband of the vice-president, which backed the third contender in the presidential elections, Simba Makoni, indicated to Tsvangirai after the elections that he should seek an agreement with Makoni, which they would then support;

• The powerful central military organ, the Joint Operations Command, was split between a group – including the army commander, Phillip Sibanda, and intelligence chief, Happyton Bonyongwe – which was prepared to share power with Tsvangirai, and hardliners who included the overall military chief, Constantine Chiwenga, air force chief Perence Shiri and police chief Augustine Chihuri.

• At a meeting on April 2, Mnangagwa, Chiwenga and Chihuri persuaded Mugabe to opt for a run-off election. The ICG report says that at that meeting, "Chiwenga reportedly signalled ominously to the president that he would take over if Mugabe was hesitant about a run-off – remarks that raised the still real possibility of a military coup."

• The government, in the ICG's words, "underestimated the integrity of the ZEC," which refused to declare Mugabe the winner of the election, but nevertheless failed to resist pressure to delay announcing the result. The ICG quotes an unidentified Zanu PF politburo member as saying that it had been difficult to manipulate the vote and manage the release of results "until the military took over the whole process" from the ZEC.

Among other observations in the report:

• One of the tactical blunders made by Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was its early public declaration of victory, which "together with outspoken statements from the West, likely limited the party's room for manoeuvre.

• The absence of Tsvangirai and MDC secretary general Tendai Biti from the country in recent weeks has created a leadership vacuum, "limiting the party's ability to respond effectively to post-election events and to galvanise and reassure its supporters." 

• "There is wide agreement among Zanu PF officials that the party's chance of retaining power, if not its very survival, now depends on Mugabe's immediate exit and renewal of leadership... Even Mugabe's staunchest military allies want a change of guard: they envisage him staying in office for a maximum of six months, after which he would hand over to Mnangagwa."

• "The election crisis has... intensified divisions within the security services, raising the possibility that orders will not be uniformly obeyed, in particular by an increasingly disgruntled rank and file."

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