Zimbabwe Since the Unity Government by Stephen Chan & Ranka Primorac

Author:Stephen Chan & Ranka Primorac [Chan, Stephen & Primorac, Ranka]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781135742683
Goodreads: 18556457
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-10-26T00:00:00+00:00

The Entry of New Political Players: The Mavambo Kusile Dawn Movement

It was not surprising that the dissatisfied individuals from both ZANU-PF and MDC-T11 were soon to come together to support Simba Makoni, a former finance minister under ZANU-PF who was dismissed in 2002 by Robert Mugabe for supporting the devaluation of the Zimbabwe currency, as a surprise candidate for the presidency, in opposition to Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai. As soon as Makoni announced his candidature on 5 February 2008, seven weeks before the election date, a substantial number of volunteers appeared, including many defectors from the two major parties. Numerous agents from the CIO12 also rushed forward to offer themselves as ‘volunteers’.

Much interest was based on the personality of Simba Makoni. He has a reputation of being courageous, in that he had openly critiqued policies and statements enunciated by Mugabe during his first and second periods in Cabinet. Promoted as Deputy Minister of Agriculture at the age of 30 at independence, he was promoted to Minister of Industry and Energy Development between 1981 and 1983, when he left government to become the Executive Secretary of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). He held this position up until 1994. He was again appointed as a Cabinet Minister in 2000 as Minister of Finance, but was removed in 2002.

His main reputation is that of a technocrat, with a sophisticated understanding of development, foreign relations and economics. He is not reputed to be a politician, a great advantage to him in a situation where most Zimbabweans have developed a serious distrust of politicians, who are suspected of being ruthless, corrupt and willing as well as able to kill their opponents. Moreover, a large proportion of Zimbabweans respect leaders with a high level of education and a reputation as a technocrat. Of the potential leaders on offer, Makoni is one of the most educated, holding a PhD in Chemistry from Leicester University. He also has the advantage of having been a ZANU student leader, ZANU representative and fund-raiser in Europe in the 1970s. Despite coming from within ZANU-PF, he has had the courage to stand up against ZANU-PF's policies and actions, and to leave the party to form an opposition movement. His ZANU-PF past enabled him to garner some of the support that ZANU-PF traditionally enjoyed. Moreover, Makoni was in a position to bring in a larger percentage of the electorate to the polls. A further advantage was that he could be in a position to have the support of the military. He was rumoured to have the support of General Mujuru and other top military leaders. Rumours flowed round the country that Mujuru was firmly behind Simba Makoni, and would come out into the open in due course. As it turned out, Mujuru did not come out into the open. However, there was no doubt that he had previously provided such support, and was still regarded as a secret supporter.

There was also a flood of finance. Some of this came from individual

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