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Queen's Speech

My Lords, I make no apology for returning to the subject of Zimbabwe despite it and, indeed, Africa itself being absent from the gracious Speech, because it is clear that the Zimbabwean Government’s policy of suppression of dissent and closure of any democratic space remains unchanged. The Zimbabwean Government have not met any of the benchmarks of the Cotonou agreement and are unlikely to do so in the future. The presidential run-off elections in Zimbabwe last year created a crisis of legitimacy for Mugabe and an embarrassing difficulty for SADC—for example, the President of Botswana courageously refused to recognise Mugabe as head of state. Negotiations had to take place at the time; as Morgan Tsvangerai rightly pointed out, these were not about power, but about democracy. This in turn made it even more difficult for Mugabe to regain support from international institutions and the donor community, which were insisting on a return to democracy. Knowing this, the MDC could not have agreed to any deal that did not restore democracy and the rule of law, while Mugabe could not agree to anything that did. Morgan Tsvangerai had also said that no deal was better than a bad deal, so when the agreement was signed in September MDC voters as well as ZANU-PF officials had reason to believe that the deal included a proper power-sharing arrangement. Of course, we now know that nothing of the sort emerged. The details were many, but it is reasonable to summarise what actually happened as follows. Mugabe had not ceded any real power. He and his party retained the power to allocate 30 of the 31 ministries. The portfolios were divided between ZANU-PF and the MDC, with all the key ones going to ZANU-PF. Under the agreement, Mugabe is obliged to ““consult”” the vice-presidents, the prime minister and the deputy prime minister. That is a meaningless process, due in part to the imprecise and ambiguous drafting of the agreement. The posts of prime minister and deputy prime minister do not exist in Zimbabwe’s constitution until an appropriate amendment is passed in the Parliament. The agreement that Mugabe should appoint Tsvangerai as prime minister has no effect in law unless and until constitutional amendment No. 19 is enacted. The objective of the agreement is to restore democracy and the rule of law, but it lacks any articles that could serve as instruments to achieve this. Thus, even if the agreement were abided by, we would still be in the land of political posturing rather than seeing any real move forward. Furthermore, one should remember that the extreme violence of the farm invasions in 2000, the Murambatsvina clearances and violence throughout the pre-election periods in 2000, 2002 and 2008 were all carried out by a ZANU-PF Government committed to the rule of law and against violence. These are but some of the gross anomalies in the agreement and many more are being comprehensively analysed by the Zimbabwean Research and Advocacy Unit, yet there is still strong pressure to make the agreement work. I suggest that this is a fruitless pursuit and that we would do better to examine more carefully where the Opposition have some room for manoeuvre and leverage. The only exception to the blatant lack of power ceded to the MDC relates to local government, but this, too, is extremely tenuous, as we know that Mugabe can, and often does, reassign the administration of various Acts to ZANU-PF’s advantage. However, the MDC has a majority in the House of Assembly, provided that the two MDC factions act together. This power remains even if the Cotonou agreement collapses. Thus, the MDC’s only real source of power lies in its parliamentary majority. This has implications for the struggle in the immediate future. No legislation can be enacted without the MDC vote. This applies even to appropriation Bills or Bills that might be considered to be politically inexpedient. All public accounts have to be audited and agreed by the Assembly, including the authority to examine even so-called ““inappropriate”” accounts. Parliamentary committees can be set up to investigate past governmental practices and the activities of the Reserve Bank. The fact that the MDC has control over the parliamentary Committee on Standing Rules and Orders should ensure the establishment of an impartial, or at least a non-ZANU-PF, media and electoral commission, the latter even resulting in a thorough audit of the voter roll and electoral procedures. Again, Mugabe, if threatened by a determined effort to enact these kinds of powers, could decide to prorogue Parliament for a period in order to regain control. However, the strategy that I would like the Minister to take back to the department, if it is not already there, is that every possible effort should now be made by the international community, including the UK Government, to direct energy towards supporting in whatever way possible parliamentary mechanisms of calling the Government to account and exposing the utter lawlessness with which Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe over past decades. I conclude by thanking the Minister for his constant efforts to keep those of us with an interest in Zimbabwe informed and, indeed, for his genuine efforts to find solutions to the chaos and crimes that continue in that country.