South Africa

Robert Mugabe has stepped in to try to staunch the bleeding in the Zim economy. But like just about everything he does when it comes to his country, his methods are dubious. This time around he is taking a strong stand in intervening in the economy, which includes increased nationalization of industries and the expansion of price controls in order to address the seemingly inexorable upward march of inflation, which some reports are placing at a nearly unfathomable 10,000%. The Mail & Guardian calls Mugabe’s gambit “risky,” as if up to now Mugabe has been a model of temperance and caution. (On a vaguely related note, perhaps, there appear to be irregularities in Zimbabwe’s voter registration process for next year’s elections.) 

Since the crackdown there has been a run on store stocks and shelves are empty. The Mugabe government has promised that it will come down hard on any businesses that defy the mandated cutting of costs. Some of Mugabe’s critics in the West will use this as an example of Mugabe’s not-so latent communism, but this really has nothing to do wioth ideology and everything to do with the exercise of power. Mugabe foreswore Marxism when it suited him and he embraces it when it does not. His willingness partially to nationalize the economy is not the excercise of a committed communist; it is the act of a ruthless tyrant, and though most often historically the distinction between the two has been inconsequential, in this case, the two are not the same thing.

The ramifications of Zimbabwe’s collapse go well beyond the country’s borders. The effects even transcend the immediate southern African region. A recent report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) indicates that Zimbabwe is having a negative impact on the entire continent’s economic growth — numbers that otherwise might represent a slice of positive news for much of Africa — and that the laissez faire approach of the African Union (AU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the continent’s leaders is only exacerbating the situation.

The ANC Policy Conference in Midrand wraps up today after three days of political dialogue that the Mail & Guardian has described as “robust.” Despite Thabo Mbeki’s protests that things have not been too robust, certain issues that we have discussed here before — succession, the linkage between the party leadership and the national presidency — demand serious, and thus sometimes intense discussion. Mbeki’s desire to downplay internal division makes sense from the vantage point of the party. That same division, however, is healthy for the country. When that debate falls silence is truly when the time to worry will have arrived. Viva contentiousness.

Incidentally, Mbeki has been busy these days. In addition to dealing with feisty ANC politicians he also is the head of the South African delegation to the African Union summit in Accra that, as I reported yesterday, might be pushing toward the establishment of a United States of Africa.

 Meanwhile officials have announced that the main South Africa-Mozambique border crossing at Ressano Garcia is extending its hours from 10 pm until midnight. Anyone who has crossed that border knows that anything that might alleviate congestion represents a welcome change.

Your faithful scribe is almost but not quite back home and thus to something resembling normalcy. Full-scale blogging should resume next week. In the meantime, here are some Africa-related links:

In Zimbabwe the Interception of Communications Bill only awaits Robert Mugabe’s signature. My guess is he’s thrilled to do so, helping seal Zimbabwe’s totalitarian status. Meanwhile MacDonald Dzirutwe avers in the Mail & Guardian that Mugabe’s newest get-tough economic policies are likely to represent only a short-term palliative with deleterious long-range effects.

It is now Congo-Brazzaville’s opportunity to hold elections that raise all sorts of questions about probity, organizational skills, effectiveness, and the like.

In the category of “this comes as news to whom, exactly?” we must place a refugees International report that asserts that Sudan’s rape laws are making the human rights catastrophe in Darfur worse. I do not aim my sarcasm at Refugees International, but rather at a crisis that is so far gone that such obvious accounts still qualify as being significantly newsworthy.

In Accra we might soon find out if we are closer to seeing the emergence of a United States of Africa. Just five years after its inception as a new and better organization of African states, the African Union (AU) debates tightening their confederation even more.  

 In South Africa:

Petrol prices continue to pose problems, with recent price drops in some areas accompanied by price hikes in others. 

As the ANC meets to debate future directions, the party’s succession battle accelerates, with a question that has been a subtext for some time now rising to the fore – does the party leader of necessity have to be the political standard bearer? Meanwhile, Thabo Mbeki has not so subtly hinted to the South African Communist Party (SACP) that it might be time for the comrades to steer their own separate course. I have argued for years that the only serious challenge to the ANC will come from the left, not the right, from black politicians, not disenchanted whites. Apparently Mbeki is willing to accelerate the process.

The mass action strikes are finally over. A South African cabinet minister and a prominent labour leader weigh in on their meaning.

Finally, the Springboks have had their luggage pilfered.  Is this another angle for the South African crime epidemic? Not exactly. The thefts appear to have occurred in Australia, where the South African ruggers are preparing for the next part of their Tri-Nations away leg.