neoliberalism and zim politics

                                                 

President R.G Mugabe and M.Tsvangirai

 Politicians deliberately pursue economic policies that meet their political interest and not the needs of the people. They are not ignorant of the correct policies, but deliberately ignore them because the correct economic policies would result in an inclusive economy; something which they fear most.

We have seen since independence in 1980 that there is always strong resistance by Zanu PF to the emergence of an empowered middle class and a strong black national bourgeoisie that is apolitical. We have seen how this political culture has created an uncompetitive economy underpinned by patronage and corruption.

Political authoritarianism and neoliberalism are responsible for many of the problems facing Zimbabwe, but they must be understood as intrinsically interconnected phenomena whose relationship has altered over time.

  The 1990s saw a relative unity between political authoritarianism and neoliberalism within the Zimbabwean state, with an IFI-designed Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) implemented using violence and political repression to crush internal dissent, precipitating a catastrophic economic decline which caused mass unemployment and poverty. 

 This period coincided with the rise of a labour and civil society opposition movement.  However, largely due to the rise of this political threat, the late 1990s saw the authoritarian state split from neoliberalism as it returned to an anti-imperialist rhetoric, focussing its attentions on rural land reform and a violent campaign against the MDC and its civil society allies. 

The regime’s inability to service its debt repayments resulted in economic sanctions and the removal of development aid and IFI loans, culminating in a huge loss of confidence in the Zimbabwean economy and a mass retreat by global capital (Chan 2012).  Yet again both political authoritarianism and neoliberalism were at work in Zimbabwe, but now the disciplinary neoliberalism of the IFIs, western governments and global capital was in force against the regime’s transgressions. 

 A truly progressive or ‘emancipatory’ struggle to end the poverty and repression engendered by political authoritarianism and neoliberalism must therefore aim to oppose both of these malignant forces.