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President Emmerson Mnangagwa

President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa’s ascension to power following his preceding service in Government as a Vice President and Cabinet Minister in various portfolios provides a wealth of experience to Zimbabwe’s dire need for governance transformation. On assuming office, the man became an integral citizen, with a pivotal role of sustaining the lifeline of diverse national interests.

The multiple national service mandates vested in him also attracted a wide range of national expectations on his administration. At the same time, this milestone in his actualisation invites a probe on what his 100 days in office means. Cde Mnangagwa has also expressed his concern in this regard:

“I am sure you are aware that the advent of this dispensation has generated high expectations amongst all categories of our citizens, development partners and other stakeholders, who rightly see it as the dawn of a new era for Zimbabwe.”

On the other hand, we are met with unique circumstances, which prompt us to interrogate what is the correct premise of critiquing his 100 days in office? Did President Mnangagwa inherit a system with the capacity to satiate the anticipated populist economic turnaround?

First and foremost, President Mnangagwa’a 100 days in office must provide a clear-cut strategy for consolidating Zanu-PF’s power – that is the first logical instinct of realism, which Cde Mnangagwa must react to. This also comes against a background of his assumption of office in the last phase of Zanu-PF’s march towards the harmonised elections.

Equally, his 100 days as a power consolidation march also co-exists with a crisis of expectations underpinned on the non-realist interests. From an apolitical perspective of rationale, these fundamental questions must be answered:

• Where was Zimbabwe before day one of ED’s 100 days in office?
• Where will Zimbabwe be on ED’s 100th day in office?
• What structural beneficiation will this phase create for Zimbabwe beyond 2018?

On his existence as Head of Government, President Mnangagwa was involuntary tasked to ameliorate the country’s close to long socio-economic crisis. His other inaugural mandate has been that of depolarising Zimbabwe beyond the whims of divided national belonging.

The noble illustration of embracing dissidents was substantiated by President Mnangagwa’s visit to the ailing opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. He set a template to all, that we may differ in ideas, but we are all people of this land. Whatever the split ideological leanings, we are unified by our birthright to this country.

This step substantiates Zimbabwe’s graduation into a new political culture beyond political intolerance, hate and rigid essentialism. Sadly, those engrossed in any essentialism have generously misconstrued such national healing gestures by President Mnangagwa in a bid to erase his mark of fostering a political culture reorientation of our country.

The evaluation of the 100 days calls for the sobriety of our scrutiny into what is achievable in this lean time frame, but most importantly, it is important for much attention to be given to the attitudes of national belonging, which Government is creating.

With that backdrop, this calls for an evaluation of President Mnangagwa, particularly in terms of the structural and politico-environmental transformation impetus he has set for Zimbabwe’s development. This position comes against a wide spectrum of demands for rapid and massive transformation of the economy.

This proposition is ignorant of the principal reforms and attitudes, which must be effected to facilitate the needed growth; particularly in the economic sector.

Some pressure groups, activists and certain sections of the opposition have sought relevance from the “obvious”, to soil the Mnangagwa administration for failing to address the bread-and-butter issues, the cash shortage, improving local government service delivery concerns among other issues.

The proponents of this rhetoric have selectively ignored that the 100 days target was principally focused on portfolio delivery by the new Cabinet to roll out programmes which will “hit the ground running”:

“I now wish to challenge you to think outside the box and come up with quick-win projects for implementation by each of your ministries in order to achieve the goals of my vision.

“In that context, you may wish to consult in your ministries on outstanding strategic programmes that can be quickly implemented within the framework of the vision of this Government. I have availed copies of my acceptance speech for each one of you to guide you in coming up with the priority projects,” declared President Mnangagwa.

Referring to this particular pronouncement, it’s clear that from the outset, the 100 days target by President Mnangagwa entailed political economy, structural and environmental reconfiguration and social policy transformation.

Based on this perspective, the wide stretch to the 100 days should be evaluated on the environment that the Government has created for economic growth, political pluralism and social development.

This does not mean that bread-and-butter issues should be entirely ignored, but there is need for assessing the President Mnangagwa’s success in addressing a broad spectrum of concerns, which result in visible national policy transform in areas of education, health, social welfare and other key sectors of human security.

Firstly, President Mnangagwa must be applauded for appointing a lean Cabinet and emphasising the need for results-based mandate execution. This creates a functional system of assessing the functions of the arms of Government in terms of their delivery. At the same time, this restores the role of Government as an institution tasked with the mandate to create a viable environment for business, public service delivery and promotion of a transactional State-citizen relationship towards national development.

President Mnangagwa’s invitation for investment in ideas and national dialogue outside partisan confines speaks to the potential of Zimbabwe’s growth in terms of renewed commitment to development-oriented nationalism.

This particular administrative deportment adopted by President Mnangagwa repositions the role of Government as an institution which serves national interests over partisan interests.

This stimulates consorted patriotic commitment to national growth outside partisan leanings. The Head of State’s reach-out initiatives to various political and economic stakeholders as well as his meeting with the youth from across the political divide is telling of shifting ontologies in terms of public offices’ isolation from the country’s populace.

Therefore, Cabinet Ministers must take a leaf from the President’s approach and be in contact with the needs and realities of their respective constituencies.

This is key in recasting interactive attitudes between the State, key economic actors and the public at large. This trails a background of a chasm existing between the Government institutions and the generality of the public.

The path towards an “open-door” style of governance led by Cde Mnangagwa must cascade to all public service institutions to trample on corruption, lethargy, nepotism and monopoly. Sloganeering and preoccupation with partisan business over national interests would only take us back to the 37 years we are coming from.

This calls for renewed commitment from Cabinet to be at the service of national interest. 2018 is here, power must be consolidated, but the ground for structural renewal has been set and President Mnangagwa must be commended for effectively dispensing of what is expected of a national leader in this respect.

Richard Mahomva is an independent researcher and a literature aficionado interested in architecture of governance in Africa and political theory. Feedback: [email protected]