The Financial Gazette

Clemence Manyukwe, Political Editor

FINANCE Minister Tendai Biti’s failure to budget for polls has thrown into disarray ZANU-PF’s bid for early elections at a time when the inclusive government is living on borrowed time.
In his budget statement, Biti, who is also the secretary-general of the Movement for Dem-ocratic Change (MDC-T) put a lot of emphasis on what he called “monetising the peace process”.
As part of monetising the peace process, he resourced several institutions critical in creating an environment conducive for free and fair elections. He thus allocated US$800 000 to the organ on National Healing, Reconciliation and Reintegration as well as US$5,5 million to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, the Zimba-bwe Media Commission, the Human Rights Commission and the Anti-Corruption Commi-ssion.
About US$22 million was set aside for conducting the national census while US$30 million was earmarked for the completion of the constitution-making process and the holding of the referendum.
Biti said the focus of the 2012 budget was job creation. For the first time since taking up the high-pressure job, he came up with a fund for employment creation.
There was no election talk. Instead, he talked about “demons” of a highly charged political environment.
In the past few weeks, some parts of the country were rocked by politically-motivated violence.
“Mr. Speaker Sir, in the preparation of this budget we have researched widely and extensively on why our continent is poor and in particular why our country is poor. A sea of development literature on this subject exists.
“Peace and stability or social cohesion is clearly the first pre-condition of the effective State. War, violence and conflict are an anathema to development,” said Biti.
The minister acknowledged the work done by his political foes and singled-out for special mention, Mines and Mining Development Minister Obert Mpofu for his efforts in gaining the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme nod to export Marange diamonds as well as Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowe-rment Minister, Saviour Kasukuwere’s work with Old Mutual that saw the setting up of a youth fund.
Mpofu and Kasukuwere are both ministers from ZANU-PF.
On the overall, the budget could not be separated from politics.
In his statement, the first thing Biti did was to quote Indian economist Amartya Sen who is known globally for his interest in the problems of society’s poorest members.
“Development requires the removal of major sources of unfreedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systematic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or over-activity of repressive States. Despite unprecedented increases in overall opulence, the contemporary world denies elementary freedoms to vast numbers — perhaps even the majority – of people,” reads the part quoted from Sen’s book, Development as Freedom.
Fambai Ngirande, a political analyst, said the budget gave the view that there are more pressing national issues facing the poor — job creation, health and infrastructural development — than polls.
Outside of political considerations, the blueprint has shown that government has no resources to stage national polls in the face of fiscal constraints, he said.
“The challenge is that at any rate we are better off with an electoral process that is funded from the fiscus and therefore accountable to Parliament and its relevant oversight committees. For a government that goes overboard about sovereignty, it would be interesting to see how they respond to International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditionalities,” said Ngirande, referring to the possibility of government taking its begging bowl to institutions such as the IMF.
“Of course the other reality is that government can ill-afford an election; one can only wish that there was a Pan African financial mechanism with a lesser disposition to conditionalities to fund electoral processes,” he said.
President of MDC99, Job Sikhala, said his party welcomes the non-allocation of resources to polls as doing so would only result in a bloodbath.
Asked when the best time for fresh polls is, Sikhala said they should only be held after President Robert Mugabe’s exit from the political stage.
“People are concerned with the proliferation of violence. For example if the Prime Minister can be stopped from holding rallies and meeting people in the countryside, what about other ordinary opposition parties. ZANU-PF is not prepared for elections as a contestation of ideas”, said Sikhala.
“The budget has played to the public sentiment that people are not interested in elections. They are much concerned with day to day living and putting food on the table.”
Political analyst, Goodson Nguni, said Biti’s stance was motivated more by partisan rather than national interests.
He said joining government has exposed the MDC-T’s failings and short-comings hence its needs to buy more time by delaying going for the ballot in order to put its house in order.
The party is currently battling corruption in MDC-T dominated councils.
“His party is scared that they have not sabotaged ZANU-PF enough to make them win an election against ZANU-PF. They are scared of elections. I hope that ZANU-PF would have the capacity to withdraw from the Global Political Agreement (GPA), which would immediately bring the GPA to an end and we go for polls,” said Nguni.
In his presentation, Biti said during national budget consultations undertaken countrywide people spelt out issues that were uppermost in people’s minds. He listed 17 items devoid of polls that included:
- Political discord and disunity;
- Power and energy crisis;
- Transparency over diamond revenue;
- Guaranteeing clean water supply and improved sanitation services;
- Support for agriculture and household food;
- Consistency in policy implementation
By adopting what he claimed were people’s aspirations, Biti thus forced ZANU-PF and MDC formations to shift their focus from polls in the next financial year to bread and butter issues.