US embassy cable - 04HARARE1018

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 HARARE 001018 
 
SIPDIS 
 
AF/S FOR LAROIAN, MRAYNOR 
NSC FOR AFRICA DIRECTOR D. TEITELBAUM 
LONDON FOR C. GURNEY 
PARIS FOR C. NEARY 
NAIROBI FOR T. PFLAUMER 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/17/2009 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PHUM, EFIN, EINV, ZI, ZANU-PF 
SUBJECT: POLITBURO MEMBER ON RULING PARTY INTENTIONS, 
CONSTRAINTS 
 
REF: (A) HARARE 988 (B) HARARE 959 (C) HARARE 958 (D) 
     HARARE 882 
 
Classified By: Political Officer Win Dayton under Section 1.5 b/d 
 
1.  (C) SUMMARY:  ZANU-PF Central Committee member Simba 
Makoni told the Ambassador on June 17 that GOZ efforts to 
reach out to the international community, including 
international financial institutions, were not a compelling 
priority for the ruling party.  The party leadership would 
not accept any measures that could begin to level the 
election playing field meaningfully regardless of 
implications for foreign relations.  Makoni suggested that 
Reserve Bank President Gideon Gono would be unable to go as 
far as he wanted with economic reforms before scheduled March 
parliamentary elections.  He described the politburo as a 
dysfunctional policy-making organ in which members marched in 
lockstep behind President Mugabe when his feelings were known 
or quarreled to no resolution whenever the President was 
silent.  Makoni also shared observations on the GOZ's posture 
on the media and on HIV/AIDS.  END SUMMARY. 
 
Media, HIV/AIDS 
--------------- 
 
2.  (C) Meeting in Makoni's private business office, the 
former finance minister and the Ambassador opened their 
discussion with an exchange on foreign broadcasts into 
Zimbabwe.  Makoni asserted that VOA's Studio 7 was broadly 
pro-MDC but generally factual in its reporting. 
Acknowledging that he was a regular listener, he said many in 
the ruling party were relaxed about free information access 
and trusted in people's ability to sift the wheat from the 
chaff.  Others were not, though, and he confirmed that 
Kindness Paradza's interview with Studio 7 was a principal 
source of his trouble.  (Note: Paradza's Tribune newspaper 
was shut down last week and he faces expulsion from the 
party; ref A.  End note.)  He observed that most party 
members avoided contact with the international press but that 
some, like Party Information Secretary Nathan Shamuyarira and 
External Relations Secretary Didymus Mutasa, were unafraid. 
Alluding to the disingenuousness of official media channels, 
Makoni confided that senior party members often joked 
privately about the absurdity of GOZ propaganda, such as 
projections of a 2.4 million MT grain harvest this year. 
 
3.  (C) The Ambassador acknowledged the constructiveness of 
President Mugabe's speech opening the National HIV/AIDS 
Conference June 16, especially with regard to the importance 
of a multi-sectoral approach.  He underscored the contrast 
between the tone and substance of that address and the 
continued combative posture of Information Minister Jonathan 
Moyo, who was responsible for terminating USG-funded 
HIV/AIDS-related public education initiatives. 
 
4.  (C) Makoni asserted that effecting a multi-sectoral 
approach was "not impossible" but that a "wheel for 
mobilization" did not exist in Zimbabwe.  Nonetheless, the 
National AIDS Council structure was beginning to operate down 
to the ward level and home-based initiatives were gaining 
momentum.  Grass roots criticism that funds were not making 
it to the needy were getting aired effectively.  (Note: ZBC 
has been covering such complaints publicly this week, 
implicitly placing blame on NGOs  rather than GOZ structures. 
 End note.)  Responsible NGOs were trying to separate 
themselves from the bureacuracies implicated in such 
inefficiencies and would continue to play a vital role.  As 
for the Information Minister, Makoni asserted that Moyo was 
unaware of such priorities or did not care, and that he and 
some others were always prepared to find political messages 
where none existed. 
 
Economic Policy to Remain Inadequate 
------------------------------------ 
 
5.  (C) Turning to economic policy, Makoni said that Reserve 
Bank Governor Gideon Gono recognized that steps already taken 
were insufficient to induce re-engagement by the 
international community, including the international 
financial institutions.  According to Makoni, monetary policy 
was going in the right direction but fiscal policy "was not 
there."  Pressure would build for even more public largesse 
in the run-up to the scheduled March parliamentary election. 
Getting the land productive once again was critical, but the 
government still lacked a workable plan.  What rules and 
plans existed were not being followed.  Much had to be done 
to restore the investor confidence necessary to revive trade 
and industry but "nobody has the heart to do it, especially 
not before March."  He concluded that we would continue to 
see "drift, words, but no action" until after elections. 
 
Re-election Trumps Re-engagement as Priority 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
6.  (C) Responding to Makoni's reference to possible 
re-engagement with the West, the Ambassador emphasized that 
the party faced real choices.  In order to re-engage 
economically, it would have to first show meaningful progress 
on the political front.  In particular, the election playing 
field would have to be leveled now if Zimbabwe were to have 
any hope of conducting elections that would be considered 
free and fair next year.  Without free and fair elections, 
re-engagement would be impossible. 
 
7.  (C) Makoni explained that re-engagement with the West was 
a growing interest among some party members but still not a 
priority, especially with politicians.  The party would 
project itself as interested in re-engagement but cast the 
West as unwilling to re-engage on terms short of total 
ZANU-PF "surrender."  Regarding rumored discussions of 
electoral reforms (ref C), Makoni explained that a sense of 
triumphalism pervading the party in no way dictated a 
leveling of the playing field.  Quite the contrary, its 
confidence stemmed from its successes in the tainted Zengeza 
and Lupane by-elections, which established a blueprint for 
success (i.e., intimidation, coercion via chiefs and food 
benefits, etc.) sure to be followed in the run-up to March. 
Indeed, the party leadership recognized that any relenting on 
election fairness issues involved unacceptable risks of 
losing control.  The Ambassador again urged that the party 
take seriously efforts to address electoral imbalances, 
without which meaningful re-engagement with the USG and 
others would not be possible. 
 
ZANU-PF's Dysfunction 
--------------------- 
 
8.  (C) Makoni said that the ruling party's significant lack 
of "discipline and self-respect" further complicated efforts 
at re-engagement.  He cited the flap over land 
nationalization (ref B) as evidence that the party was 
"seriously disjointed" now.  He reported that Moyo had 
purposely distorted Minister for Special Affairs (and ZANU-PF 
Secretary General) John Nkomo's comments to make him look 
 
SIPDIS 
bad.  He confirmed that Nkomo's interview had characterized 
nationalization as pertaining to compulsorily obtained land 
only, but that Moyo had purposely overstated his comments, 
only to qualify them later in a way that made Nkomo appear to 
be flip-flopping.  Makoni observed that Nkomo and Moyo were 
from the same district of Tsholotsho  and that "a rough edge" 
had always separated the two, dating back decades. 
 
9.  (C) President Mugabe's proclivity to remain above most 
frays and to let his subordinates "slug it out" on many 
issues was central to the party's dysfunctional policy-making 
atmosphere.  Makoni offered the fracas between Party 
Information Secretary Nathan Shamuyarira and Moyo over the 
President's Sky News interview (ref D) as an instance in 
which Mugabe should have spoken definitively and squelched 
publicized internecine squabbling.  Commenting on Tribune 
reports of strong words being traded in politburo meetings, 
Makoni conceded that he was out of the country (at the World 
Economic Forum in Maputo) during the reported meeting, but 
that discussions in the politburo generally were "polite and 
correct" but occasionally got "brisk."  It usually depended 
on whether the President's feelings on a topic were known. 
If they were, there was little meaningful debate; if they 
weren't, discussion could get more heated.  Anybody who could 
be portrayed as straying at all from generally accepted party 
principles, though, risked being cast as a "sell-out", which 
was "very unhealthy" for the party. 
 
10.  (C) Makoni identified one notable exception to Mugabe's 
general inclination to not tip his hand on any particular 
issues.  The President had reacted early and definitively 
when Jonathan Moyo and others began to cast themselves as 
presumptive candidates in the upcoming elections.  Mugabe had 
emphasized that nobody could short-circuit established 
processes and that all candidates would have to be vetted in 
accordance with party practices and weather the party's 
primary process.  Makoni concluded that the radical Moyo-Made 
faction was vocal but necessarily dominant in relation to 
other party voices as long as Mugabe played his hand close to 
the vest. 
 
Election Forecast 
----------------- 
 
11.  (C) Makoni concluded that ZANU-PF would genuinely do 
better in the upcoming election compared to 2000 and 2002. 
The party had support and could generate more support, 
especially in urban areas.  He implied that the party had 
mistakenly lost its links with the working class, links that 
could be restored.  The President in 2002 had said the party 
did not need to intimidate because it had a credible 
platform, even for workers.  Makoni recognized that most 
nationalist movements, including Zimbabwe's, were largely 
borne on the backs of the labor movement, and recalled that 
he had urged the party to focus on labor years ago; many 
agreed but inadequate action was taken. 
 
12.  (C) As to campaigning strategy, Makoni conceded that the 
party could not make a credible claim to have made the lives 
of most Zimbabweans better.  Instead of focusing on economic 
statistics, the party would have to emphasize that it had 
worked out the vexing  land redistribution and had a plan -- 
a la Gideon Gono -- to rehabilitate the economy and to 
re-establish the country's place in the world community. 
 
13.  (C) Makoni confided that he did not intend to run for a 
constituency MP slot in the coming election but would 
campaign for any ZANU-PF candidate from his district -- if 
the candidate met to his liking. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
14.  Dismissed as Finance Minister and largely ostracized by 
the party leadership for his free-market economic 
prescriptions years ago, Makoni lately has been enjoying a 
resurrection of sorts.  Hailing from Manicaland -- 
historically home to political opposition figures, including 
Morgan Tsvangirai and Edgar Tekere, -- Makoni is one of the 
ruling party's most competent technocrats, though he 
generally is regarded to lack a political base at the grass 
roots.  His modest rehabilitation can be attributed in part 
to his continued loyalty despite ostracization, the party's 
desire to project a more refined and competent image to the 
outside world, and the passage of time.  Perhaps more 
significantly, he and Defense Minister Sidney Sekeremayi are 
the two most prominent "presidential successor candidates" 
reputed to be in the faction of retired general Solomon 
Mujuru.  A Mass Public Opinion Institute poll among putative 
successors to Mugabe last year indicated Makoni was the most 
popular ZANU-PF figure nationally and the only one to garner 
geographically diverse support. 
 
15.  Makoni's exposition of ruling party motives and strategy 
is consistent with Embassy conclusions that the ruling party 
has neither the intention nor the capacity to level the 
election playing field or otherwise take measures to 
re-engage meaningfully with the USG at this time. 
 
SULLIVAN