Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy

Morgan Tsvangirai is hoping to persuade international donors to re-engage with Zimbabwe. His tour begins in The Netherlands, where the Prime Minister and Minister for Zimbabwe's Economic Planning, Elton Mangoma, met with the Dutch Prime Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Minister for Development Cooperation along with a delegation of NIMD, headed by NIMDs President, dr. B. Bot.

10,000 people supporting us

Having signed the Global Political Agreement in September 2008, becoming an inclusive, tri-partite government with ZANU-PF was a promise, to which all parties had to adhere. “The day we reached a political agreement and entered the government, there were over 10.000 people on the street supporting our decision. These people are anxious to see their lives improve because of this decision and the international community is equally impatient.”

Some members of the international community find it hard to understand this decision. How is it possible to govern with someone who has been your enemy for such a long time? And how can it be made credible that it is in the best interest for the people of Zimbabwe? This is what the tour is for. To explain that this seemingly political dilemma leads to progress and democratic change.

Complex Transition

“The transition in Zimbabwe is a very complex process, and an extraordinary experience for me personally” Prime Minister Tsvangirai said. “Working with ZANU-PF requires a change of attitude and patience. We could have had a revolution, but if we would have wanted a revolution, we should not have started negotiation. Now, it is an evolutionary process. Confrontational as we have been in the past, we have to invest in good relations with our colleague ZANU-PF Ministers and the President now, and build confidence to jointly work towards economic recovery and constitutional reform in our country.“

“We call on the international community to re-engage with Zimbabwe. In spite of everything, the government is consolidated… which doesn’t mean everything is rosy. We are confident though that the transition process is irreversible.

Although some people would have liked us to have achieved more in the past three months, we are proud of our accomplishments thus far; we have managed to let the inflation figure drop from 500,000% in December to 3% now, which opened the door for 2 million dollars of foreign investments already. Schools are open again, there is food on the shelves, the cholera outburst has been stopped. Teachers and all government staffers receive an allowance of 100 US dollars monthly, but we hope that by the end of June, after a first assessment of our Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti, we can start paying salaries again. There has to be confidence again.”

Regaining Confidence

Two key positions that could help in regaining confidence with the state, are the appointments of the Governor of the Central Reserve Bank and the Attorney General. “But this is dead-locked. It should become a procedural issue, part of the Constitution.” Besides stabilization, democratization is the main focus on the agenda. It had already been laid out in the Global Political Agenda: constitutional reform, besides media reform and economic reform.

This is something that NIMDs partner, the Zimbabwe Institute (ZI), follows very carefully. The ZI facilitates the JOMIC, a committee verifying that the GPA will be followed.

For more information: http://www.zimbabweinstitute.org/home/