Source: Zimbabwe Democracy Institute
Introduction
This paper contends that economic decline alone is not adequate to lead to authoritarian breakdown. It is written in a context of political and economic crisis marked by recent uncoordinated protests by a plethora of disparate forces with disparate interests such as #ThisFlag, #Tajamuka, public sector
workers, informal sector and veterans of the liberation struggle whose common denominator is the quest for social change under a competitive authoritarian regime led by ZANU PF.
It assesses the current political and fundamentally the economic contradictions in Zimbabwe and its potential to cause regime breakdown posting that the economic crisis alone cannot adequately explain prospects of regime breakdown. Zimbabwe has faced economic challenges since the introduction of the structural adjustment program in 1991 and critically at the turn of the 21st century when the government started the program of land redistribution.
However, despite this chronic economic crisis, the ZANU PF government has defied the winds of change and remained in power despite mounting pressure at home and abroad. While economic crises have resulted in chaotic regime breakdown in many parts of the world, this paper elucidates why and how President Mugabe’s government has survived the kinds of intense domestic crises that toppled similar authoritarian regimes faced with near economic breakdown. To enable the discussion, the paper employs a political economy analysis approach, defined by Collinson (2003:3) as, “the interaction of political and economic processes in society: the distribution of power and wealth between different groups and individuals, and the processes that create, sustain and transform these relationships over time.”
Elite discohesion in both party and state marked by ongoing purges in ZANU PF and the politics of dissent within the party fronted by veterans of the 1970s war of liberation as well as ideological contradictions and ruptures among ruling elites in the midst of the ravaging economic crisis could be a new development and dimension worthy analytic investigation to possible contribution to authoritarian breakdown in Zimbabwe.
Source: Zimbabwe Democracy Institute