Robert Mugabe’s cabinet choices dash hopes of reform

Mr Mugabe’s choice of ministers includes veteran politicians who have been accused of murdering opposition supporters and destroying the Southern African country’s economy over the last 14 years.

Mr Mugabe, 89, won 61 per cent of the presidential vote in the July 31 elections while compared to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s 34 per cent. Civil society observers and Western governments have claimed that Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change supporters were obstructed from voting, and the electoral roll was boosted by ghost voters.

Now, flushed with the success of his landslide election victory, Mr Mugabe appears to have turned his back on any possibility of rapprochement with his western critics by appointing a cabinet dominated by hardliners who obstructed political reform in the inclusive government formed with the MDC following the last, disputed elections in 2008.

Mr Mugabe’s new cabinet sees his election agent, Emmerson Mnangagwa, appointed as justice minister. Mr Mnangagwa, the former defence minister, is known for his ambition to succeed Mr Mugabe when he retires or dies, and will lead a justice system widely believed to be loyal to Mr Mugabe and Zanu PF.

Mr Mnangagwa, a qualified lawyer, was tortured while in detention in what was Rhodesia, and has been associated with many of the worst excesses of human rights violations since independence in 1980. He is accused by human rights groups of involvement in the mass murder of opposition supporters in Matabeleland after Mr Mugabe came to power.

Jonathan Moyo, an academic who designed repressive legislation in 2001 which curtailed media freedom and resulted in the arrest of many foreign journalists, has returned to his former post as Information Minister. Mr Moyo regularly writes columns in the state media which some analysts describe as hate speech.

Patrick Chinamasa, the former justice minister who oversaw the frequent jailing of supporters of the MDC, has been appointed to lead the finance ministry, a department which previously presided over hyperinflation and the collapse of the country’s economy.

At a press conference in Harare shortly after the election, Mr Chinamasa called on the West to lift economic sanctions that remain on Zimbabwe, saying: “I would expect that they will accept that the people of Zimbabwe have spoken.”

Analysts raised concern over the retention of Mr Mugabe’s old favourites in favour of reformists. Brian Raftopoulos, a Zimbabwean political analyst, said it sent a message of “reassertion of the old guard, of consolidation of the old Zanu PF strategy”, including its latest stated plan to take a majority share of foreign-owned firms.

“There is no indication of reform in this cabinet,” he said. “Unless there is a change of messaging in the next few months, Zanu PF is battening down the hatches and consolidating its indigenisation programme.”

David Coltart, a member of the Movement for Democratic Change who served as education minister in the inclusive government until the last polls, said it appeared some of the most controversial ministers in the previous cabinet had been demoted.

The man who drove the indigenisation policy which was the major plank of Mr Mugabe’s campaign, Saviour Kasukawere, has lost that portfolio and has been given water affairs. His successor, the former wildlife minister Frances Nhema is so “incompetent” insiders say he could not drive any indigenisation policy, indicating that Mr Mugabe may be worried about the previously-planned takeover of Zimbabwe’s largest foreign-owned companies.

Obert Mpofu, who conjured up a takeover by the state of private diamond mining leases has lost the powerful mines portfolio and has been moved to transport.