I also encountered a hope that ‘robust engagement’ with the Commonwealth could offset Chinese business penetration of Zimbabwean markets by widening the pool of possible foreign investors, as well as boosting Zimbabwean confidence to drive a harder bargain with their Chinese business interlocutors.
There was an associated hope that Commonwealth reengagement would accelerate the removal of US sanctions and the few remaining EU measures, which are still deemed to taint the Zimbabwean business environment.
At an elite political and civil society level, attitudes were decidedly mixed. I was warned of a discernible undertow of enduring resentment towards the Commonwealth among what might be termed the ZANU-PF ‘hard core’; however, that there was also an emerging dominant view that reengagement with the Commonwealth would be a much needed and rapid foreign policy success.
I encountered an edge of outright impatience – a product of a brisk, goal-driven military mindset among the new Foreign Minister SB Moyo and his special advisers – and friction with the more cautious bureaucratic attitude of career diplomats within the Department of Foreign Affairs, which stressed careful strategies, strict hierarchies and control of lines of communication.
Among leading opposition figures, there was keen interest in the Commonwealth dimension offering a wider environment within Africa to foster change in Zimbabwean institutions, diluting any enduring sense of a colonial ‘axis’ between London and Harare.
The Commonwealth was seen as typifying an African philosophy of learning from one another, therefore detoxifying Western pressure for change.
Therefore, domestic sensitivities that Zimbabwe was being hauled into the dock for persistent violations or misdemeanours, would be eased by the argument of Commonwealth African countries already possessed a template for, say, security sector reform, or local government administration and engagement with wider society, which the Zimbabwean government could usefully emulate.
(This viewpoint came from a leading member of the Parliamentary committee on multilateral engagement.)
There was also the desire for knowledge transfers in how to handle international negotiations which, it was believed, the Commonwealth could support. In addition, the Commonwealth was seen as a potential source of practical help on land questions (harking back to the assistance the Secretariat offered in the 1990s, in collaboration with UNDP).
Overall, I repeatedly encountered the phrase describing reconnection with the Commonwealth as ‘low hanging fruit’: that the Commonwealth offered an apparent quick diplomatic success for the ZANU-PF government, regaining a kite mark of respectability in the international community, very much in keeping with Mnangagwa’s instruction to ministries to achieve discernible success within 100 days; and its varying forms of ‘soft power penetration’ and multi-layered connectivity would rapidly foster the image of a more benign new dispensation, putting a clear stamp on the post-Mugabe era.
Altogether, then, a reboot of ZANU-PF using foreign policy to protect the regime, and continuing to ensure its political hegemony.
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