Zimbabwe's Struggle for Democracy

Transcript of episode 4: 

Hello and welcome to the Rules of the Game podcast where it is my job to discuss democratic institutions. 

In this episode, I discuss the state of some of the democratic institutions of Zimbabwe, together with my guest McDonald Lewanika. Political institutions and power have been changing since Robert Mugabe took power as a Liberator from colonial oppression in the year 1980. The image of the Liberator Robert Mugabe, speaking to the public in 1987 is also one of McDonald’s early childhood memories of politics. 

While the electoral institutions were more proportional and inclusive in the beginning, the dominant ruling party ZANU-PF, changed the rules of the game over time to tighten the grip on power. McDonald Lewanika explains why and where political power is concentrated in today’s Zimbabwe and how ZANU-PF was able to consolidate political power at the expense of the opposing political parties and the citizens of Zimbabwe. 

Dr. McDonald Lewanika is a politics and development researcher with over 17 years of experience as a human rights defender, democracy and governance practitioner and civil society leader in Zimbabwe and southern Africa. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Africa and a Master’s degree in International Development from the University of Manchester and an M.Res. in Political Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He then continued his research career at the London School of Economics, where he received a Ph.D in political science. He is now Chief of Party at the Accountability Lab. You can find more information about McDonald Lewanika’s work on his website mlewanika.academia.edu. You also find him on LinkedIn and Twitter. His Twitter handle is @Makil, that’s m a k i l. 

I am your host, Stephan Kyburz, and this is the fourth episode in my new podcast, the Rules of the Game, where it is my job to discuss, analyze and compare democratic institutions from around the world. I am a political economist with a PhD in economics from the University of Bern in Switzerland, and I previously held positions at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Center for Global Development. 

I believe that a public discussion of democratic institutions is important and that people should take part in that discussion. I have decided to dedicate my time to contribute to that debate. With my knowledge and my perspective, I strongly believe in the wisdom of the people and the power of knowledge. People should be more aware of the political institutions that govern their lives. 

Please subscribe to this podcast on any podcast platform, and you’ll always get the latest episode. You can find me on Twitter @skyburz and you can find show notes with links to all material discussed on my website rulesofthegame.blog.

And two more minor remarks about this episode. I was a bit nervous in the beginning because I wasn’t totally sure whether everything was fine with the recording, since it was a long distance recording. And there is, at some points, a bit of a humming in the background due to a ventilator, but hopefully you will still be able to enjoy our debate. So, having said that, please enjoy this wide ranging conversation with McDonald Lewanika

Interview: 

Stephan Kyburz: Alright, McDonald Lewanika, welcome to the Rules of the Game podcast. I’m very happy to welcome you and very much looking forward to our discussion. 

McDonald Lewanika: Thank you for having me, Stephan.

Stephan Kyburz: Before starting with the discussion of the institutional setup in Zimbabwe, I’d like to kind of start with a few personal questions just to give people an idea, you know, of your work or your political work and also kind of how you started engaging in politics. So what is your first memory of democracy or politics in general? 

McDonald Lewanika: Yeah, thanks a lot for that question, Stephan. And I don’t think that I would be able to adequately answer about my first memory of democracy because Zimbabwe has been repleted full of democratic deficits for as long as I can remember. But I do have memories of politics in general. I have memories, my first memory of, some semblance of freedom or what we thought was freedom at that particular point in time, would be something that dates back to the time when I was seven and doing my grade one. I just started my primary school, and this was in 1987, which was also an interesting year politically, all sorts of interesting things were happening on the political stage. Not that I was aware of it at that particular point in time, but we were led by this maverick called Robert Mugabe. And one of my earliest memories was to see this maverick who, at that particular point in time, was the personification of freedom itself, so the personification of freedom itself and just seeing him, even from a distance, seeing him, articulating on television and stuff. I think that, you know, so it’s not a distinct, singular memory, but it’s a set of memories that date back to that very young age and eloquent prime minister who was a freedom fighter and who delivered freedom. Eso if I had traced back my memories of politics, they invariably the traced back to memories of McDonald Lewanika, the the maverick freedom fighter. At that particular point in time, the men with unlocked us from British colonialism and foreign domination. 

Stephan Kyburz: Okay, that sounds very, very interesting and impressive as well. And then, how did that develop or time, when did you start, like, you know, engaging in politics yourself? 

McDonald Lewanika: Yeah, so the interesting thing is that even though my first political memories of Robert Mugabe, my own entry into the political terrain was to fight Robert Mugabe, and this was basically at the age of 18, I just finished my A-levels, and a new political party was on the verge of being formed in Zimbabwe. And I was a young person, I was fairly eloquent, who had demonstrated quite a bit of promise in terms of my own intellectual abilities. And when people came knocking and mobilizing for the formation of this new political party, the Movement for Democratic Change, I found myself in a situation where I did get elected as the first youth chairperson of a district called MFACOSI, at that particular point in time. So definitive in terms of the political terrain, that’s how I entered the space. But I try to differentiate that with my entry into activism, so to speak. But that’s a story I mean that we can pick up on as we go. But my entry into activism is a bit earlier. So two years earlier, when I was in high school, a friend, when I was a boarding school, a friend of ours, he got expelled for no solid reason, after he got expelled, he went home. His parents were mad, and as a result of that he then committed suicide. My first act of activism was to protest that suicide and the expulsion, at our school. So I mobilized other students, and we demonstrated much to the guy’s funeral, and then much became and demonstrated at the school, and eventually I got expelled for those things. But in terms of my entry into activism, outside the main political realm, that is where I trace it back to. It was an entry on the strength of a strong sense of an injustice that had occurred, which we felt needed to be protested. Unfortunately, it could not be corrected. 

Stephan Kyburz: Okay, I see. And, yeah, sorry to hear, you know, that sounds like a very emotional journey, as well. And thanks for sharing that story. I think, probably, that would itself be a, you know, worthwhile having a discussion over. But I think for now we just move on to, kind of, jumping forward in time. You know today, what, in Zimbabwe, what the political landscape looks like today and especially, I want to focus on the institutions that, you know, are responsible for who has the power and how power is shared or not shared. And what the role of the different institutions are. So I think, I kind of wanna talk about the different parts of government. So on one side there is the executive government, the presidency, and then we have, you know, the House of Assembly and the Senate, and they all have, like, different roles. And they have different power sharing agreements, essentially. Or the institutions build up that power of the different branches of government. So what is your impression now in Zimbabwe, where does power lie and how did it change, like in the last few years? And also since Mnangagwa took over the ZANU-PF. Did anything change in the last, like, 3, 4, 5 years? 

McDonald Lewanika: Yeah. Thanks, thanks a lot for that question, Stephan. It’s both an interesting and a difficult question to answer with where Zimbabwe is concerned, So fundamentally the question is, where does power lie, we have to look at it in terms of the institutions that we are interested in as part of the Rules of the Game podcast, the parliament, executive, and stuff. The easy answer would be that power lies in the executive, it lies in the executive presidency. But that’s the easy answer to give where Zimbabwe is concerned. Just recently, in a major report that was released, which outlines how our state and our political elites are basically operating at the mercy of cartels, and these cartels, that are made up of people from the military establishment, people from the business establishment, and people with political power. So you actually, it is the combination or an alliance between military, business and political elites, and if you want, if you provide a proper analysis of where power lies. But when you realize that it doesn’t lie in government or the executive branch of the state, neither does it lie in the legislature. It actually lies in the shadows, where these cartels and business  and military political interests reside. So that would be sort of like the long answer that I would give with regards to that. After giving the easy answer with regards to the formal institutions themselves. 

Stephan Kyburz. Okay, so the power lies kind of outside of the official government institutions. But these, like cartels and businesses, they still I guess, they try to influence the executive presidency a lot, right? But still, I would be interested to hear, like, you know, the laws are still, developed in parliament, right? So well, I guess you know, the president proposes laws, but he still needs the support of the legislative body of government in order to bring them through. Now, obviously the House of Assembly has, like, a two thirds majority, right, of ZANU PF? So I guess they will just, you know, approve most of, or all of what the president kind of proposes. Is that how it goes? 

McDonald Lewanika: Yeah. So in terms of the current situation that’s exactly how it goes. The president does not necessarily need the support of parliament, but it needs its compliance. And he gets it, because the president of the country is also the president of ZANU-PF. So he carries both the authority from the party and the authority that is granted to him by the constitution. But more to the point, the Zimbabwe political system, the parliamentary system operates on a whip system, so members of parliament can console their conscience, they vote along party lines and they vote as dictated by the party. So anything that is proposed from ZANU-PF headquarters, anything that the president brings to the parliament is likely to sail through. Parliament, as it is currently constituted, basically exists as a glorified rubber stamping house really, because there’s nothing that the executive proposes that doesn’t pass through at the end of the day. Now it hasn’t always been like this. Even when ZANU-PF was a majority party in Parliament in the 1990s, you’d still be able to get an animated debate, you used to be able to get resistance. The situation even became more animated and parliament became more robust in the aftermath of the formation of the Movement for Democratic Change post 2000, where at some point, I think, it was almost a 50-50 split between the opposition and ZANU-PF, and at that time parliament could try to dictate some pace, even though eventually these laws go for presidential assent and some influence could be exercised at that particular point in time. But you are correct, I mean, that’s the way that the formal system operates, but it operates under a lot of influence from informal institutions, and informal characters who are exercising power without the state itself.

Stephan Kyburz: Yeah, I see. I mean, there’s, like, two directions where we could go from here. Like we could be going back to the year 2000, when, you know, the opposition tried to establish kind of a new constitution together with the government. I’m not sure. I don’t know the history well enough to see, you know, who was that kind of forum that, you know, was working out that constitution. But that was kind of a window of opportunity, right, to change the balance of power. And then on the other side, obviously, would be the current, I would also be interested to see what’s the role of the senate, you know, because the senate has a proportional electoral system, right? So the senate is more balanced between the parties and then also the chiefs have a certain role. I would also be interested to hear your opinion, you know, what can the Senate be, can the senate balance power? And, you know, what’s the role of the senate, really? So maybe we can focus on, you know, the current state. So maybe we continue talking about the current state of the institutions. And then we may want to go back to, you know, what happened in 2000 and in between. 

McDonald Lewanika: Okay, so, yeah, I mean at the parliamentary level, it’s a bicameral system where you’ve got the National Assembly, and then you’ve got the Senate. And indeed, in a normal setup, the Senate is supposed to play some kind of a more mature oversight role on bills and debates and statutory instruments that are developed by the lower house, the National Assembly. That is how it is supposed to be operating on paper. But when we talk about proportionality where the Senate is concerned, basically, you then realize that the same configurations that exist in the lower house in terms of representation of different political voices is replicated at the level of the Senate. Because how these guys get elected is based on the vote share that comes out of different Senate constituencies or different provinces. That’s how political parties get allocated seats and positions into the Senate. The Senate is not elected on a sort of like a single member district type arrangement, or first-past-the-post type of arrangement. So that what you have is a replication of the balance of power that is there in the national assembly is replicated at the Senate. And again, we go back to the issue of the whipping system, that at the end of the day, whatever the party says is what goes, and it cuts across both houses of parliament both in the National Assembly and the level of the Senate. So when we look at it in terms of plenary discussions in plenary, you’ll be hard pressed to find meaningful oversight being demonstrated. But what I’ve realized over the last couple of years is that, you know, quite a bit of this oversight effectiveness of parliament can be seen when you then visit the committees of parliament. More robust debate definitely takes place there. And any progress around progressive reforms or changes that ordinary citizens might want sometimes are better articulated when citizens lobby. Parliamentarians in their committees be it at the level of the Senate of the National Assembly. But once it goes to the floor to the plenary, then the party positions are what prevail at the end of the day. You mentioned the existence of Chiefs as part of the Senate. Again, you know, under normal circumstances, you know, this is something that is commendable, and it ensures that, you know, people would represent citizens have a voice in parliament. But in Zimbabwe part of the challenge has been that over time traditional leaders have basically been corrupted by the state at different political moments. So even if you go to the colonial times, you realize that traditional leaders were doing the bidding of the colonial system in the name. Of course, you had one or two resisting. Post independence that situation has remained the same and post 2000 it has even worsened, with clear inducements being used to influence chiefs’ position. So they’ve been allocated cars, electrification, tractors and stuff like that as part of the process of corrupting them to the agenda of the ruling party. And then these are the same chiefs that are then represented in the Senate. Again, as in the past, you will find one or two resisting. But that’s the exception, rather than the rule. Otherwise, they do toe to the party line. And in some places they are key organizers of the ruling party in the places that they come from. 

Stephan Kyburz: I see. Okay, that’s very interesting. And I think what you know, the electoral law, that’s really for me, a key issue in all the countries and I see all over the place, you know that the first-past-the-post system is really a system that makes it much easier for political elites to preserve power, right? Because it’s a worse representation, essentially of the people, and it’s a more geographic representation. But it’s not like it’s much harder for other parties to compete, right, because a lot of the areas are kind of pre-decided, based on the electoral law. And also we see, you know, currently, for example, in the U.S. how the first-post-post-system in single member districts creates this power play by the two largest parties and the struggle for influence. But it doesn’t allow for new forces to emerge. And I guess I think that the first-past-the-post system, you know, in the House of Assembly, right, also preserves that power. Or what’s your view on that? 

McDonald Lewanika: Yeah, I think you’re spot on, Stephan. So the electoral system in Zimbabwe hasn’t always been like that. In the 1980 elections, we actually used the proportional representation system. And the reason why the ruling party abandoned that system was because they were afraid that they would be stopped from retaining power through different political formations banding together. So clearly, there is an incentive to the restructuring of the electoral system as part of the process of preserving power. And the first-past-the-post system does lend itself well to that. It creates all sorts of interesting distortions. And, like you mentioned, when you look at it in terms of the single member district, ZANU-PF has got a two thirds majority right now in parliament. But when you look at overall vote share, if we’re using a proportional representation system, then you know the distribution of seats in parliament would be fundamentally different from what it is at this particular point in time. But those are some of the costs that come with the first-past-the-post system, the winner-take-all approach to our politics. And it does crowd out smaller political parties because at the end of the day, it does push everyone towards the two big political parties, because everyone wanted to vote for a party that has the possibilities and chances of actually winning an election. So, yeah, it’s different from the American system, but it does force people towards the two major political blocs. It’s very polarizing, very unaccommodative of different political interests and views, and very, very bad for smaller sectoral or even geographic or ethnic political parties. So those actually are virtually non existent on the political map. Because the system does not lend itself well to that kind of diverse politics. 

Stephan Kyburz: Mhm and also I think it’s much easier for you know, outside forces, as you said, like cartels or businesses to influence, to lobby the members of parliament, right? If they are like in single-member districts, you know, the lobbies can much more directly, you know, kind of target, you know, the swing voters in parliament, right? They can directly kind of attack, you know, that power. And okay, you know, there’s also this nice, or how Switzerland became like, more like a consensus and a more competitive democracy was exactly by, you know, implementing a proportional electoral system. Because before we had also one party controlled power like between 1848 and about 1920, one party completely controlled Swiss politics, and they were also a business party, essentially, they were really big in manufacturing, and they pretty much controlled, captured the national government, you know, in many respects. And only the introduction of proportional representation really led to that change and allowed smaller parties, and also the fringe parties, both on the left and on the right, allowed these parties to compete. And I think that’s actually an issue which is fundamental and really, really important for people to understand, right? That this electoral system preserves power and makes it easier for  the parties in power to retain that power. 

McDonald Lewanika: No, you’re definitely right. And I think that’s one of the biggest challenges. So everyone accepts the virtues of proportional representation. But those who are in power will not reform the electoral law to have proportional representation at the level of the National Assembly because that is tantamount to reform themselves out of power, at the end of the day. Because proportional representation lends itself well even to coalition politics. So, and that’s something that ZANU-PF is keen on fighting because they have seen the potential. So we’ve got the 2008 election, for instance, where the numbers clearly show that if opposition parties banded together and fought as one block, ZANU-PF could have been deposed from power. In 2008, I mean outside of the fact that Mugabe actually lost to Morgan Tsvangirai, when you look at the numbers, they wouldn’t have been in it for a run-off election, and stuff like that. So that’s something that ZANU-PF is keenly aware of, and I don’t think that they would introduce, I mean they’ve got no incentive to introduce a system that is fair for its citizens, but which at the end of the day can culminate their deposition from power. 

Stephan Kyburz: Yeah, of course. I mean, that’s you see that everywhere, right? I mean, the politicians will never give up power, you know, by themselves. So it has to be like an outside force, like an opposition or, in general the people who, but for the people, obviously it’s much harder to have this awareness, I guess, I mean, because it’s kind of a technical detail and how the electoral system really could change politics, like in fundamental ways. That’s kind of I think both important to know, but difficult, you know, to achieve for the opposition, also to make that message very clear, I guess. And you know, you see it, it was the same in Switzerland. You know, the party in power, they were completely opposed, you know, they were fighting the proportional representation. And also in the US now, for example, you see, you know, the both parties in power they are not like, they’re not willing to, I think, to change the electoral system. Because for both parties, it would mean giving up power. And that’s what power, like parties never want to give up power. There is only, it could only happen if the system is really at the brink of collapse. And we might, you know, in the U.S., for example, we might come closer to that point where the parties realize, you know, the system is pushing the democracy to a point of, you know, really dangerous kind of conflict between the political factions and that could only be a trigger for electoral reform. But I’m not sure. I think the Republicans, you know, they tried to retain their kind of minority, or their current power, as it is with, you know, the Senate and everything. But the Democrats are probably also reluctant to change the electoral system because it would mean giving up power for them. But let’s go back to Zimbabwe now. And, so essentially what we can observe is that over time, you know, the party in power, Mugabe, they really tried to overtime conserve their power, right? They abolished some of the parliamentary systems, or parliamentary elements in government. So they made the presidency stronger. They probably started ruling more by executive decrees, and at the same time, they made the electoral system less proportional, right? At least in the beginning you said in the 1980s, there was like more proportionality. And now, obviously in the house, 210 seats out of 270 are single member districts first-past-the-post. So that’s really a preservation of power. 

McDonald Lewanika: Yeah, so that has been the tendency and the trend. You mentioned, it’s interesting, you mentioned, 270 parliamentary seats with 210 directly elected. The remaining ones are proportional representation seats reserved for women. But they are also based on the vote share that the parties would have gotten in the other direct elections. And that was a compromise that was really forced onto ZANU-PF. It’s an outcome of the 2013 constitutional reform process. And as you and your listeners might be aware, in 2008 we had a disputed election which ended up leading to a power sharing arrangement between the ruling party and the opposition. And then, just in terms of political moments, possible moments for reform, that was a powerful one. And those are some of the things that then came into the system as a result of that, just as a way of compromise, really. ZANU-PF wouldn’t have wanted that to happen, but they were forced into that situation because there was an impasse on the ground, and parliament at that time, as I mentioned earlier, it was split in the middle, it was a hung parliament. No one had an absolute majority in that particular parliament. So yeah, so you’re correct when there is that kind of an impasse, I think the opportunities for more meaningful reforms take place. But the tendency has been towards consolidating. ZANU-PF had the ability to retain power, and they have done that through both formal and informal channels. I think part of the Zimbabwe narrative has been how violence and chicanery have been deployed in elections as part of the power retention mechanism of that ZANU-PF over time, you know? So I mentioned earlier that my first memories are from 1987 and I noted that was an interesting political year. That is when things really began to change in terms of the political institutions and the electoral system is Zimbabwe. That’s when the prime minister’s position and the ceremonial presidency were abolished and the power of the prime minister and the president at that time then were all placed into the hands of an executive president with almost imperial powers. Who would then be able to exercise that kind of politically motivated changes to laws in order to give more power to the executive branch of government, but more specifically, to the president and make it difficult for anyone to be able to take power away from ZANU-PF. So this is something that has been happening over time. Serious consolidation of power, as to what the presidency is concerned. And unfortunately, like you said, you know, the major political parties always think that you know that if it’s winner-take-all, if we win, then we are taking everything, you know. So no one really has, amongst the major players, would have the incentive to try to lobby or advocate for a different type of political system. That those are lessons that I think the opposition has learnt the hard way. That, you know, sometimes you’re better of investing in institutions that serve the people better, rather than to base your calculations on a political calculus that supposes that you are the one who is going to take the whole thing, if you win, because ZANU-PF will make sure that you don’t. 

Stephan Kyburz: Yeah, of course. And also, after 2008, you know, that power sharing agreement, right, in the medium to long run, it was still ZANU-PF who consolidated power, right? So, MDC didn’t really, even though they had, like, they were almost, you know, on the brink of gaining power, or more power, through that power sharing agreement. It didn’t last, right? Is that right?

McDonald Lewanika: Yeah. So the power sharing agreement first gave a lot of power, basically gave senior partnership in the power sharing agreement to ZANU-PF as the first thing. But also you know, the opposition ended up losing in that particular arrangement for various reasons. The first one is that they were not, when they got into the power sharing agreement, they deployed their best resources into government. So they were interested in governing, and in doing the work, with ZANU-PF was, you know, wanted to hold onto power formally in government, but also rebuilding its political base on the strength of the need to feel that they suffered in 2008. So the opposition came out of it weaker, structurally, institutionally, in terms of the party as an institution. But also, there is a significant number of people that feel betrayed by that particular arrangement, that were saying no, we have had enough of ZANU-PF. Why are we getting into bed with it? We must just fight until it is totally out of the state. So that also contributed to the opposition losing some supporters. You know, that the hardliners amongst its supporters of those who feel that some people really needed to go for things to change, feel betrayed by them. Accommodations that were affected into the power sharing agreement. But you’re right, just in terms of this simple calculus of who had more power in that particular agreement, definitely it was ZANU-PF. And even when Mugabe had to do certain things in consultation, he just did what he wanted. And then you scream bloody murder afterwards. But nothing happens. Nothing happens. 

Stephan Kyburz: Yeah, right. And what do you think is the current state of the opposition? You know, how much effort is put into, you know, political change and how much effort is put into institutional change. You know, obviously you could question either, you know, the institutions fundamentally, like electoral laws, division of power, etc. Or you could, you know, have, like, kind of a brute force political struggle. So how do you see that situation now? 

McDonald Lewanika: Yeah, so I think that the opposition is much, much more intent on a political struggle that culminates in power changing hands. More than they are on an institutional reform struggle. Which is a bit of a disturbing situation, because it is precisely the institutions that deter their easy access to presenting on the stage in the first place. You know, the unfairness of the rules of the game, basically tilts the playing field in ZANU-PF’s favour. And if you understand that, the chance of attaining power, you need to focus on the rules of the game. You need to focus on the institutions and make sure that there is meaningful electoral reform that allows for fair competition to be able to take place. But the opposition, I think, found itself in a situation where they thought, you know what, we need to fight for political power. When you take it, then we can be able to lead the reform agenda in our way, you know? So I’ll say that, yeah, the struggle really is about power changing hands more than it is about reforming institutions, at this particular point in time what the opposition is concerned. 

Stephan Kyburz: Yeah, obviously, for the parties these are also hard choices to make right? Because, you know, obviously they see the next election coming up, and they need to, you know, try to bundle their forces to try to win the next election. And then on the other side, you have the institutional questions, which are probably for a party harder to grasp. You know, that’s a more fundamental question. And maybe even within the party, there is not like an agreement on, you know what would be the best institutional change? Even though, like, I mean, obviously I can’t speak for, you know, for the case in Zimbabwe, but in general, I think, you know, pushing for institutional change, like pushing for a more proportional electoral law would be one of the most fundamental questions. For an opposition that faces, you know, such a strong party in power. But power is consolidated based on rules that are not really fair for all the parties, right? 

McDonald Lewanika: Yeah,  I know. And, like I said, it’s interesting, because in Zimbabwe the only time that the opposition actually made inroads, and nearly won political power in 2008, it was on the strength of changes that had taken place to the rules of the game. As part of what was called constitutional amendment number 17 and number 18, which led to the harmonization of elections. Which also meant that ZANU-PF as a political party became stretched. It had to run a presidential election campaign, a parliamentary election campaign, and a local government election campaign, at the same time. Whereas in the past, this used to be separate. So the entire, the full force of ZANU-PF could easily be deployed, focusing just on local government, or focusing just on parliament, and it was fairly stretched because of that harmonization. There were also other concessions that came, because in the run up to the 2008 election, there had been some incidents around beatings and arrests of opposition leaders in 2007, which had led to the intervention of the South African government to mediate. And then that mediation process yielded some reforms to the institutional setup. And it has not been given a lot of credit. But I think that is part of what contributed to a decent performance in 2008. And it’s not certainly not the only thing, I think the economy was fighting against ZANU-PF, and Morgan Tsvangiarai was a formidable candidate and stuff. But you cannot take away some of the opportunities that opened up as a result of a leveling that took place with what the rules of the game are concerned. So, part of the approach by the opposition is fairly iced what I called it. Because if you look at it in perspective, you realize that it is to their advantage when their reforms, meaningful reforms that take place to the institutions that govern how power is obtained in Zimbabwe. But yeah, the temptation is always there to think that, you know, we can defeat this monster, despite the unfairness that is there today. But I don’t know where that optimism basically comes from, because it is not supported by facts from this.

Stephan Kyburz:  Yeah, okay. So we could go in so many different directions. There’s so many things I would love to discuss still. You know both the consolidation of power in the 1980, which is interesting, then the attempted change of the constitution in 2000, where, you know, I think, the movement MDC, kind of, originates from that period. And then we have the power sharing agreement in 2008, and then we have the transfer of power, or not transfer, but you know, the demise of Mugabe, and the taking over of power of Mnangagwa. Yeah, there are so many different ways we could go on from here in the discussion. But I think for now we just wrap up here, and and we leave some of the topics for future discussions. I would very much like to have you on the podcast again, because, I think Zimbabwe also, you know, includes so many interesting questions with regard to rules of game and constitutional development. And your insights are really, you know, interesting I think for a broader audience. And, yeah, I really appreciate having you on the podcast. And, yeah, thanks a lot, McDonald, for sharing all these thoughts. 

McDonald Lewanika: Well, thanks a lot for inviting me, Stephan. I mean we can talk about Zimbabwe for days. And like you said, it was interesting, you know we would be able to pick up on it again, and just dig a bit deeper. So I’m looking forward to the next time you are inviting me. So hopefully there will be a next time. 

Stephan Kyburz: Okay, Cool. Thanks a lot, McDonald. 

McDonald Lewanika: All right. Thanks a lot, Stephan.