News / National
Tsvangirai puts forward three possible scenarios for the election outcome
09 Apr 2013 at 08:38hrs | Views
Following the successful referendum vote on the new constitution, Prime Minister Tsvangirai believes elections are likely to take place by early Sep 13.
He put forward three possible scenarios for the election outcome.
His first and favoured scenario, and the one on which he placed the greatest probability, was an MDC victory, which was accepted by all stakeholders.
Based on the latest opinion polls Tsvangirai suggested the MDC would presently win around 65% of election votes in a free and fair election.
Under such a scenario he would be willing to run a coalition government giving cabinet places to Zanu-PF politicians.
The bias of economic policy would change towards growth, rather than redistribution, which was seen as the present policy focus. Participation via employment creation was seen as the best mechanism for redistribution. He had agreed to disagree with Zanu-PF on the present policy of indigenization.
PM Tsvangirai as President would be happy to embrace an IMF funded reform package, although he was wary of adopting a one-structural-adjustment- package-fits-all approach.
He confirmed that the Washington Institutions had actively re-engaged with the government already and were working on medium-term policy goals.
He saw little chance of the multi-currency (dollarization) regime being removed any time soon.
His second scenario, which was less favoured and given less weight, was that the elections did not deliver a clear winner, but rather a similar muddle-through coalition government. The present lack of clear executive authority would, however, be less likely under the new constitution, where the position of PM would no longer exist.
Under this scenario, policy direction was less clear and economic recover would be slower and political stability harder won. Re-engagement with the international community would take longer than under the first and favoured scenario.
His third scenario, which was least favoured and considered fairly unlikely was an election that was not freely and fairly conducted leading to violence and socio-political instability.
He considered this unlikely for three reasons. First, such an alternative would foster also immediate government financing crisis. Second, there was broad cross party and wider popular support for the idea of moving the country forward and away from the political paralysis that has fostered so much economic hardship in recent years. Third, the cross party agreement on appropriate political process is now laid out in the constitution, which is widely accepted by all sides and brings considerably more structure to proceedings.
He put forward three possible scenarios for the election outcome.
His first and favoured scenario, and the one on which he placed the greatest probability, was an MDC victory, which was accepted by all stakeholders.
Based on the latest opinion polls Tsvangirai suggested the MDC would presently win around 65% of election votes in a free and fair election.
Under such a scenario he would be willing to run a coalition government giving cabinet places to Zanu-PF politicians.
The bias of economic policy would change towards growth, rather than redistribution, which was seen as the present policy focus. Participation via employment creation was seen as the best mechanism for redistribution. He had agreed to disagree with Zanu-PF on the present policy of indigenization.
He confirmed that the Washington Institutions had actively re-engaged with the government already and were working on medium-term policy goals.
He saw little chance of the multi-currency (dollarization) regime being removed any time soon.
His second scenario, which was less favoured and given less weight, was that the elections did not deliver a clear winner, but rather a similar muddle-through coalition government. The present lack of clear executive authority would, however, be less likely under the new constitution, where the position of PM would no longer exist.
Under this scenario, policy direction was less clear and economic recover would be slower and political stability harder won. Re-engagement with the international community would take longer than under the first and favoured scenario.
His third scenario, which was least favoured and considered fairly unlikely was an election that was not freely and fairly conducted leading to violence and socio-political instability.
He considered this unlikely for three reasons. First, such an alternative would foster also immediate government financing crisis. Second, there was broad cross party and wider popular support for the idea of moving the country forward and away from the political paralysis that has fostered so much economic hardship in recent years. Third, the cross party agreement on appropriate political process is now laid out in the constitution, which is widely accepted by all sides and brings considerably more structure to proceedings.
Source - standardbank
