UDF Zimbabwe diaspora outreach policy

Background

Ten to fifteen years ago it would have been inconceivable to start a Zimbabwean political party in the Diaspora. This was due to the little or no impact that it could have had on the political arena back in Zimbabwe. However according to UDF own research that is also supported by other sources of statistical information, it is estimated that there are currently 3-5 million Zimbabweans living in the Diaspora across the length and breadth of the globe and the majority of them are in Southern Africa. Most of these Zimbabweans have left home as a direct result of the current economic and latterly political situation in Zimbabwe.

The Zimbabwean Diaspora Population at a Glance

It is estimated that there are about 500 000 of Diaspora based Zimbabweans are in the United Kingdom; about 1.8 million in South Africa; about 400 000 in Botswana; about 200 000 in the USA; about 100 000 in Australia; about 60 000 in Canada; about 45 000 in New Zealand and the rest are spread across the rest of the of the African continent, continental Europe, Scandinavian countries, China and the Middle East among some of the destinations. It is a well-established fact that nearly everyone if not all, of the Zimbabweans in the Diaspora supports families, relatives and friends back in Zimbabwe economically. It is estimated that they remit about $200 million per month in cash or services back home. Also, the Zimbabweans in the Diaspora are gaining a lot of significance when it comes to swaying Zimbabwean opinion against or towards any issues of national importance.

The Zimbabwean Diaspora Vote In Perspective

The UDF considers the prospect of capturing the political support as well as harnessing the economic potential and experience of the Diaspora as of paramount importance as we establish our external structures away from home. The party undertakes to uphold the two inalienable rights of the Zimbabweans in the Diaspora so as to re-align their sovereign privileges with those of their compatriots back home. Firstly, we will seek to secure the right of Zimbabweans in the Diaspora to vote in all future national elections starting in the 2018 polls. This will give our exiled people an opportunity to actively participate in the national process of shaping their future of their country through exercising their democratic right to cast their vote.

The UDF will be seeking to use this as an incentive to capture the Diaspora vote. Voter apathy has also been a serious problem in Zimbabwean elections especially amongst the youth (18-35) who make up about 64% of the population. For example, it is estimated that only 5% were registered to vote in the 2013 and of that only about 70% actually voted! There is a great case for including the Diaspora component of the Zimbabwean electorate to participate in future elections. Once the laws are amended to allow the Diaspora vote which is most likely, the UDF intends to use this to tap into the already very politically conscious Zimbabweans community in exile. It will nevertheless be a daunting task because most of these people had resigned to the reality of their disenfranchisement and re-energising them will not be easy.

The UDF intends to spearhead a process of voter education, awareness and registration so as to prepare all Zimbabweans both in the Diaspora back home to vote in the 2018 elections. The UDF hopes that a voter's roll would be produced that would help to establish the actual number of eligible voters among the Diaspora Zimbabwean community. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has already albeit rather vaguely, hinted on the possibility of allowing the Zimbabweans in the Diaspora the right to vote in "future elections" without much elaboration. However, the UDF would like to take advantage of that ambiguous but long overdue hint by actually pushing for the 2018 elections to be the first in which the Zimbabweans in the Diaspora will be allowed to vote.

To this end, the UDF will seek to engage with international partners such as the European Union, the United Nations, and the USA government through USAID. There is need to get as much international help and support as possible as we seek to right this long standing injustice against the Zimbabweans Diasporas most of whom are out of the country due to the direct consequences of the ruinous policies of the present government. The Diaspora vote which will most certainly go against the ruling Zanu-PF party will most definitely be a real game changer in the 2018 elections. This is an integral aspect of our party's strategy to secure electoral in the watershed elections. The UDF is also identifying strategic partners within Zimbabwe that will help to cascade the party's message so that domestic pressure is also applied on the Zanu-PF government to adopt this policy.

Support Strategies

The UDF is adopting other support strategies that will aid the party's overall Diaspora Outreached Policy and one of these involves the current staged, delayed and carefully managed roll out of the party. The party will continue for the immediate future to operate underground while an extensive diaspora outreach program is executed alongside a comprehensive consolidation of the existing external structures as these will be used as the launch-pad for the Zimbabwean structures. Currently the UDF is not using any media or electronic news outlets to publicise the existence of the party other than through trusted people networks such as word of mouth, emails to trusted mailing lists whose recipients would have been verified as genuinely and sincerely interested in joining the party and getting involved.

This has allowed the party to be established and developed away from the prying eyes of the media some of which has proved in the past to be very unhelpful inherently partisan. By the time the party is launched publicly early to mid in 2016, a solid foundation will have been laid down so as to survive the shockwaves of the potential blows that will be inflicted on it by the Zanu-PF repressive machinery. The UDF is of the opinion that the international community has to adopt a completely different pre-election approach on Zimbabwe including the active support of a new political dispensation in the country.

This would allow the nurturing of a viable, progressive political alternative that could guarantee that Zimbabwe turns a corner as a country and her people can get back to living decent lives again. International development aid alone will not be the solution to the deteriorating economic and social environment in which the people of Zimbabwe continue to wallow in abject poverty while the Zanu-PF elite enjoy the high life. The total emancipation of the Zimbabwean people will only be realised with the advancement of a fresh and more progressive political vision to take execute the democratic struggle to finality and create an inclusive economy.

The Need for a Paradigm Shift

There have been more than three decades of negative economic activity and political turmoil in Zimbabwe that have led to a downward spiral of the general living standards of the ordinary. Political repression and human rights violations have continued to be the hallmark of the ruling's Zanu-PF's 35 plus year reign. Zimbabwe could actually be the economic hub in the SADC region that could also attract African labour looking for better work opportunities. Unfortunately, people are leaving not going to, Zimbabwe. The international community needs to start taking action that has a long term corrective impact on the economic and socio-political development of Africa generally, and Zimbabwe in particular. In the runner up to the 2018 elections there is need to maintain a much tougher stance and starting to squeeze the Zanu-PF regime ahead of the watershed polls so that they complete all outstanding electoral reforms and re-align all laws with the new constitution.

Also, the international community would need to take a serious look at what is happening in the Mediterranean Sea where thousands of African migrants (those who survive the atrocious conditions) are arriving on the European shores on a daily basis. Lives have been lost at sea in peace time at a scale that is only second to the WW2 levels of casualties. It should be noted that this might go on and could even start to attract migrants from further inland Africa as long as the African continent remains a fountain of poverty and strife as it currently is. There is therefore, need for a new dimension to international development that has particular emphasis on in investing in leadership as well strengthening of national institutions. Instead of addressing the symptoms there is now an urgent need address the root cause of the disease and poverty in Africa is a direct consequence if bad governance. This is what is fuelling the mass migratory exodus out of Africa.   

Billions of international development aid have not solved the problems on the continent because the aid money is simply lining the pockets of the selfish leadership who live life on behalf of their hard pressed people. Investing in leadership that involves training, orientation and policy formulation at the highest possible level will go a long way towards cutting the vicious cycle of mal-governance. This leadership investment should also focus on opposition political parties and politicians that need to be subjected to more scrutiny, supervision and offered capacity building than has been the case. Most opposition  politicians are getting away with corruption and greed because once they get the donor funds there are no mechanism to put them to account because they are not in government.

This is allowing them to nurture their malpractices that are consequently transferred into government once they attain power. This has to stop and the international development community has a role to play in this process.

How the International Community Could Assist?  

As indicated earlier in this paper the UDF is currently pursuing on a very pioneering and ambitious drive to secure the right to vote for the millions of disenfranchised Zimbabweans in the Diaspora. The international community through agencies such as the UNHCR, USAID and other political foundations such as the Republican and Democratic Institutes could help with funding the process as well as training our human resources who will be involved with the frontline duties. Electoral experts and census enumerators from around the western world could assist with training our staff on the voter education exercise, compiling a voters' role for all Zimbabweans in the Diaspora as well raising awareness to our people on the importance of securing their right to vote and to actually exercise it.

Most importantly, the international community has to deploy all its tools to pile the pressure on the Zimbabwean government to ensure it grants its citizens abroad unrestricted political rights. Currently Zimbabweans in the Diaspora have resigned to the fact that they are not allowed to vote because they do not think that this is something they are entitled to or can indeed attain. Making them conscious and alive to their right as enshrined in international law will actually awaken this huge Zimbabwean constituency that is simply floating around the world without knowing that their voting rights are just as inalienable as those of Zimbabweans back home. Secondly, given that almost every Zimbabwean in the Diaspora left the country because they wanted to look for better opportunities to further their prospects elsewhere.

Most of these people would never vote for Zanu-PF since their departure from the country was somehow as a direct consequence of the ruinous policies of the regime. Therefore, securing the right to vote for the Zimbabweans in the Diaspora could provide a massive to opposition political parties come 2018. So far the UDF has already established structures in the Diaspora with chapters now set up in the UK and continental Europe as well as Scandinavian, USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Republic of Ireland and Botswana. These are the countries that have very significant concentrations of Zimbabwean communities and conducting voter awareness exercises in these countries would not present any major challenge at all. The international development community could assist us with mobilising the requisite resources both human and financial to equip this essential exercise so that we can deliver it in time for the elections in 2018.

The international development through all the relevant agencies could also help us through making essential representations to the government of Zimbabwe on the need and merits of allowing Diaspora based Zimbabweans the right to vote not only in 2018 but in all national elections just like nationals from all other countries do. Zimbabwe is also an
exceptional in that the population of its citizens abroad is probably among the highest now if not actually the highest in the world. This requirement could be made into a critical condition that the international community could attach on any aid or technical assistance that is extend to Zimbabwe between and 2018.

The Zimbabwean government has to be told in no uncertain terms that failure to deliver on this civic aspect could seriously hinder engagement with the international community as well as receiving of any future aid. The international community will therefore need to significantly ratchet the pressure on the Zimbabwean government as the count down to 2018 relentlessly to ensure that they feel the pressure and the isolation to act.

The Zimbabwean Diaspora's Economic Potential

The UDF will seek to secure the economic empowerment of Zimbabweans in the Diaspora complete with full property and business ownership rights just like their counterparts back home. The UDF will spearhead a process of voter education, awareness and registration so as to prepare all Zimbabweans in the Diaspora to vote in the 2018 elections. A voter's roll will be produced that will help to establish the actual number of eligible voters among the Diaspora Zimbabwean community.

It has been estimated that an organised Zimbabwean Diaspora could invest in excess of $20billion back home within ten years of the existence of the right political and economic environment. This could provide a massive opportunity to mobilise new long term friendly investment capital especially for the revival of such a troubled economy such as Zimbabwe. In addition, it is also expected that once those in the Diaspora have the right to vote and to invest, this will facilitate an increased and smoother transfer of skills back to Zimbabwe. Currently there is a lot of mistrust between the Diaspora based Zimbabweans and the government back home.

Conclusion

The experience, knowledge and expertise gained by Zimbabweans in the Diaspora need to be applied to accelerate the economic transformation back home. But this can only be realised when there is an inclusive political and economic system in Zimbabwe that factors in the Diaspora based community. There is no doubt therefore, that a politically active and economically engaged Diaspora Zimbabwean community that fully participates in the political and economic processes of the country back home will result in significant economic and social benefits to the nation. The Zimbabwean economy could be kick started with the utilisation of the idle massive resource pool stashed away in the Diaspora.

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Roberta Senzelumusa MMoyo <robertanodube@gmail.com