Mnangagwa’s Formative Project: Risks and Limits

This book is about the continuities and discontinuities in the transition from the Mugabe to the Mnangagwa regime in contemporary Zimbabwe. This introductory chapter offers a short narrative around key events and themes that are pertinent to understanding the transition and, most importantly, it sets out an analytical framework for examining the character, content and contingencies of the transition. This framing draws heavily upon the thoughts of Antonio Gramsci. So far, the emerging scholarly literature on the transition in large part highlights the continuities across the two regimes, thereby downplaying the existence and relevance of any changes, at least changes of a reformist or progressive character. While not necessarily denying this overall conclusion, we argue that it is reached in a linear and un-dialectical manner. In recognising the importance of contradictory trends in any transition, we identify the presence of a formative project embedded in many of Mnangagwa’s initiatives. This project exists as a counter-tendency to the likely dominant logic of continuity. Because of the potential risks entailed in this project, mainly moving farther along the road of reform than intended and thereby jeopardising the grip on power, it remains circumscribed to date. The various chapters in this book, focusing on a range of issues around civil and political rights, governance, and socio-economic development, highlight the many shortcomings of this formative project. Nevertheless, it is important to remain analytically cognisant of this project if the scholarly inquiry is to comprehend the contradictory forces animating the Mnangagwa regime.