by Li Nuer, Tony Chikomba and Langar Soko
HARARE, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- As the year 2008 draws to a close, Zimbabwe faced an increasingly uncertain future, beset by a growing list of political, economic and social difficulties that have attracted unprecedented international attention.
Politically, the country opened the year with tightly-contested presidential and parliamentary elections in March. The government and the opposition sharply disputed the results of a run-off presidential vote won by incumbent President Robert Mugabe in an eventual one-man race, prompting interventions by the African Union (AU) and the regional Southern African Development Community(SADC).
In spite of the AU and SADC counsel which is ongoing, the two sides remain poles apart, tearing the nation of 14 million people apart.
On the surface, what is at issue is how to share key ministerial portfolios in a unity government brokered by the AU and SADC, but deep down, analysts said, mistrust is holding up the deal for the two sides to come together in one government.
It is not just about the control of (Ministry) Home Affairs, but much deeper than that; in fact each side does not trust the other, and are driven by opposed agendas, Joseph Madziva, a lawyer, said, referring to the dispute between the government and the opposition over the control of the ministry which is in charge of the police in the proposed unity government.
He said none of the sides wants to relent on the ministry because it was strategic in projecting future political influence in the country. So central is the ministry to the two sides that even a rotational control suggested by the AU and SADC to break the logjam has been snubbed, Madziva said.
As the two sides differed on the political make-up of the country, social services and the economy took a heavy knock this year.
Inflation raced to a world record high of 231 million percent by July. Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr. Gideon Gono tried all the tricks in the book during the year, including removing zeros from the currency and printing new notes, but inflation caught up with him at every turn.
The government also created the National Incomes and Pricing Commission which was supposed to, among other responsibilities, control prices, especially those of basic commodities. All this came to naught as prices continued to rise.
The impact on the lives of ordinary people and Zimbabwe's political landscape remained severe. Unemployment rose and goods and services, particularly food, became unaffordable. Several companies closed shops because of several factors, among them the inability to procure foreign currency to buy raw material from outside the country and the general lack of investor confidence in a country.
As a result, some companies resorted to shorter working weeks where employees took turns to work three or four days per week, as they scaled down operations. The shorter working week was also necessitated by high transport costs where at times monthly fares were now higher than the employees' salaries.
Chairman of retail chain OK Zimbabwe Limited, Eric Kahari, said recently that the current political uncertainty had affected business confidence and accelerated economic decline.
"As a result of the above negative factors, businesses operated below capacity, leading to acute product shortages. Low productivity and the sharp depreciation of the local currency accelerated the already galloping hyper-inflation," he said while explaining delays by his company in publishing its inflation-adjusted financial results.
At the close of the year, the social discomfort for the poor was worsened by the outbreak of the worst epidemic of cholera in Zimbabwe's history.
Residents were urged to boil water before drinking, while the United Nations started providing water purification tablets for free to combat the worst cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe in more than15 years.
The epidemic had killed around 600 people by early December.
Adding fuel to the uncertain outlook is the poor start of this year's agricultural season with predictions already growing for even worse food shortages in the country next year.
The United Nations estimates that at least 5.5 million will need emergency food aid because of last year's poor yields. Although weather forecasters had predicted a normal first half of the rainfall season, farmers now fear that harvests will still be bad because the rains that have fallen to date have not been good.
Politicians in Zimbabwe have to attend to this impasse (power-sharing) soon, Andrew Govera, a political scientist at the Midlands University has said.
Concerned about the sad state of affairs, the Business Council of Zimbabwe also issued a statement highlighting the nature of the crisis and what it perceived as the way forward.
The council noted that financial sector instability, critical food shortages, inadequate treated water supplies in urban areas, poor health service delivery, and the collapse of the education sector and forces business closures were contributing to the current socioeconomic crisis.
The council said it had written to the country's political leadership, imploring them to resolve their problems and paving the way for an all-inclusive government.
"We, therefore, call on the authorities and political leaders to: urgently set up an effective all-inclusive government; solicit increased humanitarian assistance; quickly restore the stability of the financial services sector; and allow immediate use of all acceptable currencies throughout the economy," the council said.
Many Zimbabweans have pinned their hopes for an economic revival on the ongoing talks for an all-inclusive government, involving President Mugabe's Zanu-PF and the two Movement for Democratic Change factions.
However, analysts here said the birth pains for the new government have been long and arduous.
