Regionalisation in Southern Africa: The SADC Principles and Guidelines and 2005 Zimbabwe Elections

1. Regionalisation in Southern Africa: The SADC Principles and Guidelines and 2005 Zimbabwe Elections

2. Introduction • Regional integration is not only the domain of states or governments. • Non-state actors (i.e. political parties, interest groups and NGOs) also play their part. • This paper departs from the state-centric analysis of regional integration. • Focus on the transnational lobby campaign of the MDC, and interest groups and NGOs to influence the Zim government to abide by the SADC Principles and Guidelines.

3. Main Problem: To what extent have these non-state actors created a new normative cross-border region within SADC? • In addition: What were their strategies and tactics and the significance of their actions on regionalisation in SADC?

4. Regionalisation and Norms • Regionalisation represents the intensification of social integration, the unassisted processes of social and economic relations and the expansion of interdependent networks within regions. • Therefore two facets to regionalisation: • Economic • Political: Increase in the flow of people, improvement of communication routes and social networks and the creation of a transnational regional civil society.

5. Norms are shared (social) understandings of standards of behaviour, or guidelines for human conduct and providing an action guide for behaviour in certain contexts. • Norms and behaviour of individuals and actors are closely linked. • Link between norms and regionalisation: regionalisation has a normative character, because of the transnational spread of ideas, political attitudes, ideologies and viewpoints (behavioural character). • Individuals and collectivity actors produce norms to direct their behaviour.

6. Regions are resource pools of norms because of their protocols that prescribe behaviour in certain contexts. • Non-state actors will use this resource pool to circumvent governments to gain access to this pool. • They will also use the norms of an international institution to circumvent a government and to influence that government. • Circumvention is used to an increasing extent because of globalisation and low responses from governments to the demands of non-state actors.

7. Through circumvention regionalisation develops to its fullest potential, because the government or state is not involved and therefore does not assist in the process. • Non-state actors act as linkage actors when accessing this resource pool. • A number of approaches (strategies) are available when they operate as linkage actors: • Power approach. • Technocratic approach. • Coalition-building approach. • Grass-roots mobilisation.

8. Regionalisation therefore contains actor, norm creation and political action elements (circumvention, influence and linkage approaches) that are mutually interdependent and also fundamental creative aspects of the process. • Actors, their actions and norms beget regionalisation and vice-versa. • Mauritian Protocol is one such creative element.

9. The Mauritian Protocol • Protocol is a governance framework attempting to legitimise the conduct of elections in SADC. • Contains 10 principles to which the members ‘shall’ adhere e.g. full participation of the citizens in the political process of elections. • The Protocol is a collectivity of norms that should guide the behaviour of governments regarding elections.

10. Regionalisation of the 2005 Zimbabwe Parliamentary Elections • The Political Situation in Zimbabwe: Silent Diplomacy and other Responses. • The following non-state actors tried to influence the Zimbabwe government through various means to abide by the Protocol. • The MDC • Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ) • Zimbabwe’s layers for Human Rights (ZLHR) • Pius Ncube

11. COSATU • Amnesty International • Human Rights Watch • International Crisis Group • Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) • SA Council of Churches • Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) • Centre for Policy Studies • Reporters Without Borders

12. Analysis • Because of international interest groups, Zimbabwe’s internal political problems are no longer of domestic concern but that of the wider international community. • In terms of the Protocol, everything Zimbabwe does is reacted upon by political parties and interest groups. • Through their lobbying campaign the non-state entities have created a normative transnational region based on the Mauritian Protocol.

13. This region is the antithesis of the state created region. • It contains communication routes. • It is transnational because it does not abide by state boundaries. • It is liberal democratic contact between actors is not restricted and is driven ‘by the people, for the people’. • MDC used the power approach (negotiated with government leaders). • MDC and other interest groups used the technocratic approach (Mauritian Protocol was linked to Zimbabwe’s domestic politics to caution others against negative policy trends).

14. The coalition-building approach was also used (MDC met with civil society actors in other countries and a transnational coalition was established). • Grass-roots mobilisation was also employed (the diaspora was mobilised). • A fifth approach – the diplomatic approach – was also used (fact-finding missions to Zimbabwe. Actors, DA and COSATU, communicated their experience to the wider public and gave an indication of the political situation on the ground). • Technocratic and diplomatic approaches facilitated regionalisation.

15. It is through these approaches that the Zimbabwe government was effectively circumvented. • These approaches will be used increasingly in future by non-state actors to lobby against undesirable policy trends. • Race is still plays an important role in Southern African politics, but issue-based politics is practiced to an increasing extent. • SADC region will be bifurcated between pro-democracy actors and those dictating the political discourse through traditional liberation norms.

16. The former might replace the latter in the short to medium future.

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