You can never separate the economy from politics, the state of one affects the other and the current crisis in Zimbabwe reflects this truth. In 2007 the President of South Africa launched an initiative to try and get Zimbabwe out of the deepening economic and political crisis that prevailed at the time. Our economy was on the verge of total collapse, hyper inflation was spinning completely out of control and the political regime in Harare was isolated and regarded as a rogue regime by the great majority of the international community.
His intervention was remarkably effective, he quickly obtained the support of key political and economic constituencies - the SADC, AU and the G7 leadership gave him their support and over the next two years he guided Zimbabwe through a series of negotiations leading to the Global Political Agreement in September 2008 and the GNU Government in February 2009. However somewhere along the line, South Africa dropped the ball and Mugabe, ever the skillful opportunist, picked it up and with key support from the JOC (Joint Operations Command), scored the final try in this particular game in July 2013.
The only problem was that key constituencies have refused to recognise that final try, this has become quite focused in the past few months with a powerful quartet of the USA, UK and Germany adopting a hard line stance on the 2013 elections with the UK saying quite clearly that they were not a democratic reflection of the views of the Zimbabwe people. They all say that the elections were not free and fair and that the whole process was flawed by the failure to complete the GPA reforms before the elections were held.
Despite the support given by the SADC and the AU to the process, the refusal by these key States to recognise the new Zanu PF dominated government has created a real headache for South African leadership who wanted the issue of recognition to be one of the major outcomes of the GPA/GNU. From that perspective the exercise was a failure.
The second half of the situation emerging in Zimbabwe is economic - under the GNU, the bounce back of the economy was dramatic; revenues to the State grew from a paltry US$280 million in 2008 to US$4 billion in 2013. Foreign trade grew from US$600 million in 2008 to an astonishing US$11 billion in 2013. The new Minister of Finance negotiated the start of reengagement with the multilateral agencies of the IMF and a deal was signed by Mugabe in 2013. A possible debt relief deal was talking shape and Biti had secured the respect of the global financial community in recognition that at last there was some discipline and sanity in Harare.
What was not that clear was what was happening in that shadowy parallel government operated by the JOC. The JOC is a relic of the war of independence when Smith organised it to run the war effort. It was retained by the new government sworn in 1980 and in the past thirty years has grown to the point where it is virtually untouchable and has political ambitions. What was not anticipated in 2007; was that the JOC, cut off from traditional sources of funding, would stumble over the discovery of diamonds at Marange. Not just diamonds, the largest discovery of new diamond bearing ore in the world in over a 100 years.