Journalist Hopewell Chin,ono proposed a government in exile to run Zimbabwe. In a response professor Jonathan Moyo had this to say:
In politics there are concepts or words which, while common and seemingly simple, straightforward and innocuous, can in fact be very dangerous and can attract dire consequences if used meaninglessly or recklessly in a manner that creates or conveys criminal intent.
One such concept is ‘a government’.
What is a government?
By definition, a government is a homegrown, constitutional, lawful and legitimate system of order in the governance of a nation, state, country or territory with an acknowledged and recognised right under national and international law to create and enforce societal rules for the maintenance of law and order; defence of the physical or geographic integrity of that nation, state, country or territory; conduct of its foreign affairs and management of its economy; and for the provision of public services for the general and common welfare and wellbeing of its inhabitants or population.
The following considerations are key about a government:
· A government must be constitutional, lawful, legitimate and must have effective control of the nation, state, country or territory in question; anything else making claims of being a government without these features would be unconstitutional, unlawful, illegitimate and therefore liable to be seen as subversive and treasonous.
· A government must be generally acknowledged and recognised nationally and internationally as having the right to rule or govern the nation, state, country or territory in question.
· A constitutional, lawful and legitimate government cannot be formed outside the nation, state, country or territory in question; in other words, it cannot be formed in exile; let alone on the Internet.
· An unconstitutional, unlawful, illegitimate, unacknowledged and unrecognised government in exile cannot effectively or meaningfully engage or interact with the resident population of the nation, state, country or territory in question because it would be illegal for that population to engage or interact with such a government in any way, shape or form.
· A constitutional, lawful and legitimate government can exile itself as a consequence of some major violent conflict which displaces the population or war; as happened for example in a number of instances during the Second World War.
· It is a violation of international law and a grave act of hostility for any country to host an unconstitutional, unlawful and illegitimate, unacknowledged and unrecognised government in exile.
The Journalist however had more to say on this issue and responded by saying :
Thank you for your input, Professor.
I believe I was clear that the Government in Exile was an idea for Zimbabweans to reflect upon.
I also mentioned that the name is not set in stone, it is up to the citizens to come up with a name after careful consideration, and many have already begun doing so.
You speak of illegitimacy, but nothing could be more illegitimate than a government brought to power through a military coup and that has twice reinvented itself through rigged elections, which you yourself wrote about in your excellent, must read book, Excelgate.
You correctly defined the last election in this way:
“It’s a shame that, 43 years since independence whose clarion call was the right to vote under the “one man one vote” banner, ZEC has used the 2023 harmonised general election to make a mockery of the right to vote, ironically, in the month of August when Zimbabwe commemorates the heroes of the liberation struggle, whose single most important achievement in 1980 was the reclamation and restoration of the right for every Zimbabwean!”
There can be no doubt that when a government starts violating the constitution, as Mnangagwa’s regime does, it is actually authoring its own illegitimacy. When a government abducts and tortures citizens for exercising their constitutional rights, it is illegitimate.
When a government violates the very principles upon which it was built and fails to uphold the rights of its citizens, its legitimacy will be called into question.
It surely can’t be illegitimate for citizens to fight for their rights.
There is nothing inherently significant in a name, if your assertion is that it shouldn’t be called a “Government” and if citizens agree with you, it could be called, say, the Zimbabwe Diaspora Forum or something similar.
What matters more is what it is meant to do and what it will achieve!
