A look into President Mnangagwa`s diplomatic success

A look into President Mnangagwa`s diplomatic success

Hosia Mviringi

Since coming to power in November 2017 President Mnangagwa has left no stone unturned, in his effort to bring Zimbabwe back into the global family of nations through diplomatic engagement.
By quickly realising that no nation can successfully develop alone without a sustainable interdependence with other nations, the President engaged in various diplomatic and business engagements, which have culminated in a thaw in relations with various countries, multilateral organisations, and investors.
President Mnangagwa is cognizant of the fact that isolation does not work as a foreign policy model especially in the face of the globalisation phenomena.
President Mnangagwa is a 79-year-old man who assumed his first feel of the Presidency on November 23, 2017.
The history is known to everyone who understands Zimbabwean politics.
On 23 November 2017, Mnangagwa was inaugurated for his first stint in office as President. He completed former President Mugabe’s term as per constitutional requirements until the July 30, 2018 harmonised elections.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s diplomatic journey has from the start premised on the engagement and reengagement policy of his government.
The engagement and re-engagement policy is cognizant of the fact that something had gone wrong along the way in Zimbabwe’s relationship with some nations of the world which led to formal and informal disengagement, a situation which calls for the country to make efforts to rediscover itself and to initiate moves to repair those relations so that it an be admitted again into the global family of nations.
On 3 April 2018, President Mnangagwa embarked on his first State visit to China as President.
During his five day visit he met Chinese President Xi Jinping, during which one of his speeches emphasises the need for Zimbabwe to “leapfrog 18 years of economic stagnation with the help of China”.
Indeed this was a defining trip for Zimbabwe as it sets in motion the country’s foreign policy which decisively reaffirmed the country’s long established historic friendship with the Asian tiger nation.
What followed were a series of high level exchanges between the two great nations which culminated in such deals as the Kariba South Expansion, Hwange 7 & 8 expansion, the newly completed Parliament building, the Afrochine Ferrochrome Smelter in Selous, Victoria Falls Airport, the Robert Mugabe International Airport, Kariba South expansion, and recently the Manhize Dinson Iron and Steel Plant in Mvuma. These are testimonial diplomatic success stories scored by President Mnangagwa in the Second Republic.
Before his visit to China in 2018, President Mnangagwa had his very first attendance of the World Economic Forum in Davos between January 23-26 where he met powerful world political and business leaders.
At the conference, he expended most of his time engaging world leaders, opinion makers, investors and the media, all in an effort to convince the world that indeed Zimbabwe was determined to chart a new path towards engaging old partners and forging new partnerships under the ‘Open for Business’ and the re-engagement mantra.

Of course it was not an easy task on its own, given the acrimony that continued to exist between the country and certain Western nations who were aggrieved by the land reform program.
His attendance at the WEF was hailed by admirers and well wishers as a diplomatic scoop for him and Zimbabwe as it represented new recognition and a realistic chance for Zimbabwe to rebrand and announce its relaunch at the world’s most prestigious business forum.
It represented a diplomatic breakthrough for the country.
Through a repeal of some of the most contentious pieces of legislations such as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the Indigenization Policy which mandated foreign investors to cede 51 percent of their investment to locals, Zimbabwe is on the right direction.
These repeals and alignments saw a steady flow of investment into the mining and manufacturing sectors of the economy.
Regionally, Botswana has for many years been famed as a thorn in the flesh for Zimbabwean diplomacy.
Former President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe did not see eye to eye with Botswana’s recent past President Ian Khama who caused a lot of discomfort for Zimbabwe at regional and international fora.
President Mnangagwa has holistically managed to mend and elevate relations between Botswana’s ruling BDP as was symbolised at Victoria Falls on February 24, 2022 President Mokgweetsi Eric Keabetswe Masisi in a speech.
In an address the two countries’ Bi-National Commission meeting, President Masisi said;
“Let me end by wishing you the best of success in your upcoming by-elections and the general elections for we are unashamed to want to deal with people who are serious,” he said at a welcome reception hosted in his honour.
“Tell the world, that it is no accident that Botswana is next to Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe is next to Botswana, tell the world that it is not an accident that we are related, tell the world that it is not an accident that we are together, we feel the anguish and pain that is in Zimbabwe, we feel every inch of it. What you feel as happiness and excitement extends to us, what you feel as prosperity is our prosperity.
This extends to our international relations, this extends to our economic activities and these are documented and we must flesh out through instruments such as SADC, our instruments of cooperation such AU agenda 2063, our instruments of cooperation such as the AfCFTA,” President Masisi said.
“Upon assumption of office and preceding our general election, we in the new leadership gravitated our political party first, the BDP, along a new course and direction which is reflected in the way we relate with Zimbabwe different from the way we used to. Did you know that it was not an accident; it was out of deliberate, logically thought through determined change of course of action,” added President Masisi.
President Masisi said Botswana had revised and redefined its relationship with Zimbabwe when his administration assumed office, in recognition of the Second Republic’s economic turn-around efforts, among other notable achievements.
This was mainly made possible through President Mnangagwa’s diplomatic efforts.
It was a major diplomatic victory for President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Zimbabwe.
It strengthened Zimbabwe’s position both within SADC and the African Union and solidified African solidarity at international fora.

To put the cherry on top of rejuvenated and elevated diplomatic relations, this year Botswana is sending its national Defence Forces football team to play a game of soccer against the Zimbabwe Defence Forces team at the National Sports Stadium in Harare to celebrate Zimbabwe’s Defence Forces Day on August 9, 2022.
Zimbabwe’s diplomatic victories and influence were also felt to a greater degree in the resolution of Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado insurgency, a process which took SADC through multiple summits where Zimbabwe and President Emmerson Mnangagwa played a critical role as Chairperson of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s participation at the 26th edition of the United Nations Conference of Parties on Climate Change in Glasgow In November 2021 was hailed as a step in the right direction in the country’s engagement and re-engagement drive.
President Mnangagwa was visibly elated when he made the announcement at a rally in Bindura just a day before he travelled to Glasgow Scotland for the Conference. I quote his speech at Bindura.
“I wish to inform the conference that tomorrow morning I travel to Glasgow, United Kingdom, after over two decades have passed without Zimbabwe leadership going to United Kingdom. I have been invited by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and he has indicated he might meet me; one on one, as well as other leaders like India prime minister and others, we are meeting them,” he said.
Of course President Mnangagwa met with several world leaders in politics and business on the sidelines of the summit, both formally and informally, all pointing at a potential thawing of relations between Harare and Western capitals.
President Mnangagwa also said he was happy about a report by U.N. Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan after a two-week visit to Zimbabwe. The Belarus national urged the U.S. and other Western governments to lift sanctions they imposed on Zimbabwe nearly two decades ago, as punishment for its land reform.
This was yet another diplomatic victory for President Mnangagwa.
On 29 July 2020, Reuters reported that Zimbabwe had agreed to pay $3.5 billion in compensation to white farmers, whose land was expropriated by the government to resettle black families, moving a step closer to resolving what has been fodder for land reform critics.
The issue of compensation for developments on repossessed land had stuck out as one of the major sticking points for reengagement as some of the farms acquired by the government fell under the Bilateral Investment Protection and Promotion Act (BIPPA).
Thus, a resolution to this stalemate is seen as a giant step towards resolving the diplomatic standoff with countries whose investments were expropriated.
The 2019 SADC Summit in Tanzania was historic for Zimbabwe as the country managed to convince SADC to declare 25 October as SADC Anti-Sanctions Day in solidarity with the country which has been under unilateral sanctions from the US and the European Union for more than 20 years to date. The day is now being commemorated and recognised by the African Union. On 25 October 2021 SADC wrote a petition to all countries that keep sanctions on Zimbabwe demanding the immediate unconditional lifting of sanctions which they acknowledged affect all member states of the block in different ways.
The recent invitation for Zimbabwe to participate in CHOGM Meetings in Kigali, Rwanda as an observer has been viewed as the closest step yet for Zimbabwe towards readmission into the Commonwealth.
Zimbabwe pulled out of the club of former British colonies in 2003 in protest over alleged meddling of the group under the leadership of Britain especially their stance towards the land reform program. Zimbabwe then stood accused of violating commitments made under the Harare Declaration of 1991.