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17 April 2018 Photo Valentino Ndaba
Researcher probes into military presence in politics - Dr Hlengiwe Dlamini
Dr Hlengiwe Dlamini, a postdoctoral Fellow at the International Studies Group at UFS questions the nature of Zimbabwe’s leadership change in her research.
Was Zimbabwe’s leadership transition in 2017 a classical coup d’état, an unconstitutional change of government or a legal political process? Dr Hlengiwe Portia Dlamini, a postdoctoral Fellow at the University of the Free State’s International Studies Group (ISG), employed this contentious question as the backdrop to her paper titled: “The Paradoxes of Accepting/Rejecting and Constitutionalising/unconstitutionalising the 2017 Zimbabwe coup d’état through the Prism of the Organisation of African Unity and African Union Framework.” She presented her findings at the Stanley Trapido seminar held on 9 April 2018 at the Bloemfontein Campus.

Zimbabwe’s military facilitated the removal of former President Robert Mugabe from power after a 37-year rule. Dr Dlamini’s stance is that the events of 14 November 2017 were a trailblazer for a new form in coup across the globe. In veering from conventional coup elements and adapting alternative terminology in reference to overthrowing Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s military has set the pace for the rest of the world as far as the intertwining of military and politics is concerned.

Remembering 14 November
On the evening of 14 November 2017 the Zimbabwe defence force gathered around the country’s capital, Harare, and seized control of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation and other key areas of the city. A day later the situation escalated when military spokesman Major General Sibusiso Moyo addressed the citizens via television assuring them there was no military takeover of the government. 

Mugabe’s resignation was announced on 24 November 2017 following a motion of impeachment and a vote of no confidence reinforced by a joint session of parliament and the senate as well as the ruling Zanu–PF party. 

Military and politics intersections
According to Dr Dlamini, Zimbabwe High Court Judge, retired Brigadier General George Chiweshe, justified the military intervention in November 2017 as legal, thereby setting a dangerous precedent for political change in Africa.  

Prompted by the premise that the military overthrow of governments is no longer treated as a domestic issue in the post-cold war era, Dr Dlamini argues that it has become the business of the African Union and donor organisations to intervene and stop coups when they threaten. This explains why, according to Dr Dlamini, the Zimbabwe military establishment struggled to conceal the removal of Robert Mugabe from power as a coup for fear of attracting the wrath of the African Union and other organisations. 

Whether Zimbabwe’s crisis was merely a military response to a popular call by disgruntled citizens or a coup is left to contextual interpretation. 

News Archive

UFS Council unanimously approves two senior appointments
2014-11-24

The Council of the University of the Free State (UFS) unanimously approved the appointment of Dr Lis Lange as Vice-Rector: Academic and Prof Sechaba Mahlomaholo as Dean: Education during its meeting on Friday 21 November 2014.

Dr Lis Lange is currently Acting Vice-Rector: Academic at the University of the Free State, where she holds a substantive position as Senior Director heading the Directorate for Institutional Research and Academic Planning (DIRAP). Prof Mahlomaholo is Head of the School of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Technology Education at the UFS.

“These are two exceptional and trusted academics with international stature and I am delighted to welcome them as part of the senior leadership of the UFS. Dr Lange’s skills set pertaining to academic management and quality assurance make her one of only a few people with similar skills in the country, while Prof Mahlomaholo is a leading expert in community-based education,” says Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the UFS.

Dr Lange joined the UFS in 2011. Before this, she was the Executive Director (2006-2010) of the Higher Education Quality Committee of the Council of Higher Education (CHE), and Acting CEO of the same organisation between August 2007 and April 2008. She has been involved in the development and implementation of science and technology and higher education policy in South Africa for a decade and a half, working in different capacities in the Human Sciences Research Council, the National Research Foundation and the Council on Higher Education. Dr Lange has served as a member of the board of the International Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE) and has participated in several international initiatives on quality assurance. She is the editor of an academic journal focused on the humanities, Acta Academica.

She has undertaken research and published in the fields of history, higher education and quality assurance. Her major concern in both research and practice is the role of higher education in the development of democratic societies, based on social justice. Dr Lange studied in Argentina, Mexico and South Africa, where she obtained a PhD in South African history from the University of the Witwatersrand.

Prof Mahlomaholo is a graduate of the Universities of the North, Western Cape and Harvard University in the United States. He is a National Research Foundation (NRF)-rated Professor of Education.

Before joining the UFS, he worked at six other universities where he was Deputy Dean in the Faculty of Education (UNIN-QwaQwa), Head of Professional Education (Vista University), Professor and Director of Research and Postgraduate Studies (MEDUNSA), Professor and Director of Curriculum Development (Central University of Technology), and Research Professor (North-West University).

His research interests lie in designing strategies mounted on Bricolage, Participatory Action Research and Critical Emancipatory Research as theoretical bases. He leads the NRF-sponsored project on the creation of Sustainable Learning Environments in schools. In this Participatory Action Research project, 28 PhD and 22 MEd students participate under the guidance of 15 academics. The project has relationships with the Global Network project (St Petersburg University), the Post-Colonial Education project (West Indies University) and the Discourse, Power, Resistance project (Plymouth University and now University of London). He has served as guest editor in the following ISI-indexed, peer-reviewed and accredited journals: the South African Journal of Higher Education (2010 and 2014), the South African Journal of Education (2011), Communitas (2012), the Journal of New Generation Sciences (2012), the Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa (2013) and the Journal of Education Studies (2013).

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