As the mining sector became the most important area of accumulation and patronage in the shrinking crisis economy, the Zimbabwean state compromised with large mining companies like Zimplats and allowed it to operate in the country on very favourable terms. In the case of Zimplats the company was allowed direct access to foreign currency and an exemption from surrender requirements imposed on other exporters, and the right to conduct most of its financial transactions outside the country. This effectively ‘insulated it from Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation and the collapsed national payment system.’47 This accommodation with foreign capital can also be seen in the policy on land where by 2009, 1.7 million hectares of land was being utilized by a combination of agro‐industrial plantations, conservancies and mining farmlands owned by transnational corporations and focused on export production.48 Thus, as Martens observes, under the Inclusive Government the Ministry of Mines, led by a ZANU PF minister, reversed its 2008 policy of clamping down on illegal mining, and sought to extend its support to this sector. It was little wonder then, that the Zimbabwe Artisanal and Small‐Scale Mining Council (ZASMC) representing 25,000 small‐scale miners, welcomed ZANU PF’s victory in 2013.49 Mawowa clearly sums up the political implications of these changes in the mining sector: As the economic situation worsened, the party‐state patronage system has become more entrenched. This has become clearer with the indigenization and empowerment policy where party affiliation is the single most important criterion for access to state mediated economic opportunities. The party manifests itself as a localized capitalist oligarchy…. The patronage accumulation attending this period have however not excluded possibilities for upward mobility among the somewhat independent miners. It is these possibilities that suggest that, in spite of Zimbabwe’s serious economic crisis, some things continued to work and indeed as formality declined, new accumulation paths emerged.50 The emergence of this ‘shadow economy’ has not undermined the existence of the central state authority, but instead the latter has adapted to the economic changes through a system of patronage that ‘relies on several conduits of coercive power’ that, though not always coordinated, subordinate themselves to the centrality of the party and the state.51                                                              47 Mawowa, p92. 48 Moyo 2011, op cit, p.499. See also S.Moyo, ‘Land concentration and accumulation after redistributive reform in post‐settler Zimbabwe,’ Review of African Political Economy, 38, 128, 2011, pp. 257‐276. 49 J.Martens, ‘Zimbabwe Elections: What if there had been no rigging?’ International Politics, 01/2013, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Southern Africa, p5. 50 Mawowa 2013, op cit, pp. 185‐86. 51 Mawowa p.189.   18