HAVING promised at his inauguration on November 24th to “hit the ground running”, Emmerson Mnangagwa has no time to lose. Somehow, he must persuade Zimbabweans that he can improve their lives after 37 years of despotism and decline under Robert Mugabe. Already people have been chuffed by one striking change: the police are almost nowhere to be seen on the streets of Harare, the capital, whereas previously they were ubiquitous, shaking down drivers for minor or fictitious traffic offences. That is no small matter. It used to cost $10-20 to make a cop go away, when a blue-collar urban wage is perhaps $250 a month.

When the chief of police, Augustine Chihuri, swore allegiance to the new president at the inauguration ceremony, a roar of boos erupted across the stadium. Mr Mnangagwa would earn easy plaudits if he sacked a man who failed utterly to curb corruption within the police. Mr Chihuri is also reviled for his ties to Mr Mugabe’s unpopular wife, Grace, who had Mr Mnangagwa chased out of the vice-presidency and into exile barely three weeks ago.

The new president’s broader intentions will be shown by the cabinet he is expected to appoint imminently. He has already reinstated Patrick Chinamasa, whom Mr Mugabe sacked in October, as acting finance minister. By the abysmal standards of the ruling party, Zanu-PF, Mr Chinamasa is quite competent. His downfall had been precipitated by Mr Mugabe’s repeated refusal to let him meet the demands of the IMF, such as thinning the public sector and abolishing corrupt parastatal outfits, as the price of unlocking the loans urgently needed to rescue an economy that is once again in rapid decline.

A clutch of members of the previous cabinet are in hiding, or under arrest, or have fled abroad. Most notably Ignatius Chombo, Mr Mugabe’s last finance minister, appeared in court in leg-irons the day after the inauguration, charged with corruption, which he denies. By contrast, Chris Mutsvangwa, the influential head of the liberation war veterans’ association, who turned against the Mugabes, may get a top job. A former ambassador to China, he hails Mr Mnangagwa as Zimbabwe’s Deng Xiaoping: an economic reformer who will keep the lid on political dissent.

Mr Mnangagwa has intimated that he will junk some of Mr Mugabe’s more ruinous policies in an effort to woo back foreign investment. First on his list must be a repeal of the “indigenisation” law that requires most firms to be majority-owned by black Zimbabweans. (In practice, this has often meant Zanu-PF bigwigs.) Several of the ministers keenest on this law were in Mrs Mugabe’s camp. As an early gesture to embattled business people, Mr Mnangagwa offered a three-month amnesty to those who have illegally siphoned dollars out of the country, if they bring them back.

One of the new president’s biggest tasks will be to deal with the vexed question of land. Nearly all of Zimbabwe’s 4,000-plus commercial farmers (who were mostly white) had their lands confiscated by Mr Mugabe since 2000, prompting the collapse of the country’s entire agriculture-driven economy. Farmers’ representatives expect Mr Mnangagwa to undo some of the damage. “There’s a real opportunity to change this country’s direction,” says Charles Taffs, a former head of the Commercial Farmers’ Union, who sits on a compensation steering committee that has previously had discussions with people close to Mr Mnangagwa. “He’s a strong, intelligent pragmatist who knows what needs to be done to put this country on the road to recovery.”

Compensation for land previously confiscated, says Mr Taffs, a coffee farmer who has had land nabbed, “is the elephant in the room”. The figures have already been nailed down, he says. The Valuation Consortium, formed of eight local companies, has made detailed assessments in 153 zones across the country, valuing the grabbed land at $3bn-3.5bn and improvements (including equipment and so forth) at $5bn-5.5bn.

Beyond compensation, the key is to re-establish security of land tenure for commercial farmers of any colour—and to reassure business people that property rights in general will be respected under a post-Mugabe regime. Otherwise the banks will not lend. But this will be politically tricky. Even the supposed pragmatists in Zanu-PF have argued that land should be owned by the state and leased out. Yet if land is to reacquire real value and be tradable on the open market, farmers must be granted freehold. “Land needs to be bankable,” says John Robertson, a veteran economist in Harare. “You should be able to go to an estate agent, not to a minister, to sell to anyone.” Leasehold, he says, will always be vulnerable to the interference of corrupt ministers. In the past, Mr Mnangagwa has promoted a so-called “command agriculture model”. The very name suggests state control.

Only 50 or so white farmers are reckoned to have remained unscathed as active owners. Another 200-odd may still operate on diminished acreages, often in co-operation with black farmers who have been dished out chunks of their land. But in the past year or so, several hundred more whites have returned to the land, says Mr Taffs, often as managers or leaseholders, sometimes overseeing the acquisitions of well-connected blacks.

If compensation is settled and property rights respected anew, Zimbabwe’s agriculture could recover fast. For sure, the destruction will take years to reverse. For instance, the national dairy herd is down to a third of its previous capacity. And no one expects very many of the white farmers to come back. Still, enough could do so in various guises to make a vital difference.

If there is a chance of Mr Mnangagwa reversing some of Mr Mugabe’s most disastrous economic policies, few expect him to soften Zimbabwe’s brutal politics. A few non-party technocrats and even members of the opposition may make it into his cabinet. “He may slightly widen the political space,” says Sam Monroe of Magamba Network, a civic-rights organisation. He notes that one of his colleagues, an American woman, who was remanded in jail for a week just before Mr Mnangagwa’s flight abroad, still faces a criminal charge of insulting the president—ie, Mr Mugabe.

After all, the new man was the old one’s most forceful security minister and election-rigger. At his inauguration he promised a fair election by the middle of 2018, as the constitution requires. International lenders and Western governments will press him to meet a string of political conditions as the price of crucial economic aid. Among other things, this would include a revamped election commission; the removal of the coup-making army from politics; proper international election observers; voting rights for Zimbabwe’s vast diaspora; proper protection for the media; and the repeal of a host of repressive laws.

The test of the ballot

But would Mr Mnangagwa ever permit an election he might lose? Unless he undergoes a Damascene conversion (he is said to be a born-again Christian), few would expect it. But the opposition is weak and fractious. Most Zimbabweans, however sceptical, want to give the Crocodile, as Mr Mnangagwa is known, a chance. If he really began to rescue the economy, he might even win an election without rigging it.