His broken motor spare parts business in Harare is closed for now. With hardly enough dollars to feed his family, David (not his real name) says this isn’t the Zimbabwe of milk and honey he imagined it would be.
During the heady days of November 2017, the seemingly impossible happened and Robert Mugabe was toppled after 37 years in power. During the coup d’etat (never officially recognised as such), David was one of the soldiers on the streets with the celebrating crowds.
"Nearly every Zimbabwean was very hopeful that our lives were going to change instantly," he says.
But there was little change — at least not for the better. A year ago David, 41, decided to retire from the military. He was "fed up of being used by the general", after responsibility for (sometimes brutal) enforcement in the new regime of Emmerson Mnangagwa increasingly fell to the military.
More importantly, his earnings couldn’t sustain his family. Even today, soldier salaries — while in line with those of other civil servants — are meagre: between Z$7,000 (about $70) and Z$1,500 ($150) a month.
Now, with the Covid-19 pandemic, David says the economic shutdown has brought his business to a halt too.
A country adrift
It’s a story playing out across Zimbabwe. Small and informal businesses, which employ an estimated 70%-80% of Zimbabwe’s working population, have been hardest hit by Covid-19 lockdown measures, according to a UN Development Programme (UNDP) report published in June.
With the World Bank projecting a further 5%-10% contraction of Zimbabwe’s economy this year, following a 6.5% contraction in 2019, the situation is dire.
And, as the UNDP notes, the situation will disproportionately affect the "poor and the vulnerable, youth and young entrepreneurs, small and informal business, as well as small-scale agricultural producers".
But it could be worse than international finance institutions make out. Finance minister Mthuli Ncube fears the economic contraction could be 15%-20%.
He wrote to the International Monetary Fund in April, saying: "Already 8.5-million Zimbabweans (half the population) are food insecure", and adding that the state could implode, threatening security in neighbouring states.
Last week, SABC News reported that the number of border-jumpers near the closed Beitbridge border post had increased following a new political clampdown, as journalists and activists were harassed ahead of a planned July 31 march against corruption.
According to a Beitbridge East MP, quoted in NewsDay, more people are crossing illegally into SA to stock up with affordable medicine and food. And minerals and cigarettes smugglers have reportedly been bribing officials on both sides of the border.
The military element within civil entities erodes independence of these state institutions. The soldiers speak the language of force when at times there is need for a proper engagement
— Elias Mambo
It’s a sign of the times. Zimbabwe has for a while now suffered from shortages of fuel, bank notes and water, and electricity is cut for about 18 hours a day.
Motorists have to queue for hours to fill their vehicles, and there are long lines at banks for money.
Food and medicine — much of which have to be imported — have become unaffordable for even the middle classes, given an inflation rate of more than 700% (the National Statistics Agency put it at 737.26% for June).
Covid, of course, adds to the malaise. Confirmed cases are still fairly low in Zimbabwe — on August 4 cumulative cases amounted to 4,221 — but so is the testing rate. Community transmission is on the increase, especially in Harare, where the two biggest referral hospitals, Harare Central and Parirenyatwa, have little to no water or basic sundries, and dilapidated, obsolete infrastructure.
Morale is low among health workers, and doctors have joined nurses in their six-week strike over salaries. Health-care workers, who take home Z$3,000 ($30) a month, have asked to be paid in US dollars due to the collapse in the local currency’s value.
Zimbabwe Nurses Association president Enock Dongo told the Daily Maverick last week that there’s been a sharp increase in nurses testing positive for Covid-19, as they are forced to work without adequate protective equipment.
"It’s now dangerous to the citizens because nurses are now becoming the source of infection," he said. "They get infected in hospitals, travel using public transport, go to supermarkets … their families and subsequently spread the virus."
Dongo warned that this could result in a complete collapse of the health system.
To avoid the spread of the virus, the government has imposed a strict nationwide lockdown. But opposition leaders have accused Mnangagwa of using it to repress fundamental freedoms, such as the right to protest peacefully.
A number of protesters were arrested during the planned action on July 31, even though they said they wore masks and maintained physical distance.
"Freedoms have been restricted without any concomitant public health strategy," says MDC Alliance spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere. "If it was about Covid-19 we would have seen government developing a public-health strategy, but instead funds were misappropriated."
Instead of buying medical supplies, she says, government funds were used to prop up the state security services.
‘Perhaps more frightening than ever’
Ibbo Mandaza, an academic, writer, publisher and executive director of the Harare-based Southern African Political Economy Series (Sapes) Trust, sounded a warning ahead of the July 31 protests.
"The situation in Zimbabwe is dire," Mandaza told an online forum organised by a Cape Town think-tank, the Southern African Liaison Office. "It is frightening, perhaps now more frightening than ever before."
The situation in Zimbabwe has been deteriorating since the disputed elections in 2002, he said, with violence and human rights violations accompanying every poll thereafter.
The 2008 elections, which resulted in a government of national unity headed by Mugabe — despite the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) winning the most votes — was "the first coup", said Mandaza. After that, the state became increasingly securocratic.
Soldiers like David feel hard done by. "The situation is now worse [than under Mugabe]," he says, "because we are no longer able to feed ourselves."
He believes the army and police should stay out of politics and focus on providing security to all citizens. "Even now, young soldiers are retiring," he says, adding that disillusioned soldiers no longer believe ruling party Zanu-PF will come up with solutions to improve the situation.
"We are thinking of joining a strong opposition party," says David.
Veterans of the 1972-1979 independence war were instrumental in toppling Mugabe. They turned against him in 2016 when his wife, Grace, emerged as the possible next president.
Mugabe was replaced by Mnangagwa, nicknamed "Garwe" ("crocodile"), after the group he belonged to in the 1960s, which waged an anti-colonial struggle against the white regime. The name stuck as a reference to his later political cunning.
In return for their loyalty, military commanders were rewarded with cabinet positions. Among them were Air Marshal Perence Shiri, who died last month; Lt-Gen Sibusiso Moyo; and former army general Constantino Chiwenga, who became deputy president.
All the institutions that were supposed to give us democracy were captured by Zanu-PF
— Thandekile Moyo
Foot soldiers in the 30,000-strong military were not similarly compensated, and by the end of last year defence minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri told parliamentarians there was not enough money for adequate food, uniforms or accommodation.
In July, however, police and soldiers reportedly received more favourable Covid-19 allowances than nurses and teachers, something which Siphosami Malunga, executive director at the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa), describes as a "bribe" to keep them loyal.
"It will not work for long because, apart from inflation, the money just isn’t there. In any case, soldiers and their families are not insulated from the declining economic and social conditions," he says.
Last Tuesday, Mnangagwa moved Chiwenga to the health ministry to replace Obadiah Moyo, who was removed over alleged Covid-19 graft totalling $60m — and which reportedly involved Mnangagwa’s son.
The move has been praised by some, who say the health portfolio needs a firm hand. But it has raised eyebrows in other quarters, given harsh pronouncements Chiwenga has made about striking doctors, calling them "skilled technicians or labourers whose knowledge fits them for an occupation but not a profession".
Another former high-ranking military official, Air Commodore Jasper Chimedza, has been appointed the permanent secretary in the health ministry.
Zim Morning News publisher Elias Mambo says the shuffle "speaks to the continued militarisation of the state", as in Mugabe’s time (though he relied on the police, rather than the army, to enforce his power).
"The military element within civil entities erodes independence of these state institutions," he says. "The soldiers speak the language of force when at times there is need for a proper engagement. My greatest fear is the rampant human rights abuse and impunity that come with the militarisation of state institutions."
With this, Mnangagwa’s promises of a "second republic" — a reformed state that respects human rights and freedoms — suffers a huge blow and may be, "dead in the water".
As it stands, distrust has grown within the security establishment. Prof David Moore, from the department of development studies at the University of Johannesburg, says a friend of his recently drove through three roadblocks in Harare in the space of 3km. "The fact that there were both police and military at these road blocks indicates [tensions]," he says.
"The police were on the losing side of the coup; the military — which is split in many ways now — doesn’t trust the police and vice versa. So factionalism permeates the security services."
Zimbabwe-based activist and writer Thandekile Moyo was never under any illusion that Mnangagwa would be a better leader than Mugabe. That’s because the problem, she says, has always been Zanu-PF.
"All the institutions that were supposed to give us democracy were captured by Zanu-PF," she says. Democracy was further eroded by the army, Moyo says, when it chose who to install as leader of the country.
The army, given heft by Mnangagwa, has now become an important — if unofficial — arm of government, on par with parliament, the executive and the judiciary, says Kent University law lecturer Alex Magaisa.
Last month, he told an online dialogue organised by the Sapes Trust that, following the 2017 coup, a court ruled that the military had not only acted constitutionally, but had, in fact, defended the constitution.
This was "an authentication, a confirmation, a legitimisation of the role of the military in effect as an organ that has the power to check and balance the other organs of the state — in this particular case, the executive arm of the state," Magaisa said, referring to Mnangagwa’s office.
Given the power of the military, it’s crucial that it remains under the civilian command of the executive, he says. "It has guns, coercive power, it does things that no other organs of state can do."
The army has been blamed for killing six civilians in protests following the 2018 elections. During fuel-price protests in January last year, 17 were killed by security forces, while 81 more were injured, 17 women were raped and more than 1,000 suspected protesters arrested during door-to-door raids, according to Human Rights Watch.
In addition, a number of civil society activists, political opposition leaders and other critics of government have been arbitrarily arrested, abducted, beaten or tortured, the organisation said.
Politics and guns have always been close in Zimbabwe, and many military leaders have retired into politics since independence four decades ago.
Many were previously involved in atrocities, such as the Gukurahundi genocide in the 1980s, when Mugabe deployed a North Korean-trained military unit that massacred an estimated 20,000 people. Perhaps they felt they could escape subsequent prosecution if they were in powerful positions.
Empty gestures?
After taking power, Mnangagwa promised political tolerance following years of clampdowns on the opposition.
For the first time, he allowed the UN special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly & association into Zimbabwe to compile a report (it was subsequently rejected by Zimbabwe’s permanent representative to the UN).
He also moved to compensate white farmers who had lost land during Mugabe’s controversial land reform programme.
All these measures were accompanied by a slick PR campaign, designed by Western firms, to "sell" the country to the international community after decades of isolation, and to push for the removal of sanctions targeting the ruling elite.
During a trip to SA — his first foreign trip as head of state — Mnangagwa declared Zimbabwe "open for business". Donning his trademark scarf in the colours of Zimbabwe’s flag, he repeated this mantra at the World Economic Forum in Davos a few weeks later.
Promising a new dispensation, his administration issued a "new economic roadmap", known as the transitional stabilisation programme, to establish Zimbabwe as a middle-income economy by 2030. It includes civil service reforms, reform of state-run entities, cutting government spending and addressing corruption. There is also currency reform, aimed at enabling Zimbabwe to regain control of its own currency.
Political analyst and activist Richard Runyararo Mahomva believes Mnangagwa’s work has been made difficult by "elements perceived to be proxies of the West", which places the system under strain. He says the strains to the economy faced by Mnangagwa’s administration are "a consequence of [an] inherited crisis in public administration, accountability, and some policy mistakes".
Mahomva believes Mnangagwa should be commended for his "efforts to manufacture cohesion and integration", as well as for establishing the National Peace & Reconciliation Commission to deal with past conflicts and prevent future ones.
[There’s been] an authentication, a confirmation, a legitimisation of the role of the military in effect as an organ that has the power to check and balance the other organs of the state
— Alex Magaisa
Mnangagwa has been outspoken about corruption. On his watch the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission has been reconstituted, special anti-corruption courts introduced, and a new special anti-corruption unit established in the president’s office. The Public Entities Corporate Governance Act has been enacted, and cabinet members have been required to declare their assets.
Last year tourism minister Priscah Mupfumira was the first to be fired over allegations of corruption relating to the disappearance of $90m from the state pension fund. Mugabe-era energy minister Samuel Undenge was jailed in 2018 for the corrupt awarding of tenders.
However, Osisa’s Malunga believes the president’s anti-graft efforts are cosmetic and insincere. "Mnangagwa has been accused of running down the ruling party’s investments and stripping its assets," he says. "His family is reported to have extensive interests in all aspects of the economy, including in fuel, mining, retail, pharmaceutics and farming, far more than Mugabe."
Malunga says Mnangagwa has allowed illegal gold and diamond exports, while his reintroduction of the Zimbabwean dollar helped "government and his cronies avoid paying back debts that had been incurred in US dollars", at the expense of the bank balances of ordinary citizens.
Mnangagwa also reportedly banned public transport providers during the Covid-19 lockdown, clearing the way for the state-owned Zimbabwe United Passenger Company to take over the market, with a lucrative tender going to presidential adviser Kudakwashe Tagwirei’s Sakunda Holdings.
The US last week announced it was blacklisting Tagwirei because he and other Zimbabwean elites "have derailed economic development and harmed the Zimbabwean people through corruption".
But some efforts to unearth corruption have been less well received by the authorities than others.
Journalist Hopewell Chin’ono was arrested last month and charged with incitement after his stories about alleged government corruption — reportedly also involving Mnangagwa’s son — in the procurement of Covid-19 supplies were published.
Chin’ono’s arrest "is yet another example of Zimbabwe’s increasing intolerance towards the press and those who expose corruption allegations about the country’s ruling elite", says Angela Quintal, of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Quintal says Mnangagwa’s security forces are employing "strong-arm tactics to silence the messenger" rather than "detaining those responsible for stealing public funds".
The international stage
Mnangagwa originally had the sympathy of the West — so much so that British high commissioner Catriona Laing wore his trademark scarf to an event on Downing Street months after he came to power. Though the MDC accused her of endorsing Mnangagwa, she denied taking sides.
Britain’s priorities have since changed as the government has been preoccupied with its exit from the EU.
"Africa does not feature in high-level policymaking and Zimbabwe features hardly at all in the deliberations of the foreign and commonwealth office," says Stephen Chan, professor of world politics at the School of Oriental & African Studies at the University of London.
The US, on the other hand, "never bought into the [Zimbabwe government’s] propaganda of the ‘new dispensation’," says Todd Moss, senior fellow at the Centre for Global Development. "The US never was a fool."
He says Mnangagwa’s promises of political and economic reform and national reconciliation were all part of a "charade".
Regional bodies like the AU and the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) have thus far been quiet on Mnangagwa’s failings. These bodies never recognised Mugabe’s fall as a coup. In fact, as journalist Ray Ndlovu wrote in his book In the Jaws of the Crocodile, a number of countries in the region failed to help Mugabe when he appealed to them at the time.
Many had fresh leaders, and were wary of having "to deal with the consequences of Mugabe’s continuation in office and the impact of his country’s economic ruin".
Sadc, which is set to have a virtual summit next week, has remained quiet on the most recent clampdown.
Liesl Louw-Vaudran, senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, says the bloc has been silent because the institution relies on heads of state to speak out.
"Historically, Sadc emerged as an institution of frontline states to counter apartheid SA, which came onboard in 1992, and [these liberation ties] still play a role in the institution," she says.
Mnangagwa is currently the chair of the Sadc organ on politics, defence & security affairs, which means it’s unlikely any concern will be expressed through that channel.
"The Sadc needs to take steps to show citizens it’s also there to serve them," says Louw-Vaudran. "It’s ultimately the taxpayers’ money that goes into these organisations."
As for SA, the approach to Zimbabwe has traditionally been one of "quiet diplomacy".
This week, President Cyril Ramaphosa sent former National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete, former minister Sydney Mufamadi and former public service minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi, presidential adviser on politics in Luthuli House, as envoys to "engage the government of Zimbabwe and relevant stakeholders to identify possible ways in which SA can assist Zimbabwe".
But they could have a difficult task ahead of them. Apparently, a recent meeting between ANC leaders, led by party secretary-general Ace Magashule, and former minister and Mugabe sympathiser Saviour Kasukuwere, elicited an angry reaction from government spokesperson Nick Mangwana. He accused them of manufacturing a crisis in Zimbabwe to justify foreign interference.
"To set the record straight, there is no crisis or implosion in Zimbabwe. Neither has there been any abduction nor ‘war’ on citizens," he said
Meanwhile, young Zimbabweans are hoping for change. Vimbai Musvaburi, an activist who ran as an independent candidate in the 2018 elections, says she was among the crowd celebrating after Mugabe was ousted, because she pushed for him to go. Now she says she regrets it. "I want to believe that Mugabe did right at some point in his life, and then he started doing wrong."
The same can’t be said for Mnangagwa, she says. "Life in Zimbabwe is really tough. Just when you think it’s the worst, then it gets really worse."
Though Mnangagwa has spoken out and acted against corruption, there are those who see these moves as cosmetic and insincere
— What it means:
A fractured opposition
Getting food on the table is tough in Zimbabwe, and people have little time or energy to get involved in politics, novelist Tsitsi Dangarembga said days after her arrest for protesting in Harare on July 31.
“The protests were going to be about corruption, but it’s only a small part of the problem,” she told SA radio station SAfm last week. “We have political parties, but citizens themselves don’t have a voice at the moment, and this is because of the economy. Most people are just working to get their food on the table each day, and people don’t have time to engage in political consciousness-raising.”
Nelson Chamisa, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Alliance, kept a low profile during the protests, ostensibly to mourn his mother and uncle, who were buried early last month. But some say he stayed away for his own safety.
In the wake of the protests, there were rumours that sympathisers of former president Robert Mugabe (the “G40 faction”) had been behind the event, using the opposition to fight their internal party battles.
On the other hand, some opposition parties have apparently been working with President Emmerson Mnangagwa, fragmenting an already riven opposition.
“There are opposition parties that do not act to oppose the regime, [but] instead appear to be sent to destabilise the opposition,” says University of Warwick researcher Nicole Beardsworth.
Three months before the July 2018 elections, MDC vice-president Thokozani Khupe split from the party to form MDC-Tsvangirai (MDC-T, named for former party leader Morgan Tsvangirai). She accused Chamisa’s faction of hijacking the leadership and diverging from the founding principles of the party.
Despite Chamisa’s MDC Alliance scooping more than 34% of the votes in the subsequent election against MDC-T’s 3.4%, government funds earmarked for the largest opposition party went to Khupe, an ally of Zanu-PF. This came after a court declared that he, and not Chamisa, was the rightful leader of the party following Tsvangirai’s death earlier that year.
“This is a clear attempt to divide and demobilise the MDC Alliance, which appears to have been quite effective,” Beardsworth says.
The apparent leadership gap in the formal opposition does, however, seem to have increased social activism, which could help Zimbabwe weather the current crisis. Opposition parties are more likely to unite as a broad alliance under an umbrella body than in a formal party coalition like the MDC Alliance, she says.
Chipo Dendere, assistant professor of Africana at Wellesley College in the US, says divisions in the opposition are about co-opting support, but they’re also driven by “ideological disagreements, misogyny, corruption and ineffective leadership in the cities”.
Much friction stems from a struggle over resources, she says. “The pool of resources is too small to meet all their needs, and of course there is individual greed.”
Writer and activist Thandekile Moyo believes strong opposition leaders are important to rally people to action, as Zimbabweans value strong leadership.
“If the opposition says: ‘Go to the streets,’ the people will go,” she says.
Like the MDC Alliance, Moyo subscribes to the idea of a national transitional authority, as she believes state institutions have been “captured” by Zanu-PF. This would involve, for instance, creating an impartial Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and depoliticising the army.
MDC Alliance spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere believes a national dialogue should have taken place shortly after the 2018 elections.
“We saw after the election there was a severe unleashing and killing of citizens by the military, followed by more violence against demonstrators in January 2019,” says Mahere.
“Over 30 Zimbabweans, just citizens, were arbitrarily killed by the military. To date there has been no accountability for those killings.”
Former SA president Kgalema Motlanthe led a commission of inquiry into the 2018 election shootings, but perpetrators have yet to be called to account. Motlanthe declined to comment for this story, with his media people citing a busy schedule.
The MDC Alliance believes the 2018 poll was rigged and Chamisa should have been president. But a court challenge of the results was unsuccessful.
“Political power lies with the people,” says Mahere. “You can’t take away the fact that President Chamisa has the legitimate support of the people.”
She says the party wants a process in which the voice of the people is heard. “A coup is a technical fix,” Mahere explains. “It’s not what we want.”
The opposition appears to have suffered from the fallout in Zanu-PF, with protests and demonstrations brutally suppressed.
Days after the July 31 protests, Mnangagwa, in a special address, threatened that “bad apples that have attempted to divide our people and to weaken our systems will be flushed out”, before labelling his opponents “terrorists”.
“Good shall triumph over evil,” he said, vowing that the country would overcome obstacles in the way of its economic revival, including natural disasters, successive droughts, “divisive opposition politics and foreign economic aggression”.
He also initiated steps to criminalise “campaigning against one’s country”.
David Moore, professor of development studies at the University of Johannesburg, believes the threats were directed at those within Mnangagwa’s own party.
“It is not as if there is one Zanu-PF,” he says. “There is also the Zanu-PF that lost the coup, and it’s still very active.”
Moore says the July 31 protests are seen by some as a possible “reconfiguration of Zanu-PF politics”.
Rumours of a coup — following a reported fallout between Mnangagwa and his deputy, the former army commander Constantino Chiwenga in late July — are not new, says Moore. “There are guns and politics and consent and legitimacy. When legitimacy runs out, the guns come in, and when you can’t rely on the allegiance of all your soldiers, it becomes very fraught.”
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