Zimbabwe security forces killed seven unarmed protesters in Harare just after the Southern African country’s first election without Robert Mugabe on the ballot. Nearly two months later, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Zanu PF government continues to persecute the opposition while proposing a post-Mugabe economy that favours unfettered global capitalism.
British Prime Minister Theresa May’s much hyped recent visit to Africa sought to create a solution to Britain’s likely post-Brexit economic woes rather than promote a development agenda benefiting Africans.
In yet another example of the burgeoning digital authoritarianism of President Emmerson Mnangaga’s post-Mugabe Zimbabwe, police recently charged a Twitter user for retweeting a tweet parodying Priscilla Chigumba, the chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
Prominent Zimbabwean journalist Violet Gonda is suing Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede and the minister of home affairs in the High Court of Zimbabwe for denying her a new passport. The denial is based on the fact that she’s blacklisted by the supposedly post-Mugabe government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was declared the winner of the disputed 2018 presidential election by the Constitutional Court after initially grabbing power through a military coup, is unlikely to bring real democracy and stop further militarisation in Zimbabwe.
This week, Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court heard the opposition MDC Alliance’s historic petition against the questionable results of the 2018 presidential election. In his challenge, opposition leader Nelson Chamisa argued that “gross irregularities” effectively invalidated the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s declaration of Emmerson Mnangagwa as the winner of the election.
