Zimbabwe’s central bank drip-fed dollars on Monday to a handful of commercial banks to allocate to large businesses, part of currency reforms authorities hope will ease a cash crunch that has starved the economy of many basic goods. 



Zimbabwe ditched a discredited 1:1 dollar peg for its dollar-surrogate bond notes and electronic dollars last week, merging them into a lower-value transitional currency called the RTGS dollar.



Economists welcomed the move but doubt it will prompt a swift turnaround in the southern African nation, which has grown used to currency turbulence since excessive money-printing under former leader Robert Mugabe triggered hyperinflation.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/current-affairs/2019/02/12/zimbabwe-the-state-of-crisis/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Zimbabwe: The State Of Crisis (opens in a new tab)">Zimbabwe: The State Of Crisis</a>



Ordinary Zimbabweans are not yet able to use the RTGS dollars in their bank accounts to buy dollars from banks, and the bond notes &#8211; which many businesses are reluctant to accept &#8211; are still in circulation.



“The devaluation was long overdue. The economy has been in limbo and the RTGS can now play a role in boosting competitiveness,” Anthony Mandiwanza, chief executive of Zimbabwean food and dairy firm Dairibord, told Reuters.



“What is critical is that the government lives within its means and narrows and eliminates the fiscal deficit.”



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"> DOLLAR NOT WEAK ENOUGH? </h4>



The last time Zimbabwe had its own currency, a decade ago, Mugabe’s government turned on the printing presses to fund higher salaries for government workers and curry favor with the military &#8211; with disastrous economic results.



Mugabe’s successor Emmerson Mnangagwa has promised a break with the past, but many Zimbabweans are wary after his government ramped up borrowing in the lead-up to a national election last July and inflation rose to a 10-year high in January.



The central bank started selling U.S. dollars to banks at 2.5 RTGS dollars on Friday.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/current-affairs/2019/01/24/explainer-the-cash-crunch-behind-zimbabwes-violent-protests/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Explainer: The Cash Crunch Behind Zimbabwe’s Violent Protests (opens in a new tab)">Explainer: The Cash Crunch Behind Zimbabwe’s Violent Protests</a>



Mandiwanza said banks had told Dairibord the same day that it could submit requests for dollars at around 2.5 RTGS each and that it would receive an unspecified amount on Monday or Tuesday.



A dealer at a large bank in Harare whose firm operates on the interbank market said launching the RTGS at 3 to the dollar or higher would have been better to encourage U.S. dollar sellers.



“There are a lot of (dollar) buyers … but no sellers because the rate is not high enough. What we are basically doing is allocating foreign currency to corporates but no trading is taking place,” the dealer said.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">MANAGED FLOAT</h4>



Mnangagwa, who replaced Mugabe after an army coup in November 2017, hopes to steer the economy back to credibility and lure back foreign investors, who have also been deterred by violent security crackdowns on post-election protests last year and demonstrations last month against a steep fuel price hike.



The central bank has said it will let the RTGS dollar trade in a “managed float”.



But it has not explained how it would control the currency’s movements given it does not have significant foreign exchange reserves.



READ MORE |<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/economy/2019/01/14/150-percent-price-rise-fails-to-fill-zimbabwes-fuel-pumps/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="150 percent price rise fails to fill Zimbabwe’s fuel pumps (opens in a new tab)">150 percent price rise fails to fill Zimbabwe’s fuel pumps</a>



The currency dealer said the central bank was only selling dollars to banks that had lined up customers who had agreed to buy them.



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“We have seen this before in the past and it went nowhere, the interbank system will ultimately become redundant if the Reserve Bank doesn’t allow the currency to freely trade,” the dealer said.



There are also indications that the central bank is not selling many dollars. Only around $5 million changed hands on Friday, a senior central bank official told The Standard newspaper in an article published at the weekend.



A Standard Chartered bank teller in Harare said her branch was not selling dollars to individuals yet, and downtown bank queues were no longer than normal.



On Monday, one U.S. dollar was being sold on the black market for four electronic dollars &#8211; those locked in individuals’ accounts for months due to the chronic cash shortages &#8211; compared to 4.2 on Friday, informal currency traders said.



“The big players are holding onto their money, that is what is holding rates at the moment,” one currency trader at Harare’s Eastgate shopping center said. -Reuters



-Alexander Winning, MacDonald Dzirutwe and Alfonce Mbizwo

RC110F4BE0A0

Zimbabwe Drip-Feeds Dollars To Tackle Cash Crunch

Zimbabwe: The State Of Crisis

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa has promised action in response to a crackdown by security forces on anti-government protesters following a hike in the price of fuel. 



Lawyers and activists say police and soldiers have killed at least a dozen people, wounded scores and arrested hundreds over the demonstrations. Zimbabwe’s Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) accused security forces of systematic torture.



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="150 percent price rise fails to fill Zimbabwe’s fuel pumps (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/economy/2019/01/14/150-percent-price-rise-fails-to-fill-zimbabwes-fuel-pumps/" target="_blank">150 percent price rise fails to fill Zimbabwe’s fuel pumps</a>



Critics say the country is reverting to the authoritarian rule that characterized the 37-year regime of former leader Robert Mugabe, who was forced from power after a coup in November 2017.



The crisis will not be easy to fix. There is a severe shortage of dollars, fuel and medicines, while inflation hit 42 percent in December, the highest in a decade. Foreign investors are, by and large, staying away.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT SPARKED THE LATEST CLASHES?</h4>



Everyday life has been getting harder as the price of basic goods spirals. In the past two months, the country has suffered acute shortages of imported goods, including medicines, food and fuel.



Motorists can wait for hours to fill up at fuel stations, where soldiers are often deployed to break up fights over who is next in line.



On Jan. 12, Mnangagwa announced to reporters that the price of petrol had increased to $3.31 per liter from $1.32 from midnight, but there would be no increase for foreign embassies and tourists paying in cash U.S. dollars.



It was the final straw for some Zimbabweans, and violent protests broke out two days after his announcement.



Some residents say that while calm has returned, soldiers have continued to beat up civilians.



Many people blame Mnangagwa for failing to fulfill his pre-election promises to kick-start economic growth and make a clean break with the strong-arm rule of his predecessor.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">GENESIS OF CASH SHORTAGES</h4>



The country abandoned the Zimbabwe dollar in 2009 after inflation reached 500 billion percent the year before. In its place, the government adopted the U.S. dollar and other currencies including sterling and the South African rand.



People hoped the move would spell the end of spiraling prices and rampant money printing that made much of their earnings and savings virtually worthless.



But over time, supply of the U.S. and South African currencies dried up, so in November 2016 authorities in Harare launched a surrogate currency &#8211; paper ‘bond notes’ designed to ease acute hard currency shortages.



The notes, which now have a total face value of $400 million, are backed by a $500 million loan from the African Export and Import Bank, the central bank has said. They are used like cash.



Officially pegged to the dollar at a rate of 1:1, on the street $1 fetches up to 3 bond notes, reflecting the ongoing shortage of U.S. dollars and people’s desire to trade out of cheapening bond notes and into more reliable currency.



A dwindling supply of bond notes and coins has led to banks limiting daily withdrawals to as little as $30 in bond notes. Companies are struggling to pay for imports and foreign investors cannot repatriate dividends or profits.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">“ZOLLARS”</h4>



When the bond note was introduced, dollar deposits in the electronic banking system started losing their value.



Government borrowing via Treasury Bills meant authorities were creating money without the backing of sufficient currency reserves or gold.



It is these electronic dollars, theoretically worth $10 billion and nicknamed “zollars” by economists, that are raising fears that Zimbabwe might be heading for its second financial collapse in a decade.



Zimbabweans can do little but watch as the money in their bank accounts loses value compared with cash, prompting demands from businesses and civil servants for hard currency which can be deposited and used to make payments.



Zollars remain officially pegged at 1:1 to the U.S. dollar, but on the black market $1 is now worth $4 zollars. That has led some businesses to offer discounts on dollar payments.



Zimbabwe’s foreign reserves now provide less than two weeks’ cover for imports, central bank data show.



The government has said it would only consider launching a new currency if it had at least six months of reserves. But Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said Zimbabwe planned to introduce a new currency in the next 12 months.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">HOW ARE BUSINESSES AFFECTED?</h4>



Companies are struggling to import raw materials and equipment, forcing them to buy dollars on the black market.



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Civil servants are paid in zollars like many other workers across the country. Only a small minority of employees working for foreign embassies, charities, or large international corporations are paid in U.S. dollars.



Last October, the central bank ordered banks to create separate U.S. dollar accounts for clients who are paid from overseas, which analysts said was a tacit admission by authorities that the greenback was not equal to the zollar.



The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries has warned that some of its members could stop operating by the end of the month due to the dollar crunch. The group said its members had a backlog of $480 million in unpaid payments to foreign suppliers.



Cooking oil and soap maker Olivine Industries said on Saturday it had suspended production and put workers on indefinite leave because it owed foreign suppliers $11 million.



Zimbabwe’s largest brewing company Delta Beverages, part-owned by Anheuser-Busch Inbev, said it had abandoned a plan to only accept hard currency payments rather than zollars for its beer and soft drinks after the government intervened.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT’S NEXT?</h4>



Mnangagwa, a former spy chief installed after Mugabe’s removal in a coup in November 2017, was elected in July amid hopes that he would help secure an economic turnaround for Zimbabwe, and has said his nation is “open for business”.



But critics say the man nicknamed “The Crocodile” is moving too slowly on economic and political reforms, including repealing Mugabe-era laws that restrict the media.



Mnangagwa has also called for the lifting of U.S. sanctions against officials from the ZANU-PF ruling party, top military figures and some government-owned firms, which were imposed during Mugabe’s rule for what Washington called violations of human rights and democracy.



The IMF has said it would be difficult for the fund to support the country’s reform program unless its $2 billion arrears with the World Bank, African Development Bank and European Investment Bank are paid.



Harare says that should be done in the next 12 months and plans a program allowing the IMF to monitor its economic reforms, although it does not entail funding from the lender.



Analysts said the ongoing security crackdown could quell the protests for now, but more clashes were expected unless Mnangagwa’s administration could find a solution to the cash shortages. -Reuters



&#8211; James Macharia

RC1671A0DA00

Explainer: The Cash Crunch Behind Zimbabwe’s Violent Protests

Despite the ample investment opportunities in Zimbabwe, post-election setbacks challenge its economic recovery

Zimbabwe’s long-delayed economic turnaround may have been further pushed out after the army violently crushed protests following the country’s first elections without Robert Mugabe’s name on the ballot box.
Investors sitting on the fence before the polls will most likely walk away while others may postpone any commitments until the resolution of the legal challenges launched by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Alliance, or take cue from international lenders, analysts say.
“It’s going to take years and not the months that we anticipated for the economic recovery,’’ says John Robertson, a Harare-based independent economist who has analyzed Zimbabwe’s economy since independence in 1980 when Mugabe first took power.
“It’s going to be very difficult to win any credibility after last week’s activities.’’
Zimbabwe’s first elections without Mugabe had raised hopes the country was on the verge of rebirth after the least violent campaigning in almost two decades. But those hopes were dashed days after the polls as Nelson Chamisa, leader of the MDC alleged “overwhelming’’ evidence of vote-rigging, and the military killed six people amid beatings in the MDC’s urban strongholds.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said incumbent Emmerson Mnangagwa won 50.8% of the vote and more than three quarters of parliamentary seats while Chamisa received 44% support, a number the MDC has dismissed, and challenged at the Constitutional Court. The case, which delayed Mnangagwa’s inauguration, was still pending at the time of going to press.
Mnangagwa, who had vowed a free and credible poll, had hoped to use its outcome to campaign for international support to rescue an economy that has more than halved in the last two decades, leaving more than 90% of workers unemployed.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2018/07/04/who-will-zimbabwe-vote-for/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Who Will Zimbabwe Vote For?</a>
“In the short-term, sentiment will be determined by the outcome of the MDC’s challenge of the election results,’’ says Neville Mandimika, an economist at Rand Merchant Bank in Johannesburg.
“If their application is backed by solid evidence of blatant rigging, then it is likely that regional partners and sources of capital will hold back capital while the stalemate gets resolved.’’
International acceptance is key to the country’s hopes of winning debt forgiveness or restructuring an external debt of $11.3 billion at the end of last year, more than 80% of the country’s GDP. Combined with the domestic debt, the country is in debt distress and the situation is unsustainable, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Support from the IMF and other donors is critical for any government to solve one of the country’s most immediate and intractable challenges; a liquidity shortage that has constrained economic activity and forces Zimbabweans to queue for hours for the few available US dollars. The country adopted the US currency in 2009 after its own dollar collapsed as hyperinflation reached a record 79.6 billion percent in November 2008.
“The proper reintroduction of the Zimbabwean dollar is on the agenda of the current government, but it recognizes that there are certain conditions that must be in place for this to happen,’’ Mandimika says.
“Chief among these is ensuring that there are sufficient FX reserves which would allow for the central bank to manage the volatility of the currency, which is to be expected upon the reintroduction of the Zimbabwe dollar.’’
Cognizant of this, Mnangagwa, a long-time ally of Mugabe has tried to distance himself from his former boss’s disastrous economic and political policies, promising economic reforms and reversing some of Mugabe’s key policies such as on black economic empowerment, foreign direct investment and property rights. After the elections and violence, he took to Twitter to call for calm, calling the violence “regrettable &amp; tragic’’.
He will need to do more than that, and in particular, put together a credible cabinet and also clearly define the role of the military, according to Dianna Games, an independent analyst.
“Investors will more closely be watching the economic policies put and interventions put forward by the new government than who is actually in State House,’’ says Games.
“The choice of the cabinet will be watched closely by investors, particularly given the volatility in the past of Zanu-PF actions in sweeping aside investor agreements in the name of political expedience, particularly with regard to agriculture. A strong military presence in the executive may be a red flag.’’
The country has so much goodwill and potential to tap that a recovery is almost a matter of time, analysts say.
“Overall, I think there is little doubt that, despite an election tainted once again by allegations of rigging and violence, Zimbabwe is poised for some sort of economic recovery,’’ says Games. “There are many investment opportunities, the economy is resilient, there are many skills that could be brought back into the formal sector, there is experienced management in the private sector and Zimbabweans have proved to be innovative even in the hardest of times. These all bode well for a recovery although it may not be as swift as people hope for given the current challenges in the economy.’
&#8211; By Godfrey Mutizwa

TOPSHOT-ZIMBABWE-VOTE

Why Zimbabwe Is Not There Yet

There are few words that can capture the inside of an African bar; that mix of noise, laughter, danger with the whiff of stale beer and the stench of smoke; the clatter of metal tables and chairs; a place where beer flows and tongues loosen faster than the frames of the fading pictures on the wall.
From Lusaka to Kigali and beyond, bar floors are scattered with the ashes of cigarettes and thousands of conversations – most forgotten – that launched scores of stories – most untrue – into African folklore.
The abdication of Robert Mugabe in November reminded me of one such tale told in a warm, smoky corner of an African bar.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2018/02/20/new-dawn-zimbabwe-rosy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: A New Dawn For Zimbabwe, But Is It Rosy?</a>
The priceless tale was of Mugabe’s visit to London in 1994 on a mission to encourage more foreign investment into his, then, robust economy.
On the day Mugabe and his team set out their stall in a presentation to narrow-eyed investors, in London, a hand went up at the back of the room.
“If I put my money into Zimbabwe will it be nationalized at a later date?”
It was not the question Mugabe had traveled thousands of miles to hear, even though it was a portent of the troubles to come in Zimbabwe.
The tale I heard, in the African bar, was that Zimbabwe and Mugabe had the last laugh on their former colonial masters. The Queen invited Mugabe and his ministers to Buckingham Palace for a state banquet in their honor.
It was a glittering evening beneath the chandeliers with the cutlery glinting in the lights of the night. Each plate had half a dozen knives and forks on each side.
This caused considerable consternation for the former vice president, the late Simon Muzenda, who frowned down at the line of implements on either side of his plate. Now Muzenda was a good guerrilla fighter who distinguished himself in the liberation war in Zimbabwe. Yet, the man himself would have admitted he was not a great sophisticate when it came to state banquets in palaces.
“What do I do?” says Muzenda in his mother tongue of chiShona.
Mugabe replied patiently that Muzenda was to start on the outside and work his way in with every course that the waiters delivered. Then Mugabe, ever the pragmatist, turned to Her Majesty and said it was customary for his comrades to say a prayer, in chiShona, before a meal; she gave the royal assent. Mugabe clasped his hands and said something, roughly translated, like this.
“We thank you God for our safe journey and the food on the table. We also pray to God that Muzenda uses the right fork at the right moment!”
The Zimbabwe contingent collapsed into laughter; the Queen looked on bemused.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2018/02/15/morgan-tsvangirai-quiet-man-forced-wrong-job/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Morgan Tsvangirai: The Quiet Man Forced Into The Wrong Job</a>
Poor Muzenda would also have been the first to admit he maybe lacked a little education. His training consisted of a short period studying carpentry at a mission school in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province.
The latter gave rise to another tale in an African bar.
In the mid-1990s Mugabe was speaking at a dinner in South Africa when he paid tribute to the education the country had lent himself and his vice-presidents Joshua Nkomo and Muzenda. Mugabe listed the degrees that Nkomo had earned at South African universities.
“My other vice-president Muzenda has also had some training here,” says Mugabe, to a few snickers from his aides.
So, both tales great fodder for a night out in an African bar. True? Why should they be when so many spurious tales are born among beer suds and the cackle of the African night.
One sunny afternoon I was hanging out with the presidential spokesman George Charamba in Harare. In those more principled days of the Mugabe regime the charming Charamba played it fairly straight.
“You have got your story,” was his usual retort when you had your facts straight.
I put the Muzenda stories to him and on this occasion he was more emphatic.
“You write those and you will be on the fastest plane out of here,” smiled Charamba.
It was true. So, not all bar tales in Africa are to be thrown away with the dregs of the night before.

The Night Mugabe Prayed Before The Queen

It’s three days before Christmas. Normally, at this time of the year, Merton Avenue, in Pretoria, South Africa, is an empty street. But today 3,000 people are pushing and shoving to get into the Zimbabwean embassy.
They all want to see Emmerson Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe’s new president and the man who brought Robert Mugabe’s 37-year rule to an end.
Inside the embassy, floor space is hard to find. There are people from all walks of life, from investors to lawyers to activists.
One of them is Ruvarashe Moyo, a Zimbabwean medical doctor living in South Africa.
“I came out today because I wanted to see the man who took out Mugabe. Many people back home don’t have adequate medical care, while there are thousands of specialists from Zimbabwe around the world. We are not at home because of the economic situation, so now I have hope that I may be able to go home soon. I am happy that the president’s speech was about reviving the economy and bringing us back home,” says Moyo.
Like the rest of hopeful Zimbabweans around the world, Moyo wants Zimbabwe to rekindle its former glory as Africa’s most booming economy.
Outside of land reform, Mugabe’s indigenization policies and allegations of rigged elections saw investors turn their backs on Zimbabwe, resulting in the economy tanking. The ruling Zanu-PF government invested heavily in health, education and parastatals. It meant, for most of the 1980s, public expenditure made up 45% of the GDP, according to the World Bank’s Zimbabwe Public Expenditure Review. It crowded out private investment and fueled inflation.
After 37 years, it means revitalizing Zimbabwe’s economy will not be an easy task.
“There is a lot to fix in the country, but the major thing to start with is fixing the economy so that people can have jobs and at least be able to sustain a decent living,” says Terrence Chitapi, a Zimbabwe-based economist.
According to Chitapi, Mnangagwa has said all the right things since his inauguration but needs to back up his words with action.
“From day one, he has spoken about a fresh start and people expected a quick turnaround of the economy and to see a strong push towards the respect of human rights, but so far we haven’t seen gigantic strides to turn these around,” he says.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/11/24/will-mnangagwa-usher-new-democracy-view-zimbabwe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Will Mnangagwa usher in a new democracy? The view from Zimbabwe</a>
In fact, during the back-to-school period, Zimbabweans witnessed a price hike in school supplies, there is still no hard currency and street vendors, the backbone of Zimbabwe’s economy, have been pushed off the streets for not having lisenses.
“There are actually people from the opposition who have been brutalized by the military. Even when they take street vendors off the streets, sometimes the way they conduct themselves borders on infringement of human rights and endangering lives of not only the vendors but also other passers-by which brings fear and is what Mugabe’s presidency represented,” says Chitapi.
When Mnangagwa was Vice President, he spoke about changes that needed to happen in policy matters, state departments, stabilizing the currency, and corruption. According to Anele Ndlovu, founder of the Zim-SA Forum, an organization that encourages investment in Zimbabwe, Mnangagwa is implementing change. The problem is the pace is slow.
Since he has been in power, Mnangagwa has streamlined government ministries from 26 to 22, revised the indigenization policy and announced the sale of some parastatals.
The biggest concern among Zimbabweans is whether the country will see real democracy.
Mnangagwa’s cabinet is similar to Mugabe’s and he appointed former army chief, Constantino Chiwenga, who led the “coup”, as his deputy.
“It was already a mistake to give the military that much power over politics and now to give the head of the military the position of Vice President shows these deals were made before, just so that they can get into high positions. I worry they might not want to leave and if people attempt to go to the streets, force may be used,” says another entrepreneur who refused to be named.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2018/02/15/morgan-tsvangirai-quiet-man-forced-wrong-job/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Morgan Tsvangirai: The Quiet Man Forced Into The Wrong Job</a>
This move has left many Zimbabweans anxious. But, according to Ndlovu, this is a transitional government that might change if Mnangagwa wins this year’s elections.
“You can’t get into government and then try to change everything all at once. Things would fall apart. You need a proper transition but some ministers need to be retired because they have been there for too long,” he says.
<div id="attachment_35340" style="width: 260px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35340" class=" wp-image-35340" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Anele-Ndlovu-200x300.jpg" alt="Anele Ndlovu" width="250" height="375" />Anele Ndlovu (Photo supplied)</div>
At least doing business in Zimbabwe appears to be getting easier.
“People started getting permits quicker, it’s easier and faster to register a business and the visa processing has also become easier,” says Ndlovu.
To cut the budget deficit, Mnangwagwa’s government has invited bids for stakes in up to eight loss-making state-owned enterprises, including its national airline, Air Zimbabwe, sitting on a $300-million debt, and power utility, ZESA, which suffered a $224-million loss in 2016.
“If you give a private entity 35% of ZESA, for example, you know the way of doing business will change. They will be able to do collections, less corruption and it will be run properly. This is a very good move,” says Ndlovu.
Out of the 92 companies Zimbabwe fully or partly owns, 38 ran at losses amounting to about $270 million in 2016. Most of the parastatals have been losing money for years due to mismanagement and high operating costs.
“On big projects, like reviving Air Zimbabwe, the investor would want to know what securities they can get… There is a lot of interest from investors. For example, there is a delegation coming into Zimbabwe interested in agriculture and farming of soya and another Turkish delegation that wants to tour the country and see factories that are closed in Bulawayo and how they can get involved in the tourism sector.”
The Harvard Business Review agrees that investors could benefit if Mnangagwa continues to concentrate on economic revival.
“Mnangagwa’s first actions in office underscore how important he views economic recovery. Even before announcing his new cabinet, Mnangagwa installed a key reformist, Patrick Chinamasa, as Acting Finance Minister, tasked with tackling corruption and re-engaging with international institutions to unlock funds to ease liquidity shortages… In this environment, multinationals that are willing to accept some risk and invest in the country could benefit from first-mover advantages – but only if the new administration follows through with much-needed economic reforms,” reads an article in the publication.
Zimbabwe lost out on Africa’s recent growth boom but Ndlovu says those who are willing to put their money in infrastructure development, healthcare, agriculture, mining, technology and energy might have a big pay day as the economy is projected to grow more than 4.5% this year.
Back in Pretoria, as the crowd dispersed, the sky gradually turned a shade of purple and the stars began shimmering. It is dusk at the embassy but maybe a new dawn is on the horizon for Zimbabwe.

A New Dawn For Zimbabwe, But Is It Rosy?

Anyone who ever stood up for principle and paid for it in pain will mourn the passing of Morgan Tsvangirai, the man who never wanted to be president but wore himself out trying on behalf of his suffering people.
Tsvangirai, who succumbed to colon cancer in a Johannesburg hospital on February 14, never wanted the power that many leaders in Africa crave. His heart was in his humble rural roots in Buhera in eastern Zimbabwe – where he was born the eldest of nine children to a miner – and in the trade union movement. Tsvangirai followed his father down the mine and when independence came, in 1980, he joined the ruling party, Zanu-PF, and rose swiftly through the ranks becoming a staunch supporter of President Robert Mugabe. History is littered with such ironies.
It was as head of the mighty Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions that Tsvangirai enjoyed his annus mirabilis at the head of hundreds of thousands of workers. With his trademark cowboy hat, he could hold a crowd with fiery oratory and hold a strike in place against the odds. With a handful of faxes he could close the country down, which he did in 1997 and 1998 with mass stay-aways as economic hard times and President Mugabe’s indifference hurt the people.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/11/24/will-mnangagwa-usher-new-democracy-view-zimbabwe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Will Mnangagwa usher in a new democracy? The view from Zimbabwe</a>
It was this skill that led him up the greasy pole of politics; yet, even in his pomp you could tell that he didn’t want to.
One hot afternoon, in 1998, amid a spate of strikes, my TV crew and I received a frantic call from Tsvangirai’s office for us to come and save him. By this time, he had raised the ire of thugs loyal to Zanu-PF, calling themselves war veterans, who stormed his office and tried to throw him out of a third-floor window. Tsvangirai asked his secretary to call us instead of the police because, sadly, in the politically charged atmosphere, he didn’t trust them.
Luckily, as we arrived, the thugs fled. As we calmed Tsvangirai down, I asked him why he didn’t go ahead and run for president as he had the power of the workers at his elbow.
“No, Chris, if you run for president even your grandchildren will be persecuted,” said Tsvangirai.
And so it turned out. Activists shepherded Tsvangirai into forming the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), setting into motion years of vilification, intimidation and abuse that left him battered and bloody in mind and body. Tsvangirai tried to keep his feet on the ground through his stable home life. In the early days he used to hold press conferences in his front garden where his charming wife, Susan, who died tragically in a car accident in 2009, used to bring us tea with a smile.
Yet, worse times came after tea. Tsvangirai, egged on by the west, became the world’s champion against the growing horror of Mugabe and paid for it by being arrested, beaten and charged with treason. Even the Mugabe-leaning judges in Harare dismissed the trumped-up charges.
Undoubtedly Tsvangirai won the presidential elections against Mugabe in 2008, but the conniving election authorities refused to release the results. Thus stolen election led to a power-sharing agreement, the following year, under which Tsvangirai became a pretty much powerless deputy president. He was never to reach the top spot not that, deep down, it really bothered him.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2018/01/15/zimbabwe-urgently-needs-new-land-administration-system/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Zimbabwe urgently needs a new land administration system</a>
Those who had stood against the bullies and suffered may prefer to remember Tsvangirai by another tale related by one of my colleagues in Zimbabwe.
A top level delegation of MDC officials had gone to see their political counterparts in Zambia. Zanu-PF apparatchiks in Harare lent on the Zambian government to deport them and the MDC group ended up stranded and angry under a tree, with phones with flat batteries, on the Zimbabwe side of the Chirundu border. Tsvangirai’s colleagues attacked their leader under the branches of the tree.
“What is the point of this political movement?” says one.
Tsvangirai seized the moment and ordered his empty-pocketed colleagues to sing as they marched to a village a few kilometers away. A few hours later, villagers were surprised to see Tsvangirai, in full voice, walking into their village at the head of a phalanx of suited comrades. A cell phone in the village summoned transport and they drove home in good spirits.
A fleeting taste of the leadership that Zimbabwe was destined to never see.

Morgan Tsvangirai: The quiet man forced into the wrong job

Zimbabwe has a new leader. Robert Mugabe is out. His former ally turned rival, Emmerson Mnangagwa, is in. What now?
After <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2017/nov/21/zimbabwe-celebrates-as-mugabe-resignation-announced-in-pictures" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ecstatic celebrations to mark Mugabe’s resignation</a> thoughts have began to turn to what comes next. Mugabe may have exited the political scene, but it remains dominated by the same political party – <a href="http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/politics/dont-need-opposition-zanupf-business-chinamasa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Zanu-PF</a> – that sustained his rule.
Moreover, the country’s president-elect, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41995876" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Emmerson Mnangagwa</a>, is hardly a breath of fresh air. Having held a series of cabinet positions under Mugabe, and served as First Vice President between December 2014 and <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41914768" target="_blank" rel="noopener">his sacking in November 2017</a>, he looks more like a force for continuity than change.
As a result, talk in Harare quickly turned to what kind of leader Mnangagwa will be, and the system of government that would best serve ordinary Zimbabweans.
<h2>The fork in the road</h2>
My conversations with people on the streets of the capital, Harare, about the political system the country needs suggests that two distinct camps are emerging: those who want elections to be held as soon as possible, and those who say the polls should be postponed and a <a href="https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2017/11/16/zimbabwe-moves-to-set-up-interim-govt-as-mugabe-is-apparently-ousted/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">transitional government</a> established.
Both of these options have genuine &#8216;pros&#8217; but also strong &#8216;cons&#8217;. As is so often the case, there is no perfect answer that solves all problems.
It is understandable that many Zimbabweans want a period of calm and orderly government after the twists and turns of recent weeks, and believe that it would be better to form an inclusive government that would feature representatives of all of the main political parties – a kind of power sharing in all but name.
Even though I have consistently argued in favour of the value of democracy and elections in Africa, I have to admit that the “transitioners” have some viable arguments.
The most obvious is that a period of stability and more consensual government might facilitate much needed reform of the economy and also the wider political and legal system. After all, rival parties are unlikely to come to agreement on these issues if they are immediately thrust into an election campaign.
The “transitioners” also have a point when it comes to democracy. Few people in Zimbabwe believe that it’s possible for elections to be free and fair if they are held between July and August next year, as currently scheduled. Given this, and the current divisions within the opposition, a rush to elections is likely to result in a convincing victory for Zanu-PF under problematic circumstances.
A transitional arrangement would allow for much needed electoral reforms to be put in place, creating the potential for a better quality process and a more consensual outcome later on.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/11/23/bye-bye-bob-come-far-little/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Bye bye Bob &#8211; did you come so far for so little?</a>
<h2>Testing the Crocodile</h2>
But there is also another camp that wants to see Mnangagwa, popularly known as <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/special-features/zimbabwe/who-is-emmerson-the-crocodile-mnangagwa-12013101" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Crocodile</a>, to face an election as soon as possible.
Just like their counterparts in the “transitioner” camp, “electioneers”, have some strong arguments. Whatever one wants to call Mnangagwa’s rise to power – from <a href="https://www.thezimbabwean.co/2017/11/mnangagwa-coup-mphoko-missing-chipanga-now-custody-warrent-arrest-mzembi/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a coup</a> to an <a href="http://www.chronicle.co.zw/dont-meddle-in-zanu-pf-affairs-vp-mnangagwa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">internal party squabble</a> – it is clear that it has not been a high quality democratic transition. And while it is clear that the overthrow of Mugabe was hugely popular, we don’t know if the same applies to a Mnangagwa presidency. An election would settle that question.
It would also give the new government a popular mandate to undertake <a href="https://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2017/10/14/zim-needs-bold-economic-reforms-us-envoy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">economic reforms</a>, whoever wins power. This could be important to the success of the reform project, because things are likely to <a href="https://www.newsday.co.zw/2016/12/2017-looks-gloomier-zim/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">get worse</a> before they get better, and the country’s economic medicine may prove to be a bitter pill to swallow.
Holding elections would also do one thing that postponing them will not; it will test the commitment of the new government to democratic norms and values from the get-go. One of the main reasons that Zimbabwean elections have been poor quality is that <a href="https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2017/03/24/zanu-pf-revives-rigging-machinery/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Zanu-PF and the military</a> have intervened to make sure this was the case. As another friend put it, “If they are really committed to doing the right thing, they can do it right away and the elections will not be too bad”.
<h2>Learning from the past</h2>
“Electioneers” are also motivated by scepticism that an inclusive transitional government would get much done. Both Zimbabwe and Kenya have had power-sharing governments in the recent past, and while they both introduced new constitutions they also saw high levels of corruption and limited <a href="https://www.academia.edu/6446844/Power_Sharing_in_Comparative_Perspective" target="_blank" rel="noopener">security sector reform</a>. They also both led to elections that were denounced by opposition parties as being <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2016/12/24/2-million-votes-used-to-rig-2013-election-raila_c1478146" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unfree and unfair</a>.
It’s fair to ask: why would it be different this time?
The question is particularly pertinent given the current composition of parliament. Because Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change boycotted a <a href="https://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2016/05/04/mdc-upholds-poll-boycott-stance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">series of by-elections</a> on the basis that they would not be free and fair, it has lost many of the seats it won in 2013. As a result, any transitional arrangement that deferred elections and “froze” the current parliament for the next three years would have a big legislative advantage to Zanu-PF.
It is also important to keep in mind that economics cannot be divorced from politics: Zimbabwe’s current economic difficulties stem precisely from an unaccountable political framework that ignored the interests of the people. Given that recent events have <a href="http://solidaritypeacetrust.org/1776/zimbabwe-caught-between-the-croc-and-gucci-city/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">emboldened the military</a> and given them an even stronger voice within government, this is a pressing concern.
Deferring electoral reforms in order to focus on economic recovery may therefore prove to be a self defeating strategy.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/11/22/zimbabwe-beware-military-looking-interests-not-democracy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE; Zimbabwe beware: the military is looking after its own interests, not democracy</a>
<h2>Next steps</h2>
Ultimately, the form of government that evolves in Zimbabwe will not be a product of popular dialogue. One of the distinctive features of this process is that for the most part it has been conducted behind closed doors by a <a href="https://www.thezimbabwean.co/2017/11/zimbabwean-not-coup/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">small elite</a>.
Don’t be fooled by the pictures of tens of thousands of people marching on Saturday – all sides have invoked popular support, but none have actually <a href="http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/opinion/press-statement-army-gives-update-negotiations-mugabe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">encouraged ordinary people</a> to say what they want, or given them a seat at the table. This is a worrying sign if strengthening democracy is the long-term goal.
Recent <a href="http://bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-national-byo-122715.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">public statements</a> by the main parties at the time of going to press suggests that they are not converging on an interim administration, and so the “electioneers” may get their wish. That could still change because <a href="http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/main/mdc-calls-mnangagwa-repent-join-big-tent/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">talks are ongoing</a> and both sides would gain something from a delay. But if it doesn’t the people will be able to have their say on how they want their country to be run.
Of course, voting will not actually equate to “having a say” unless the country’s new leader follows through on his promise to build a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/22/emmerson-mnangagwa-to-be-sworn-in-as-zimbabwes-president-on-friday" target="_blank" rel="noopener">new democracy</a>”, and the ruling party can kick the habit of a lifetime. Watch this space. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/nic-cheeseman-180800" target="_blank" rel="author noopener">Nic Cheeseman</a>, Professor of Democracy, University of Birmingham
Originally published in<a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> The Conversation</a>
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Will Mnangagwa usher in a new democracy? The view from Zimbabwe

I can’t believe he is gone &#8211; albeit decades overdue &#8211; and I find it difficult to imagine Zimbabwe without him.
If ever there is a case study for the perils of clinging too long to power in Africa, Robert Gabriel Mugabe is it; a cautionary tale for every leader trying to die in office.
If he had stepped down after his second, or even third term &#8211; about 1995, I reckon &#8211; he would have been revered in the way a true leader should. There would have been museums and archives set up his honor, an annual Mugabe lecture by the finest brains on the planet. There would have been scholarships in his name and he would have been on advisory panels along with Jimmy Carter and the rest of the world’s sage elders. Like the late president of Botswana, Ketumile Masire, who got it right after two terms, Mugabe could have sat on his farm waiting for the wise and the good to beat a path to his door seeking counsel.
Instead Mugabe spent the most of the last two years being vilified, spat at, mocked and howled down by the mob. I saw him at the World Economic Forum in May, in Durban, and it made me sick to my guts; the poor man could hardly walk let alone keep his eyes open. I blame those around him too who kept him on the throne in the interests of their paycheques.
It was a sadder sight when I compared it to the first time I interviewed Mugabe, all clipped, groomed and sharp suited at State House in Harare, way back in April 1994 with the autumn sun glinting through the window and lawnmowers humming across the carpet of green grass outside. Those were halcyon days for Mugabe, respect among his educated people &#8211; with one of the highest literacy rates in Africa &#8211; was in abundance. Any criticism of the big man was met with reproving stares.
“That is our president,” people used to say.
On this warm autumn day Mugabe was at his schoolmasterly sharpest, always ready to take advantage of any gap in knowledge.
“Who told you that?” he used to say if you really caught him out, trying to dismiss you as if you were a sixth former. Remember, if he hadn’t bid for power, liberating his country,  he could have ended his working days as a colonial headmaster.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/11/22/zimbabwe-beware-military-looking-interests-not-democracy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Zimbabwe beware: the military is looking after its own interests, not democracy</a>
As the years wore on I interviewed him many times and he rarely disappointed even if some of his quotes, even in the sharp days, were bizarre.
I remember a day at the Harare Book Fair, in 1995, when Mugabe went off on a rant against gays and lesbians displaying their books on the stalls. He called them the association of sodomists and sexual perverts. When he came out of the fair I asked him on camera what he had against gay people.
“I do not believe men should have children through wombs,” says Mugabe. It underlined the old man’s vehemence when he had a bee in his bonnet.
Once we dashed to an impromptu roadside speech by Mugabe to a large crowd of Zanu-PF Women&#8217;s League in Samora Machel, the main road through Harare. We arrived in a rush and my cameraman hastily set up his tripod and fiddled with the camera. All the while Mugabe was watching us out of the corner of his eye as he ranted on against gays in ChiShona, his mother tongue. As soon as the cameraman switched on and looked down the lens, Mugabe switched to English.
“Let them be gay in Europe, let them be gay in America, they will be sad people here,” says Mugabe with a dismissive wave of his arms. He knew that soundbite would fly around the world on the new wires; and it did.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/11/21/lessons-south-africas-jacob-zuma-robert-mugabes-misfortunes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Lessons for South Africa&#8217;s Jacob Zuma in Robert Mugabe&#8217;s misfortunes</a>
This is one reason why Mugabe survived so long, he was a wily old fox (even the cleverest foxes couldn’t have dreamed up some of the big man’s dodges) who knew how to manipulate divide and rule. Woe betide anyone who upset him. He sent a couple of my colleagues to the torture chamber and one of them died very young as a result. More than a few of his opponents disappeared and tens of thousands were killed in Matabeleland in the Gukurahundi of the early 80s.
All of this he brushed off with his trademark arrogance. One summer night, I pushed a microphone under his nose as he walked away from a state function and asked him why he was sheltering Haile Mariam Mengistu &#8211; the former president who is wanted for the deaths of many thousands of his fellow Ethiopians &#8211; who lives in luxury in Harare.
“Why can’t we give shelter to a legitimate refugee?” says Mugabe on the night. Well, Bob, there are refugees and then there are fugitives from justice.
As Mugabe walked away to his Mercedes he grumbled to one of his flunkies that it was the reason he didn’t like talking to whites (that must have been me) because they asked stupid questions. Arrogance told him that the latter was true even though the previous question was, pardon me, as true as Bob. That sense of self-importance that dates back to the days when his indulgent mother let him read books instead of herd cattle with his brothers back in his rural home in Zvimba.
Now it has all come home to roost. Everyone has turned on Mugabe: his comrades, his people and even those who worshipped him in better days. What a sad end to what could have been one of the most shining political careers in Africa. He won’t be remembered as a fox; more as a skunk.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe spent 10 years in prison, years in exile, years suffering headaches of building a new post-colonial society amid cold war politics and threats from apartheid South Africa across the border. I have one last question for him before he swans off into an uncertain retirement: Did you come so far for so little?

Bye bye Bob – did you come so far for so little?

November 2017 will go down in the history of Zimbabwe as the beginning of the end of Robert Mugabe’s <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/14/tanks-seen-heading-towards-zimbabwe-capital-harare/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">37 year tyranny</a>. A tumultuous week finally culminated in <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42071488" target="_blank" rel="noopener">his resignation</a> on November 21st. One cannot understate the widespread jubilation at the demise of Mugabe and his desire to create a dynasty for himself <a href="https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/660122/Zimbabwe-news-Robert-Mugabe-Grace-Zanu-PF-Twitter-latest-situation-coup-Emmerson-Mnangagwa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">through his wife Grace</a>.
But the optimism is misplaced because it doesn’t deal directly with the dearth of democracy in Zimbabwe.
First, contrary to popular sentiment that the coup was meant to usher in a new era of political <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42035981" target="_blank" rel="noopener">liberalisation and democracy</a>, the takeover is actually meant to deal with a succession crisis in Zanu-PF. The military made this clear when it said that it was dealing with <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/zimbabwe-military-statement-seizing-power-171115061457199.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">criminals around Mugabe</a>. And the party’s secretary for legal affairs Patrick Chinamasa indicated that removing Mugabe from the party’s Central Committee was an <a href="http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/politics/dont-need-opposition-zanupf-business-chinamasa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">internal party matter</a>.
Secondly, I would argue that the military resorted to a “smart coup” only after its preferred candidate to succeed Mugabe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, was fired from the party and government.
The way in which the military has gone about executing its plan upends any conventional understanding of what constitutes a coup d&#8217;etat. It’s a “smart coup” in the sense that the military combined the frustrations of a restive population, internal party structures and international sympathy to remove a sitting president. It thereby gained legitimacy for an otherwise partisan and unconstitutional political act – toppling an elected government.
This begs the question: Is the military now intervening for the collective good or for its own interests?
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/11/17/mnangagwa-military-may-mean-bad-news-zimbabwe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Mnangagwa and the military may mean more bad news for Zimbabwe</a>
<h2>Why the military intervened</h2>
It is baffling to imagine how the military has suddenly become the champion of democracy and regime change in Zimbabwe.
It’s clear that what motivated the military commanders was a fear of losing their jobs and influence after their preferred successor was purged. They launched a preemptive strike against Mugabe to safeguard their own selfish interests as a military class and the future of their careers.
Given the symbiotic relationship between the Zimbabwean military and the ruling Zanu-PF party, it was inevitable that the top commanders would be embroiled in the party’s succession crisis. After all, the military has been the key lever behind the power of both Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF since 1980.
In the past they have acted as part of the Zanu-PF machinery, openly <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2008/06/09/bullets-each-you/state-sponsored-violence-zimbabwes-march-29-elections" target="_blank" rel="noopener">campaigning for Mugabe</a> alongside other security agencies.
And they have played a key role in neutralising political opponents. Back in the 1980s the military was responsible for the massacre of thousands of civilians and Zapu supporters in <a href="https://archive.org/stream/BreakingTheSilenceBuildingTruePeace/MatabelelandReport_djvu.txt." target="_blank" rel="noopener">Matabeleland</a>. More than two decades later in 2008 they were responsible for the torture, death and disappearance of 200 opposition activists and the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/2170138/Zimbabwe-Death-toll-rises-in-Robert-Mugabes-reign-of-terror-before-election.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">maiming of hundreds more</a>.
In addition, <a href="http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/DRC%20S%202001%20357.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the UN</a> has implicated Mnangagwa and the generals in the illegal plundering of resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They have also been fingered in the disappearance of diamond revenues from Zimbabwe’s Marange <a>diamond fields</a>.
On top of this the military and Zanu-PF share a special relationship that has its roots in the liberation struggle. The Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu) was the political wing of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (Zanla) during the liberation war. They therefore have vested interests in the survival of the party.
After independence, the relationship remained intact as the military became the <a href="http://bulawayo24.com/index-id-opinion-sc-columnist-byo-86814.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">guarantors of the revolution</a>. Some of the same surviving commanders of Zanla are still senior high ranking officials. The commanders are also bona fide members of the ruling party and guarantors of Zanu-PF power.
The same securocrats are also members of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association. This quasi paramilitary group is an auxiliary association of the ruling party and has fiercely opposed Mugabe’s attempt to create a dynasty.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/11/21/lessons-south-africas-jacob-zuma-robert-mugabes-misfortunes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Lessons for South Africa&#8217;s Jacob Zuma in Robert Mugabe&#8217;s misfortunes</a>
<h2>Military must step aside</h2>
Zimbabwe goes to the polls next July to choose a new president and parliament. The elections – if conducted in a credible way – will provide the next government with the legitimacy it needs to take the country out of its political and economic crises.
Now that Mugabe has resigned the hope is that the military will allow a genuinely democratic transition to take place. All political players, including opposition parties, would need to be incorporated into a broad-based transitional authority pending credible elections.
But for the elections to be credible, the transitional authority would need urgently to reform the electoral system. This would ensure Zimbabweans can freely and fairly choose their leaders. Without this, peace and prosperity will continue to elude Zimbabwe.
In the long run, the military would do well to get out of politics instead of continuing to view itself as “stockholders” in the country’s political affairs because of its liberation struggle credentials. &#8211; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/enock-c-mudzamiri-192098" target="_blank" rel="author noopener">Enock C. Mudzamiri</a>, DLitt et DPhil Student in Politics, University of South Africa
Originally published in <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>
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Zimbabwe beware: the military is looking after its own interests, not democracy

President Robert Mugabe’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-military-coup-is-afoot-in-zimbabwe-whats-next-for-the-embattled-nation-87528" target="_blank" rel="noopener">endgame</a> in Zimbabwe holds various lessons for his South African counterpart, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africans-should-resist-an-amnesty-deal-for-zuma-68101" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jacob Zuma</a>, as the latter too, considers his prospects towards the end of his presidency. The first, obviously, is that while, from the pinnacle of power, a country’s president may feel the monarch of all he can survey, it is always possible that the blade of the guillotine is just around the corner.
Accordingly, it is always prudent to keep at least two bags packed for a hasty exit: one full of suit, shirts, underwear and socks, another full of foreign currency (preferably dollars or Euros). You just never know how things might pan out, so it is best to be prepared.
Following the almost-coup, Mugabe has been in a stronger position than many African dictators before him because the African Union has in recent years become a lover of democracy and a hater of coups. It therefore now demands that changes of leadership must have at least a veneer of <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/zuma-slams-unconstitutional-take-over-of-zim-20171115" target="_blank" rel="noopener">constitutionality</a>.
This has always been the Zimbabwean military’s weak point during this past week of flirting with political power. Hence its insistence that, despite its take-over of the airwaves, State House and parliament, alongside its house-arrest of the president and his family, its actions are not a coup.
In turn, this has provided Mugabe with a considerable degree of wriggle room, which he has sought to exploit to the full. Indeed, it has remained his key bargaining chip, not least because the African Union does not want to be seen as party to the overthrow of a hero of African liberation.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/11/20/mugabe-wont-step-grace-wont-step-says-nephew/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Mugabe won&#8217;t step down and Grace won&#8217;t step up, says nephew</a>
<h2>Explicit political actor</h2>
Zuma will feel confident that whereas in Zimbabwe the army has long been deeply involved in the ruling party’s internal affairs and the wider political arena, the South African National Defence Force is not an explicit political actor. He stands in no fear of a military coup (or even a Zimbabwe-style non-coup). Yet he does have to worry about what happens within his political party, the African National Congress (ANC).
Even if his favoured candidate, <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-woman-president-in-south-africa-sadly-top-contender-offers-more-of-the-same-71944" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma</a>, were to win the party leadership at the ANC’s December congress, Zuma’s continuing as South African President might be seen as a political embarrassment. If strong contender <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1643579/zumas-popularity-slides-again-ramaphosa-favourite-to-lead-anc-survey/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cyril Ramaphosa</a> wins, even more urgent calls will be made from within the ANC for the him to be “recalled” because he will be viewed as an electoral liability.
It is a fair bet that, whoever wins, an excuse will be made for a delegation from the party leadership to visit the president and to ask him to stand down. Just ask former <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2008-09-20-anc-recalls-mbeki" target="_blank" rel="noopener">President Thabo Mbeki</a> who was fired by his own ANC. If Zuma refuses to cooperate, then the ANC might turn to parliament, where enough ANC MPs might feel emboldened to vote with the opposition to dethrone him.
<h2>Fighting for survival</h2>
Like Mugabe, Zuma will be battling for a dignified exit. Even more urgently, he will be fighting for survival. In previous years, Mugabe may have feared the prospect of retribution for his sins, and would have been determined to secure immunity from prosecution.
Now, at 93, he is confident that once out of office he will be left in peace. He may or may not appreciate the irony that, unlike his country’s last white ruler Ian Smith, he will not be able to stay in Zimbabwe after he has been forced to stand down, but he will know that he has to leave.
Neither the army nor Zanu-PF will want him hanging around, fearing his ability to continue pulling strings. So off he must go, to South Africa, Dubai or Singapore (anywhere with a few decent shops for his shopaholic wife Grace). His major immediate concern then, we may presume, is safe passage and immunity for his family. We may further presume, that there is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/17/robert-grace-mugabe-missing-millions-money-zimababwe" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a lot of money</a> stashed away in foreign bank accounts to keep the crocodile from the door.
<h2>Zuma’s tricky position</h2>
Zuma is differently placed. If he loses the Presidency he stands in all sorts of dangers, not least of which is prosecution for past financial crimes and the prospect of his ending his days in prison. In other words, he has much more to bargain for, and he will be doing so from a considerably weaker position. Not least of his problems is that he is a lot younger than Mugabe, so could spend quite a few years in jail.
Zuma’s major strength is that, whoever wins the party leadership, the ANC will probably want to grant him immunity and get him out of the way, as otherwise they face the prospect of their former leader facing a corruption trial during the lead up to elections in 2019.
But for a start, there is no provision for presidential immunity in the constitution, and its grant would face a strong challenge in the courts. Furthermore, if the Guptas or other Zuma allies in the project of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/zuma-and-anc-run-out-of-road-as-bad-news-piles-up-68197" target="_blank" rel="noopener">state capture</a>” were to be prosecuted, Zuma could face being dragged into court as a witness.
In short, Zuma will realise that it will make sense to hot-foot it out of the country, preferably to a comfortably authoritarian country which will turn down requests for extradition.
<h2>The fickle people</h2>
What Mugabe is learning now, and it is something of which Zuma should take good note, is that the people are an ungrateful lot, and are likely to turn against you just when you most need their support. Up &#8217;til a week ago, it was presumed that Mugabe retained the backing of all who mattered in Zanu-PF and that he would again be its candidate for president at the next election. But now, like many a dictator, he is having to learn fast that the people no longer love him.
Past allies, like the war veterans, had already turned against him, repudiating his apparent bid for his wayward wife, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/27/zimbabwe-first-lady-grace-robert-mugabe-successor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Grace</a>, to replace him. Zanu-PF Youth leader, <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/africa/2017-11-16-watch--from-die-for-mugabe-to-fawning-apology-zanu-pf-youth/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kudzai Chipanga</a>, initially declared his willingness to “die for Mugabe” and labelled Major-General Constantino Chiwenga, the leader of the non-coup, a traitor when the army first intervened. After being locked up, he shamefacedly read out an abject apology, begging forgiveness, and pleading the inexperience of youth.
This has been followed by all 10 provincial organisations of Zanu-PF calling for Mugabe to go, and even encouraging ordinary people to join the marches being organised by opposition parties and civil society demanding his dismissal.
Zuma is too wily a politician not to know that once he loses the party presidency, his support base will drain away, and that he will become known as yesterday’s man. Yet like Mugabe, he will take comfort from the regional body, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), for there is nothing his fellow presidents dread more than the prospect of any one of their number facing impeachment.
He will also know that, unlike Mbeki, whose stature in Africa remains high, he has no viable future as a roving ex-president. Zuma will know that if he wants to enjoy his retirement in peace, he has to leave South Africa before he gets tangled up in court proceedings.
His best option will be to grab those two suitcases, make a hasty exit and move in next door to Bob and Grace in Dubai. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/roger-southall-296862" target="_blank" rel="author noopener">Roger Southall</a>, Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand
Originally published in <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>
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&nbsp;

Lessons for South Africa’s Jacob Zuma in Robert Mugabe’s misfortunes

President Robert Mugabe’s nephew and cabinet minister, who is hiding in fear of his life in South Africa, has said the 93-year-old head of state will not step down because of the letter of the Constitution, despite a military takeover and massed marches against him in Harare. He also claims Grace Mugabe has no interest in becoming president.
Patrick Zhuwawo, who has been Minister of Public Services and Social Welfare for the last two years, is the son of Mugabe’s sister Sabina, who died in 2010. He is said to be one of the supporter of his aunt’s bid to succeed Mugabe, although he denies this.
Zhuwawo had been in Buenos Aires, Argentina, attending a conference on child labor, when the military went in. As he checked in for a flight home at OR Tambo International Airport, in Johannesburg, he took a call from his family in Harare begging him to stay put.
“They told me that my house had been vandalized and I was on a wanted list. The also informed me that a number of people had died in this illegal coup and more than 200 were in detention,” says Zhuwawo.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/11/17/mnangagwa-military-may-mean-bad-news-zimbabwe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Mnangagwa and the military may mean more bad news for Zimbabwe</a>
When will President Mugabe step down? I said, asking the question on everyone’s lips on the day as thousands marched in Harare calling from him to go.
“Because he has a mandate given to him by an electoral process. More importantly stepping down because of a coup is dangerous, it is evil we can never allow military weapons to determine democratic processes… he is not going to step down,” says Zhuwawo.
“This coup is now being window dressed to look like a popular uprising.”
Zhuwawo claims that military chiefs are using protestors to cover what he alleges is looting from multi-million-dollar agricultural funds.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/11/16/whats-next-embattled-zimbabwe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: What next for embattled Zimbabwe?</a>
Zhuwawo also claimed he was not a member of the so-called G40 group of young MPs backing his aunt Grace to succeed his uncle.
“No, that is not the issue and she has no intention of being the next president. The people of Zimbabwe must choose the next president,” he says.
What about President Mugabe’s age and infirmity. When I saw him at the <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/06/01/the-pain-of-mugabe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">World Economic Forum in Durban in May he moved painfully</a> – isn’t it time, I asked?
“One of the things in our constitution is that there must be no discrimination on race or sex or age&#8230; If you were Zimbabwean you are breaking the Constitution … What we do not want to go back to is the day of Nazi Germany when they were euthanizing old people,” he says.
After 37 years in power, the last 20  presiding over a crumbling economy, surely Mugabe and his comrades had failed and should go anyway to make way for new ideas?
“You will not divert me here, I am talking about a coup,” he says.
If only Mugabe, Zhuwawo and company had diverted the economy towards growth and prosperity 20 years ago there may not be tanks and protestors on the streets now.

Mugabe won’t step down and Grace won’t step up, says nephew

The military has taken control of the national broadcaster, troops are in the streets and the president is being held in a secure environment. All military leave is cancelled and a senior general has addressed the nation. Yet the Zimbabwean military continues with the pretence that this is <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-11-15-zimbabwe-army-in-control-of-state-institutions-but-insists-not-a-coup/#.Wg2PqE27LL8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">not a coup d’etat</a>.
The obvious response to this is: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then the chances are it’s a duck. And the sole reason the Zimbabwean military is not acknowledging this as a coup d’etat is to avoid triggering the country’s automatic suspension from the <a href="https://au.int/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">African Union</a> and the Southern African Development Community <a href="http://www.sadc.int/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">(SADC)</a>. Both bodies frown on coups.
A perfect storm formed ahead of these events and made military action predictable. The country had once again entered a steep economic decline (not that its “recovery” had been anything of note). A clear and reckless bid for power was being made by the so-called <a href="https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2016/03/18/what-does-g40-want/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Generation 40 (G40) faction</a> around Grace Mugabe in direct opposition to the Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, the standard bearer for the so-called <a href="http://www.pindula.co.zw/Lacoste,_Zanu-PF_Faction" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lacoste faction</a>.
This culminated in Mnangagwa’s dismissal by President Mugabe: a clear indication that Grace Mugabe was now calling the shots. It also served as a follow up to the 2015 Grace-engineered dismissal of another Vice President and rival, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30400178" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joice Mujuru</a>.
The coup means that Mugabe’s long and disastrous presidency is finally over. The only questions that remain are the precise details and mechanics of the deal which secures his departure.
<h2>Why the coup?</h2>
Mnangagwa is a long time Zanu-PF stalwart and is clearly closely integrated with the military high command and the intelligence services. Both institutions are concerned that the succession is being arranged for a faction led by people with no liberation credentials but who have been skilled in manipulating Mugabe himself and in making him do their bidding. The G40 now appear to have overreached, perhaps believing that their proximity to the “old man” made them invincible.
This coup’s explicit purpose is twofold. First, it’s trying to definitively kill off Grace Mugabe’s ambitions to become president and to set in place a ruling dynasty akin to the Kims in North Korea. Second, it’s a bid to clear Mnangagwa’s path to power, first in Zanu-PF and then within the state itself (over the last three decades these have been virtually one and the same thing).
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/11/16/whats-next-embattled-zimbabwe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: What&#8217;s next for embattled Zimbabwe?</a>
What we do not yet know is what counter force, if any, the G40 can bring to bear against the military. The calculation of the military hierarchy appears to be that Grace and company are paper tigers who will have few cards to play against such force majeure and who lack the popular appeal to bring angry and disillusioned masses out onto the streets.
The coup has formally stripped away the façade that Zimbabwe is a constitutional state. This is clearly a militarised party-state where the military is a pivotal actor in the ruling party’s internal politics. It is not simply a neutral state agency subordinate to the civilian leadership. And the idea that this military intervention is an aberration – a departure from the constitutional norm – is misplaced.
Zimbabwe is a de facto military dictatorship. It serves as a guarantor of Zanu-PF rule rather than as a custodian of the constitution. It has helped Zanu-PF rig elections. And it was central to the state terror which was unleashed against the population to reverse Mugabe and Zanu-PF’s <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/2170138/Zimbabwe-Death-toll-rises-in-Robert-Mugabes-reign-of-terror-before-election.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">electoral defeat in 2008</a>. The military has always been a key political actor. The only difference this time is that its intervention is designed to control events within Zanu-PF rather than to crush opposition to it.
But, a highly politicised military is a major impediment to the re-establishment of a democratic order in Zimbabwe. It has nothing to gain, politically or financially, from democratic rule given the lucrative networks of embezzlement and plunder it’s put in place over decades. Most recently it seized and siphoned off of the country’s diamond wealth for military officers and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/12/zimbabwe-diamonds-mugabe-marange-fields" target="_blank" rel="noopener">party hierarchy</a>.
This intervention is designed to secure the presidency for Mnangagwa. So it is hard to avert our eyes from the elephant – or in this case the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41995876" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Crocodile</a> – in the room. Mnangagwa is the Mugabe henchman who helped enable the misrule and tyranny of the last 37 years. He was one of the principal architects of the <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=zi-tWekXbD8C&amp;pg=PA19&amp;lpg=PA19&amp;dq=%22the+early+rain+which+washes+away+the+chaff+before+the+spring+rains%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=dWX2SIUj7r&amp;sig=0aDLpmmQfN93e_RNJuKcBmGGEYI&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwioi-joj6LWAhWE7hoKHRF_C7wQ6AEIOTAD#v=onepage&amp;q=%22the%20early%20rain%20which%20washes%20away%20the%20chaff%20before%20the%20spring%20rains%22&amp;f=false" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gukurahundi</a> – the genocidal attack on the Ndebele – in the early to mid-1980s which left at least 20,000 people dead.
He has also been instrumental in rigging elections and crushing all opposition to Zanu-PF rule, including the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2017-11-15-after-mugabe-what-next?utm_source=Mail+%26+Guardian&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Daily+newsletter&amp;utm_term=https%3A%2F%2Fmg.co.za%2Farticle%2F2017-11-15-after-mugabe-what-next" target="_blank" rel="noopener">atrocities of 2008</a>.
Expecting such a person to now make a deathbed conversion to the democracy, constitutional government and good governance he has spent an entire career liquidating is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/15/mugabe-gone-zimbabweans-decide-future-mnangagwa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dangerous nonsense</a>.
<h2>Dilemmas to come</h2>
Mnangagwa will soon have to confront a series of dilemmas. How can he put in place an administration which has the appearance of a national unity government, can secure international approval and the financial assistance required to help rebuild a shattered economy – but avoid ceding any meaningful power or control? Can this circle be squared?
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/06/01/the-pain-of-mugabe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Pain Of Mugabe</a>
The best hope for Zimbabweans is that the international community uses its leverage wisely and sets stringent conditions for such assistance: free elections closely monitored by an array of international organisations, the establishment of a new electoral commission, free access to the state media and the right of parties to campaign freely.
There should also be a role here for South Africa to restore its badly tarnished image as a champion of democracy in Africa. It has followed a malign path over the last two decades, facilitating Zanu-PF authoritarianism in the name of a threadbare and increasingly degenerate “liberation solidarity”.
Such a combination of pressures will severely restrict Mnangagwa’s room for manoeuvre. Anything short of that will deliver an outcome which is essentially Mugabeism without Mugabe. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/james-hamill-254226" target="_blank" rel="author noopener">James Hamill</a>, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester
Originally published in <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>
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&nbsp;

Mnangagwa and the military may mean more bad news for Zimbabwe

Nobody is safe from the rages of Zimbabwe’s First Lady, “<a href="https://www.thestandard.co.zw/2014/09/21/grace-mugabes-doctorate-uz-remains-mum/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr</a>. Amai” Grace Mugabe. There was the young <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/special-features/zimbabwe/grace-mugabe-split-my-head-open-claims-joburg-woman-10788605" target="_blank" rel="noopener">South African model</a> Grace lashed with extension cords. Ninety-three-year-old President Robert Mugabe’s longtime and usually trusted ally <a href="https://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/12164/Mugabe_drops_the_crocodile" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Emmerson Mnangagwa</a>, was next in the firing line: he was sacked because his supporters allegedly <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/an-ordinary-man-after-all-mugabe-fires-right-hand-man-mnangagwa-20171106" target="_blank" rel="noopener">booed</a> her at a rally.
The consequences of her vengeance may have <a href="http://nehandaradio.com/2017/11/14/live-updates-situation-zimbabwe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">led to a coup</a> headed by Zimbabwe’s army chief General Constantino Chiwenga, who is commonly perceived to be Mnangagwa’s protégé. But <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/who-is-emmerson-mnangagwa/4115612.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ex-freedom fighter Mnangagwa</a> has his own presidential aspirations.
Mnangagwa has been exiled from the party in which he has served since he was a teenager. But he is not just skulking in the political wilderness. On arrival in South Africa he issued a statement calling those who wanted him out <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/full-statement-im-not-going-anywhere-zanu-pf-is-not-your-personal-property-mnangagwa-tells-mugabe-20171108" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“minnows”</a>. He promised to control his party “very soon” and urged his supporters to register to vote in the national elections next July.
As if to back Mnangagwa, on November 13 General Chiwenga announced that he and his officers could not allow the “counter-revolutionary infiltrators”, implied to be behind Grace Mugabe, to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/13/zimbabwe-army-chief-warns-mugabes-party-military-may-intervene/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">continue their purges</a>.
<h2>Factions and purges</h2>
Chiwenga <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41992351" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declared</a> that the armed forces must ensure all party members attend the extraordinary Zanu-PF congress next month with “equal opportunity to exercise their democratic rights”. He flashed back through Zanu-PF’s history of factionalism, reminding his listeners that although the military “will not hesitate to step in” it has never “usurped power”. Chiwenga promised to defuse all the differences “amicably and in the ruling party’s closet”.
Although this airbrushed more than it <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02589001.2014.956499" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revealed</a> about the party’s rough patches when leadership vacuums appeared, the statement appeared more as a cautionary note than a clarion call to arms. It’s not often a coup is announced before it starts; but once in motion direction – and history – can change. Grace Mugabe may have unleashed a perfect storm and her own undoing.
All the “shenanigans” that have inspired the generals to consider a coup have set the stage for an extraordinary Zanu-PF congress this December instead of in the expected 2019: that is, before rather than after the July 2018 national elections.
This suggests some people were in a hurry to settle the succession issues for the president, who is now showing every one of his 93 years. Maybe Robert Mugabe won’t rule until he is <a href="http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?productid=2114&amp;freedownload=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">100-years-old</a>. If not, and <a href="https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/mugabes-zimbabwe-has-an-angry-population-and-a-potentially-violentfuture/article36934238/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">members of his family</a> or party wanted to keep their dynasties alive, they had to work quickly lest some similarly inclined contenders are in their way.
These contenders include Mnangagwa and a slew of his <a href="http://www.pindula.co.zw/Lacoste,_Zanu-PF_Faction" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Lacoste” faction</a> consisting of war veterans and the odd financial liberal. The best-known of these is Patrick Chinamasa. This former finance minister tried to convince the world’s bankers he could pull Zimbabwe <a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwes-financial-system-is-living-on-borrowed-time-and-borrowed-money-86159" target="_blank" rel="noopener">out of the fire</a>. He was demoted to control cyberspace and then fired. Perhaps he may make a comeback in the wake of the semi-coup.
The pro-Grace faction includes the members of <a href="https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2016/03/18/what-does-g40-want/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Generation 40, or “G-40”</a>. Many are well over 40. But in Robert Mugabe’s shadow they appear young, as does the 52-year-old First Lady. Without a base in the liberation-war cohort, they resorted to working with the Mugabe couple: sometimes their ideology appears radical, espousing indigenous economics and more land to the tillers.
If the history of their best-known member – the current Minister of Higher Education <a href="https://www.pindula.co.zw/Jonathan_Moyo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jonathan Moyo</a> – is indicative, however, they are pragmatic; or less politely put, opportunist.
But with Grace Mugabe sans Robert, they would have to muster inordinate amounts of patience and manipulation to steer the sinking ship to the shores of stable statehood and incorporate yet <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Search-Elusive-Zimbabwean-Dream-Autobiography/dp/0994707924" target="_blank" rel="noopener">younger generations</a> who cut their political teeth as Robert Mugabe’s rule faltered.
<h2>Perfidious ‘saviours’</h2>
Yet the possible plan for the upcoming congress – to create a third vice-president – appears not to move far beyond the cold hands of the old. <a href="https://www.news24.com/Tags/People/phelekezela_mphoko" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Phelekezela Mphoko</a> would be pushed to third vice-president status. Grace would be the second vice-president.
The current defence minister, <a href="https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2017/11/10/mnangagwas-great-escape-details/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sydney Sekeramayi</a> would be first vice-president and so, next in line for the presidential palace. He is a quiet but no less tarnished member of the Zanu-PF old guard; especially when one remembers the massacre of thousands of Ndebele people during the <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=zi-tWekXbD8C&amp;pg=PA19&amp;lpg=PA19&amp;dq=%22the+early+rain+which+washes+away+the+chaff+before+the+spring+rains%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=dWX2SIUj7r&amp;sig=0aDLpmmQfN93e_RNJuKcBmGGEYI&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwioi-joj6LWAhWE7hoKHRF_C7wQ6AEIOTAD#v=onepage&amp;q=%22the%20early%20rain%20which%20washes%20away%20the%20chaff%20before%20the%20spring%20rains%22&amp;f=false" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gukurahundi</a>.
When performing the calculus necessary to rectify Zimbabwe’s graceless imbalances, remember that Mnangagwa was perhaps the key architect of the nearly genocidal Gukurahundi, now chronicled in archival detail in historian Stuart Doran’s <a href="https://www.sithatha.com/books" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kingdom, Power, Glory: Mugabe, Zanu, and the Quest for Supremacy</a>. Among the scores implicated therein are the British, condemned by Hazel Cameron, another meticulous archivist, as exercising <a href="https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/news/archive/2017/zimbabwe-cameron/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“wilful blindness”</a> during what Robert Mugabe has dismissed as a “moment of madness”.
Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that many are suspicious of Mnangagwa’s <a href="http://africanarguments.org/2017/11/08/zimbabwe-the-uks-misguided-role-in-the-rise-and-fall-of-mnangagwa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">relationship</a> with the UK. Many suspect he has been swimming with perfidious Albion for a very, very long time.
Those waters, in the shadow of Mugabe’s heritage, will take a few more generations of hard political work to clear. It hardly seems propitious that a coup, and the same generation that has ruled since 1980, starts it off.
&#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/david-b-moore-285501" target="_blank" rel="author noopener">David B. Moore</a>, Professor of Development Studies, University of Johannesburg and originally published in <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>
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What’s next for embattled Zimbabwe?

Glen Ridge is a small, quiet suburb in the center of the vibrant Soweto township, south of Johannesburg. Here, Isaac Mojalefa Sentso stays alone in a four-room home that doubles as his art studio. This late morning FORBES AFRICA found him perched on a leather sofa facing a makeshift easel made of a piece of wood supported by an ironing board. A picture of the beaming United States’ President Donald Trump appears on his laptop next to him. He wakes up every day at 3AM and works throughout the day.
“I don’t do art after sunset because I use natural light,” says Sentso, as he welcomes us into his home with an open heart.
Soon, after briefly exchanging banter, Sentso recounts with glee the morning he met Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe in 2015. After spending two weeks drawing the portrait of Mugabe, he took a taxi to the Zimbabwean Embassy in Pretoria, with the wrapped picture tucked under his arm. A week later he secured an appointment with the president.
“I was there at 7:35AM because I like being early all the time. The ambassador ushered me into the room where he was having his tea. Mugabe asked me how long the picture took me ‘because I can see there’s no charcoal’. The way he understands art amazed me. &#8230; ‘I know art I was at Fort Hare and I am a collector’, he said. He asked me how much I wanted for the picture, I said R25,000 ($1,900). He scolded me for being cheap, he said it’s worth far more than that. Mugabe taught me a lesson about valuing and pricing my work,” recalls the unassuming Sentso.
Later, Sentso joined the president’s blue-light entourage visiting the Hector Pieterson Memorial in Soweto – a tribute to casualties of the 1976 students’ uprising. At a gathering that included South Africa&#8217;s Minister of Arts Nathi Mthethwa and Mugabe’s entourage, Sentso was asked to present his picture to Mugabe there and then.
“The very same evening R35,000 was deposited into my bank account,” he says.
<div id="attachment_33832" style="width: 519px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33832" class=" wp-image-33832" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Ike-685-e1507795146670-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="509" height="339" />Isaac Mojalefa Sentso (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
But why did Sentso do a portrait of a man viewed as a villain around the world?
“I knew Mugabe appreciated arts. When I looked at all the pictures on Mugabe on internet, I saw they were insulting to him. I worked on a picture that will make him look beautiful and young. I don’t want controversy in my life, I only focus on positivity. I don’t want to be caught in politics,” he says.
Sentso says his target customers are the rich; businesspeople, monarchs, billionaires and heads of state. Most of his work isn’t commissioned; he sends the portraits to the subjects hoping they will send money in return. But, even though most of them are wealthy, some of those he sends his pictures to don’t give a cent. Those among his fruitless endeavours are: Carlos Slim Helú, one of the richest men in the world; Alisher Usmanov, the Russian business magnate; and Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei. Sentso delivered his portrait to Mexican tycoon Slim through the South African embassy. At the time, South Africa’s Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa was due to visit Slim and the packaged portrait was to be delivered by him, but Sentso said it was the last he heard of his work.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2017/06/26/no-reservations/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Future Of African Women In Art</a>
Sentso normally sells his portraits for over R100,000 ($7,360), but if you have a good rapport with him, the price may go down to R50,000 ($3,800). When we met him, he was at wit’s end because he had hoped to sell a portrait to South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe. In late 2015, Sentso hand-delivered a picture to the Mamelodi Sundowns Football Club offices in Pretoria, a club that Motsepe owns.
It seems that the portrait was lost before it could reach Motsepe and Sentso had not been able to reach out to the businessman. But just before we went to press, Sentso was hoping the frustrating story of the lost portrait would have a happy ending after he met Sandile Langa, the Legal Compliance and Stakeholder Relations Executive at Motsepe’s African Rainbow Minerals. On hearing about Sentso from FORBES AFRICA, Langa contacted him to find an amicable solution to what seemed to be a mishap.
<div id="attachment_33833" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33833" class=" wp-image-33833" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Ike-679-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="450" />Some of the portraits adorning Sentso&#8217;s bedroom wall. On top is the Queen Mother of the Royal Bafokeng, Semane Molotlegi. Below her is a portrait of her son, Kgosi Nyalala Pilane. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
Even though he struggles to sell his work and earn a living, Sentso refuses to put his work in galleries as he thinks they are cheating artists.
Trouble has followed Sentso, and his drawings, since day one.
“My older brother would bring home his homework to draw something. I would attempt to draw the same thing he was drawing and my pictures were far better than his… In those days I was happy to draw in school books and he was happy to take advantage of me,” he says.
Two years later, Sentso enrolled at the same school as his brother. His brother’s secret of asking Sentso to do his homework was exposed by the same teacher who taught them both.
“The teacher said ‘no, it cannot be it’. She called him in class and instructed us to draw while she was watching. My embarrassed brother had to confess that I had been doing his homework for him,” he recalls.
Growing up in the townships of Johannesburg under apartheid, it never dawned on Sentso that he can go to art school and make a living. So, like many black people in his community, he took a job as a clerk in an insurance company after leaving school.
“When I got bored I would draw at work. But I later destroyed those pages. It wasn’t a serious thing,” he says.
It took him 25 years to take his talent seriously. He enrolled for a part-time arts course at the University of the Witwatersrand, but that only lasted a few weeks. Sentso realized that wasn’t going to work for him and registered at the Johannesburg Art Foundation.
“They liked my style of art at the Johannesburg Art Foundation. I decided to quit my job and study full-time. But when I was in that class I was very slow to finish my work because I was too much of a perfectionist. The course facilitator suggested I change to graphic design. To my surprise, I liked this graphic design and designing on a computer was fun. The title itself, graphic design, was appealing,” says Sentso.
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In 1992, between chopping and changing courses, Sentso obtained a certificate and went to work as a graphic designer. He worked from home and reported to an editor. It was a team of two.
After two years of working from home as a lonely designer, Sentso needed a fresh challenge and joined advertising agency FCB South Africa, where he worked as multimedia designer and video editor for 12 years.
“When 9/11 happened in the US, I was assigned to Nigeria to train those guys in animation and video editing and all that. I was the only black multimedia designer in the company,” he says.
By 2004, Sentso had saved enough money to start on his own. In 2012, a break-in in his new home in Soweto saw him lose everything he had.
“I was distraught but I needed to earn a living. I didn’t start my life with computers. God gave me talent, not computers. I had already started visiting the so-called top galleries around Johannesburg. It is from that point I said to myself ‘there’s no work of my mine that is going to be sold there’,” he says.
In 2014, Sentso realized he did not need a job from anyone, he was going to make a living on his drawings. So, he started drawing influential people and couriered his pictures to them. But he has not always been lucky as some have tried to swindle him.
As Sentso was busy with the portrait of President Trump when we visited him, he can only hope he won’t suffer the same fate.

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