Animal Farm

  By Youngerson Matete   On the 23rd of August 2023, Zimbabwe is headed for polls which are meant to chose the President, members of parliament and local authorities who will serve the country for the next 5 years amid growing fears of another rigged elections.  The fears have been ignited by the emergence of Forever Associates of Zimbabwe, a shadow group known as FAZ which is allegedly runned by the Central intelligence organisation (CIO) - a security organ that has direct and partisan links to the current government and the ZANU-PF party. The group has reportedly taken over the running of elections in Zimbabwe ahead of the August 2023 crunch polls. Forever Associates of Zimbabwe claims to be a trust organisation that was initially formed in 2010 by students at Solusi University to promote the economic empowerment and integration of its members into the mainstream national economy by establishing and conducting businesses and facilitating their preferential access to opportunities, ei

By Youngerson Matete   President Emmerson D. Mnangagwa, this week, through a gazette, announced that Zimbabwe will go to the polls on Wednesday, the 23rd of August 2023 to elect the next President, members of parliament and local authorities (councilors) for the country.  The declaration of the election date by the President means that Zimbabwe will go to elections without a single electoral or political reform as the electoral reform bill, HB 11 of 2022 was still being debated before the parliament. This means that the electoral reform bill is no longer applicable to this general elections according to section 157(5) of the constitution of Zimbabwe which clearly states that, "after an election has been called, no change to the Electoral Law or to any other law relating to elections has effect for the purpose of that election." The background and battle for reforms in Zimbabwe   Since 2000, Zimbabwe has been battling with a political crisis emanating from disputed elections w

  By Youngerson Matete   The historical background of Zimbabwe's economic crisis   The looming economic crisis has gotten many Zimbabweans extremely worried. This is largely because Zimbabwe has experienced economic and political crisis before.   The crisis was underpinned by hyperinflation, lack of basic commodities in shops, prolonged water and electricity cuts, hunger, and outbreak of water borne diseases. Fifteen years ago, during a financial crisis, Zimbabwe recorded the second highest incidence of hyperinflation in history – the country’s inflation rate for November 2008 was a staggering 79,600,000,000% (essentially a daily inflation rate of 98%). Prices for basic commodities were increasing more than twice every day – goods and services would cost twice as much each following day. With the unemployment rate exceeding 70%, economic activities in Zimbabwe virtually shut down and turned the domestic economy into a barter trade economy. The cause of Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation was

By Youngerson Matete   As Zimbabwe head to the polls in August this year, serious electoral flaws and human rights abuses by the government has undermined any meaningful prospects of free and fair elections. A few months to go before Zimbabweans elect a president, members of parliament and local government representatives, the country is in a "dizzy" mood. It doesn't feel like its any election year. By this time in an a normal election year the country must have been with political rallies, enthusiasm and a lot of political activities. The political and electoral playing field remains deeply uneven and stacked in favour of ZANU-PF. As the country stumbles towards the 2023 polls, party and state conflation and lack of implementation of meaningful political and electoral reforms that aligns both the electoral law and electoral practices to the constitution, Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) principles and guidelines governing a democratic election, African

By Youngerson Matete  On May 8, 2023, the constitutional court offered MDC-T leader Senator Douglas T Mwonzora a drying machine by dismissing his application. Mwonzora had, in March, attempted to prolong his unwelcome visit by soaking his clothes after he launched a constitutional court application challenging the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s delimitation report. In the application, Senator Mwonzora had prayed that the constitutional court orders the President not to proclaim the dates for the 2023 harmonized elections hence postponing elections.  The constitutional court ruling   Yesterday, the Constitutional Court dismissed Mwonzora’s court application with Justice Malaba saying that the application lacks jurisdiction.  The constitutional court claimed that “no cause of action has been advanced by the application” and dismissed it with no order as to costs. The court also questioned Douglas T Mwonzora’s locus standi and hence dismissed the case on a technical basis rather than on

By Youngerson Matete and Liam Kanhenga  NGO-ization (or 'ngoisation') refers to the professionalization, bureaucratization, and institutionalization of social movements as they adopt the form of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). It led to NGOs' depoliticizing discourses and practices of the struggle. The term has been introduced in the context of West European women's movements, but since the late 1990s it has been employed to assess the role of organized civil society on a global scale. It was also used by Indian writer Arundhati Roy, who speaks about the “NGO-ization of resistance,” and more generally, about the NGO-ization of politics.  As Arundhati Roy will put “NGOs give the impression that they are filling the vacuum created by a retreating state. And they are, but their real contribution is that they defuse political anger and dole out as aid or benevolence what people ought to have by right. They alter the public psyche. “A hazard that the struggle for democ