Animal Farm

By Liam Takura Kanhenga and Youngerson Matete   Since 2000, there have been several attempts to dislodge the ruling party ZANU-PF from government. The ruling party’s mismanagement of the economy has led to an economic crisis that has rendered many Zimbabweans poor. This has led to an intensification of calls for the removal of ZANU-PF. The formation of the Movement for Democratic Change in 1999 heralded a serious threat to ZANU-PF’s hold on power. As the economy continues to deteriorate more and more people become dissatisfied with the ruling party.  As it became more evident that there was a real danger of losing power ZANU-PF began to tighten the grip and vice of power. Ever since there have been attempts to dislodge the ruling party from power by then MDC now reconstituted to Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) but ZANU-PF has maintained its grip on power. While these parties hold promise, it is essential to recognize that they are not a guaranteed solution for achieving de...

By Youngerson Matete and Liam Kanhenga On the 4 th  of November, 2023 the High Court of Zimbabwe issued a judgment in favor of Sengezo Tshabangu in the case of Prince Dubeko Sibanda & others versus Sengezo Tshabangu.  This was after the former members of parliament and senators went to court to contest their recall from the August House. The self-proclaimed Citizen’s Coalition for Change interim secretary general wrote a letter to the speaker of parliament and president of the senate claiming that 15 members of parliament and 9 senators had ceased to be members of the Citizen Coalition for Change. They must be ejected from parliament as per section 129(1)(k) of the constitution of Zimbabwe which states that  “if the Member has ceased to belong to the political party of which he or she was a member when elected to Parliament and the political party concerned, by written notice to the Speaker or the President of the Senate, as the case may be, has declared that the Memb...

 By Youngerson Matete  On 28 October 2023, Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa appointed the Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF), General Philip Valerio Sibanda, to the ZANU-PF Politburo as an ex-officio member during the party’s 20th Annual People’s Conference. The Politburo serves as the apex decision-making body within ZANU-PF. This appointment has sparked widespread criticism, with many observers arguing it constitutes a direct violation of Section 208(3) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, which explicitly prohibits members of the security services from being active participants or office-holders in any political party or organisation (Constitution of Zimbabwe, 2013). Scholars such as Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2013) and Magaisa (2020) have long observed the historical entanglement of the military and ruling party structures in Zimbabwe, tracing its roots to the liberation war era. The inclusion of Section 208 in the 2013 Constitution was designed to address th...

  On August 26th, 2023, Zimbabweans went to bed with shoes on - a common proverb amongst the local folks which simply translates to being heavily disappointed - after the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, in the dead of the night, announced presidential results and declared Emmerson Mnangagwa as the winner with 52.6% of the votes with his closest rival, Nelson Chamisa of the Citizen Coalition for Change (CCC)’s having gathered only 44% of the vote in the harmonized elections which were held on August 23rd and 24th.  The elections were hugely shambolic and have since received widespread condemnation with regional, international and local bodies and human rights groups such as the SADC observer mission, the AU observer mission, the UN secretary general, the Carter Center Election Observer Mission, the EU observer mission, ZESN, ERC among many others. This was the second election after the toppling of Zimbabwe’s long time dictator Robert Gabriel Mugabe who was succeeded by his forme...

  On the 23rd of August 2023, Zimbabwe will hold its harmonized elections amid a plethora of challenges ranging from socio-economic instability and political upheaval. In recent months, Zimbabwe has seen the return of hyper-inflation in which the Zimbabwean dollar has completely collapsed on the parallel market against the market preferred United States dollar, hunger and starvation due to poor rains as a result of climate change and political crisis emanating from disputed elections and contested politics.  As Jake Courtney explained in the elusive dream poem, “We seek out pleasure, and flee from pain, But the dream is fickle, and our joys are fleeting gains. We try to control our fate, and shape our destiny, But the dream is beyond our control, a mystery. Yet still we strive, and still we hope, For in the great strange dream, there is always scope. To find a glimmer of joy, a spark of delight, and hold on to it, with all our might.” Each and every year, Zimbabweans look forw...

  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 opp...