Original to:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/15/mugabe-gone-zimbabweans-decide-future-mnangagwa
Even if Mugabe has gone, Zimbabweans won’t be dancing in the streets
By Wilf Mbanga, The Guardian, November 15, 2017
What we want is to decide our own future, and who will lead us. But
Emmerson Mnangagwa is every bit as iron-fisted as the man he’d like to
replace
Should Zimbabweans be rejoicing today? Robert Mugabe, 93, has ruled them
with an iron fist since 1980. He is the only president an entire
generation aged under 40 have ever known. Admittedly, the fist was not
so iron in the early years – but to millions of Zimbabweans it has
become increasingly oppressive since the mid-1990s.
Thousands of people from the Ndebele ethnic group were slaughtered in
the Gukurahundi purge of the early 1980s, and in the intervening decades
many thousands more have paid with their lives. Women and children dying
in childbirth at a faster rate than anywhere else in Africa; opposition
activists beaten and tortured to death; journalists kidnapped and never
seen again: it is a long and bloody list.
So surely Zimbabweans should be rejoicing at the news that Mugabe is now
under house arrest, reported to have done a deal with the military in
which he will resign in exchange for safe passage out of the country for
himself, his wife, Grace, and his family.
But there is no dancing in the streets. The millions of Zimbabweans in
self-imposed exile (estimated at 25% of the population) are glued to
their screens, swinging between hope and despair at every tweet, every
morsel of news, every rumour. Those back home, who have borne the brunt
of Mugabe’s jackboot for the past decades, are huddled in their houses,
hoping their phone batteries won’t die before the erratic power supply
is restored. A desperate few ventured out to stand yet again in the
endless bank queues, to draw their daily allowance, worth under 20 US
dollars.
So why no dancing? The man believed to be their next president – the
former vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa – is every bit as iron-fisted
as the man he is replacing. He has been Mugabe’s right-hand man since
the beginning. He was minister in charge of the intelligence services at
the time of the Gukurahundi massacres. He honed Zimbabwe’s ever-watchful
Central Intelligence Organisation into an elite dirty tricks team feared
throughout the land. Over the years, like his master Mugabe, he has been
accused of masterminding election violence, kidnappings, extortion,
plundering national resources, and other crimes.
He has never enjoyed popular support. He lost his seat twice in general
elections before finally being elected only when he changed his
constituency to his home area. Even then, there were many accusations of
violence and intimidation. For 10 years he sat in parliament as a Mugabe
appointee – not by popular choice. And if he does indeed take over as
president now, it will be as an appointee of the military.
What Zimbabweans want, what would really make us dance in the streets as
we did in 1980, is the chance to decide our own future – and who will
lead us into that future.
We want to be able to cast our ballots without fear of retribution.
Mugabe’s 37 years in office has seen the rigging and stealing of
elections, the murder and torture of his opponents, the seizure of
productive farm land, the worst hyperinflation in history, and the
unbridled looting and plundering of the nation’s resources by his
supporters. And the man taking over from him was his chief election
agent through it all.
Zimbabweans have endured a kakistocracy (run by the worst, least
qualified or most unscrupulous citizens) for three decades. And with the
army and Mnangagwa in the driving seat, there is little hope that this
will change any time soon.
However, there is still a chance that we can salvage a dance from all
this. If Mnangagwa would heed the many voices in and outside Zimbabwe
calling for a national transitional government – involving all parties,
and all good men and women across the political, economic, racial and
other spectrums – that would give hope for the future. A future beyond
the confines of Zanu-PF and its violence – of which Mugabe often
boasted, and Mnangagwa was the executioner.
• Wilf Mbanga is editor of the Zimbabwean
(http://www.thezimbabwean.co/)
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