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HARARE - Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa says as the country reaches the homestretch to general elections next year, he has noted ‘worrisome’ and ‘meddlesome’ tendencies from foreign missions accredited to the country.
Mnangagwa - who came to power through a military coup in November 2017, before winning a disputed general election in July 2018 - wrote in the State-run Sunday Mail: “The government frowns upon this brazen effrontery against our sovereignty, which is in clear violation of basic provisions of international law governing inter-State relations.”
He claimed that there was ‘a gross disdain for our sovereignty’, and that ‘this worrisome propensity is likely to get even more blatant closer to our harmonised general elections slated for next year’.Besides banning foreign journalists from working in Zimbabwe in the past, the country has no record of deporting diplomats.
Faced with massive inflation, which independent economists peg at 502 per cent per annum, and growing calls from government workers to down tools, Mnangagwa has blamed interference by Western governments.
He said that China had been pivotal in his drive, since coming to power, towards infrastructural development.
“When I came into power, President Xi Jinping gave me three things: First they built the Parliament building; second, they gave us money to expand the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport... lastly, they gave us US$1.2 billion for the expansion of Hwange Thermal Power Station 7 and eight projects in Matabeleland North province, which is almost complete and is set to impact positively on the wider economy. By March next year, we will have another 600MW.”
However, critics accuse Mnangagwa of mortgaging the country’s mineral resources to China.