Hopes for Zimbabwe’s revival pinned on poll
Finance minister predicts ruling Zanu-PF party will win historic elections on July 30
Zimbabwe’s finance minister says historic elections this month will bolster efforts to revive an economy that he admits “collapsed” due to Robert Mugabe’s land reforms.
In an interview with AFP, Patrick Chinamasa, one of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s closest allies, predicted the ruling Zanu-PF party would “resoundingly” win the July 30 vote, the first elections since Mugabe was ousted last November after 37 years in power.
Mnangagwa is banking on victory to provide a muchneeded endorsement of his presidency and lure foreign investors to an economy wrecked under Mugabe’s long rule.
GDP halved
After the seizure of whiteowned farms triggered hyperinflation, GDP nearly halved between 2000 and 2008 — described by the World Bank as the sharpest contraction of its kind in a peacetime economy.
“I’m very confident that our president, Mnangagwa, is going to win resoundingly. Zanu-PF also is going to win resoundingly,” said Chinamasa after a day of campaigning in his constituency in the east of the country.
“We thank the former president for sticking it out in order to resolve the land question. We paid a price, and the price was that the economy collapsed,” he said.
“Now the task before President Mnangagwa is to recover the economy and that is what he is doing now by re-engaging not just economically, but also politically, so that we normalise political relations.”
After Mugabe’s land reforms started in 2000, agricultural output crashed, investors fled and mass unemployment forced millions of Zimbabweans out of the country to seek work.
The Zimbabwe dollar was abandoned after being rendered worthless by hyperinflation, and the country has since used scarce US dollars alongside a little-trusted token currency known as “bond notes” introduced two years ago.
Infrastructure and health services have crumbled, and many Zimbabweans queue for hours outside banks to collect cash that is strictly rationed.