Crisis looming in Zim ahead of 2023 polls

THE once prosperous Zimbabwean economy is now at its weakest point, with low investment, low exports and massive debts. Corruption is ripping the country apart with little effort to eradicate it.

A protest vote is likely to take centre stage in the 2023 elections. Most people’s hearts are bleeding over the injustices being perpetrated against the opposition and human rights activists.

When MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa started mobilising for the 2023 election, he was almost killed as bullets were sprayed on his car.

The MDC Alliance is mobilising citizens for a grand convergence for change under the people’s agenda.

Emmerson Mnangagwa, who declared himself a listening President, promised the nation that freedom of speech would be guaranteed in the new dispensation, but a few years down the line, his administration is considering introducing the Private Voluntary Organisation Bill which is an attempt at silencing critics.

The repealed draconian Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act is being smuggled back under the guise of the Patriotic Bill.

Opposition activists are still being treated as enemies of the State and are subjected to arbitrary arrests, torture, harassment and are incarcerated at will for being the voice of the voiceless.

No day passes without hearing of the abuse or arrest of an opposition figure.

MDC Alliance activist Makomborero Haruziviishe has been languishing in prison for a petty offence of whistling at a time when real criminals, who stole public funds, are going scot-free.

Selective application of the law has become the hallmark of Mnangagwa’s government.

Leonard Zhakata’s song Mubikira which aptly describes the vindictiveness of the new dispensation and touches heavily on selective application of the law, sums it all up.

All this points to a failed State which channels resources towards wrong things and wastes taxpayers’ money hunting down political activists who are only demanding good governance.

The government’s continued ill-treatment of members of the opposition and deliberately ignoring cases of top government officials who were caught red-handed abusing COVID-19 funds and smuggling gold is a cause for concern. Given that economic growth has stalled, the government should be focusing on rebuilding the torn country which was labelled the jewel of Africa at independence in 1980.