The Mujuru faction is finished so what next? That is the billion dollar question that will engage the nation now. Mugabe's political strength up to now was based on his ability to play one faction of Zanu PF against the other(s) in which he, with no faction of his own, was then seen as the compromise candidate capable of uniting the warring factions.
Whilst it is true that the President Mugabe rigged the elections to review what happened during the elections alone would, at best, paint half the picture. To get the full picture, one has to look into why the MDC failed to get even one democratic reform implemented in their five years in the GNU.
This Zanu PF government has had a year since the rigged July 2013 elections to rig economic recovery and it has clearly failed as exemplified by the empty ZimAsset, its flagship recovery plan, begging bowl.
When President Robert Mugabe rigged the July 2013 elections he thought it was going to be business as usual for him and his cronies. They would pick up where they left off in 2008 when they were forced to form the “two headed monster called the GNU”, as Mugabe called it.
By the late 1990s “democracy” and “democratic change” were the buzz words everybody was talking about in Zimbabwe. After nearly two decades of a corrupt and oppressive de facto one-party dictatorship, the nation had finally realised that the only way to end the chronic cancers of gross mismanagement and corruption was by replacing the tyrannical autocracy with a healthy democratic rule.
Gabriel Manyati examines Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3 through the lens of political science, arguing that President Emmerson Mnangagwa's latest reforms are less about governance than the enduring logic of political survival.
On the 18th anniversary of Zimbabwe's disputed 27 June 2008 presidential run-off, Luke Tamborinyoka recounts his imprisonment, remembers victims of political violence and argues that CAB3 represents a new chapter in what he describes as state-sponsored attacks on democracy.
Self-imposed opposition leader in Parliament Sengezo Tshabangu has called for Zimbabwe to abolish by-elections between general elections, arguing that political parties should simply nominate replacements, as the Senate approved Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3 (CAB3).
South Africa has ordered police to act decisively against threats, violence and hate speech linked to planned anti-immigration protests on June 30, warning that anyone inciting attacks on foreign nationals will face criminal prosecution.
