People’s revolt points to Zim ‘Arab spring’

Organisers of a general strike against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe pledged this week to continue action until he falls, as a spontaneous social media movement has coalesced into the biggest uprising against his rule in nearly a decade.

Zimbabweans have been using the internet in recent weeks to mobilise for street protests against Mugabe’s government, bypassing traditional opposition parties as anger grows over his administration’s handling of a failing economy.

Citizens have taken to Twitter and Facebook to vent their anger against a ruling party they see as detached from their daily struggles, while it is consumed by internal fights over who will eventually take-over from the ageing Mugabe.

Mugabe, Africa’s oldest leader at 92, has led the country since its independence in 1980. His government is desperate for money and is struggling to finance its $4-billion (R59-billion) budget this year.

The shortfalls have left soldiers, policemen, doctors and teachers being paid weeks in arrears. They began a strike on Tuesday.

But while a majority of Zimbabweans live on less than $2 (R30) a day and the government cries poverty, citizens complain of cabinet ministers and senior government officials driving luxury cars and jetting off on foreign trips.

“How does the government say it is broke when it buys expensive cars every day? Every day we hear that ministers have stolen money, so it means the money is there,” said Elen Chaduka, a mother of three, who sells food in central Harare.

In their editorials, independent Zimbabwe newspapers have slammed what they describe as the state’s failure to recognise the protest as a statement by the masses, choosing instead to blame the people’s indignation on an imaginary third force, which it threatened to crush.

But this might not be so easy. Political analysts say ruling party division over Mugabe’s successor has spilt into state security organs so that it may become more difficult for the state to rely on the police to quell political unrest when officers themselves are angry at not being paid.

“We have a state which is fatally divided, a security sector which is fatally divided. I can see the government increasingly coming under siege, incapable of responding,” political scientist Ibbo Mandaza said. “We are clearly going into a crisis.”

Foreign investment and donor support has dried up and the government in April halved its 2016 growth forecast to 1.4%. Independent economists see no more than 1% growth.

Harare runs a hand-to-mouth budget, spending 82% of its revenue on wages. That leaves little for infrastructure, medicines in hospitals or books for schools.

A drought has compounded the hardship, while an acute cash shortage means those lucky enough to get paid are unable to get their hands on any money due to limits daily on withdrawals at most banks. Central bank plans to circulate local bank notes later this year have caused further anxiety among a population that lost savings and pensions in 2008 when rampant money-printing pushed hyperinflation to more than 500-billion%.

In an attempt to increase local domestic production, Zimbabwe last month banned imports of fresh fruit and vegetables. Zimbabwe’s farming output, including its staple maize crop, has slumped more than 60% since 2000, following seizures of farms.

The ban will mostly affect supplies of tomatoes, potatoes, mangoes, grapes and apples from South Africa. According to trade data SA fruit and vegetable exports to Zimbabwe are worth at least $1-million (R14.6-million) a month.

The import restrictions prompted hundreds of traders to protest last Friday and saw the closure of the Beitbridge port of entry to South Africa. Protests on the SA side coincided with burning down of a satellite police station in Beitbridge on the Zimbabwe side, the African News Agency reported. The International Cross-Border Traders Association this week appealed to the South African Development Community and international community to step in to save dying businesses in Musina, which has been described as a ghost town.

The Mugabe government blames Zimbabwe’s precarious financial position on Western sanctions and a slump in prices of its export commodities.

And Ignatious Chombo, administration secretary of Zanu-PF, blamed Western embassies in Harare and opposition parties on Wednesday for trying to cause anarchy.

But said #ThisFlag leader Mawarire, what was wanted was an end to the lavish lives of party aparatchiks.

“We are saying no to government expenditure which is senseless. They are broke because they have mishandled the economy,” he said.

Writing in the New Zimbabwe this week, Zimbabwe lawyer Lloyd Msipa said that what figures like Mawarire had done was raise civic awareness and challenge a long-prevailing subservience to political culture and a fear of publicly speaking out. “The political culture that existed before; that saw political parties as the only vehicle for political expression, has gone. It is the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. Parallels can be drawn with the Arab springs and what is afoot in Zimbabwe. The people of Zimbabwe are readying themselves to confront a government that has failed them dismally.”

MacDonald Dzirutwe writing for Reuters from Harare. With additional editing by the Saturday Dispatch