The year 2020 has not been a good year for Nelson Chamisa the leader of a heavily fractured MDC A as he presides over a breaking up party. Nelson Chamisa had rode on the lightning of firm and glory as he became a household name in Zimbabwe. He became a charismatic leader whose lies could not cost him his position as a party president. He lost narrowly to the current Zimbabwean president Emmerson Mnangagwa. In all fairness to the young man Chamisa has achieved more than Tsvangirai in his first attempt to the presidency. But as fate would have its way CHamisa's grip on power was loosened by a Supreme Court rulling he himself had appealed. He lost a struggle of power contest to Thokozani Khupe indeed with the help of Mwonzora and Morgan Komichi. Chamisa was blamed by his youthful ba
The biggest single trade union in South Africa National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) says the President Emmerson Mnangagwa led ZANU PF has betrayed the revolutionary ethos and adopted violence as a means of holding on to power. In a statement on Tuesday, NUMSA General-Secretary Irvin Jim said, "Zimbabwe is in the vicious grip of a failed liberation movement which has dumped the liberation vision just as the African National Congress (ANC) has done in South Africa. The only way Zanu-PF keeps hold of power is to unleash and sponsor violence against its own people." The vocal Union leader was quoted by South African media saying the union was extremely irritated by the snail pace of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and the African Union-led by
July 31st Movement spokesperson, Honourable Job “Wiwa” Sikhala has said Zimbabweans are living like animals due to incessant political repression and persecution. Below is Sikhala’s full statement: By Hon Job Wiwa Sikhala 31st July Movement Spokesperson 2 August 2020 Enquiries are being made about my whereabouts and safety by concerned people of good faith, embassies, friends and relatives. I want to just advise everyone that God is in Charge. In him I trust. My present situation is exactly the society that Zimbabwe has become, where citizens live like animals; hunted and abused by the very same people who should be protecting citizens and their rights. This is the society that Eddison Zvobgo rejected. It is the society that Joshua Nkomo, Alfred Nik
SPECIAL envoys appointed by African Union chairperson, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to probe reports of gross human rights violations in Zimbabwe jetted out of the country yesterday after aborting their proposed meetings with the opposition and civic society groups under unclear circumstances. Baleka Mbete, Sydney Mufamadi and advocate Ngoako Abel Ramatlhodi met President Emmerson Mnangagwa at State House and were expected to meet main opposition MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa and civic society organisations. The trio arrived on a fact-finding mission "following recent reports of difficulties that the Republic of Zimbabwe is experiencing", according to a statement by Ramaphosa's office last week. MDC Alliance spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere said they had b
President Emmerson Mnangagwa risked a diplomatic spat with South Africa on Monday after blocking two special envoys sent by President Cyril Ramaphosa to gather information on human rights violations in Zimbabwe from meeting his rivals and rights groups. Mnangagwa met the three-team delegation of Baleka Mbethe, Sydney Mafamadi and Ngoako Ramatlhodi at State House during which he reportedly told them there was “no crisis in Zimbabwe.” The main opposition MDC Alliance said Ramaphosa’s office contacted them last Saturday to prepare a five-person delegation to meet his envoys on Monday. In a statement announcing the Zimbabwe mission last week, Ramaphosa had said the delegation would “engage the government of Zimbabwe and relevant stakeholders to identify possible w
Main opposition MDC Alliance vice president Tendai Biti has slammed MDC-T leader Thokozani Khupe for knowing “nothing about intellectual property” and urged the rivil party to stick to its name which it used to contest the 2018 election. Khupe is planning to confront the Nelson Chamisa-led MDC Alliance with a court challenge seeking to stop the beleaguered opposition from using the name MDC. This follows a recent court ruling that declared Chamisa’s rise to the helm of the main opposition as illegal and that MDC Alliance was not a political party but a coalition. Khupe is planning to confront the Nelson Chamisa-led MDC Alliance with a court challenge seeking to stop the beleaguered opposition from using the name MDC. This follows a recent court ruling that declared
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Monday called criticism of human rights abuses by his government “divisive falsehoods” and said his administration was under renewed attack from domestic and foreign opponents. Mnangagwa, during a Heroes Day speech in Harare, said the allegations were “unjustified attacks by our perennial detractors, both inside and outside our border”. “The divisive falsehoods and concoctions by renegades and supremacists who want to pounce on our natural resources will never win the day. Truth shall triumph over lies, and good over evil,” said Mnangagwa, who replaced Robert Mugabe after a 2017 coup. Hopes that Mnangagwa would unite a polarised country and revive a stricken economy following the Mugabe era have b
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa's cautious intervention in the current Zimbabwean crisis has got off to a rocky start, with the opposition warning yesterday that they will not be railroaded to accept any deals that they disagree with, as had happened a decade ago when the country's unity government was put in place. This comes after Ramaphosa announced on Thursday that he had appointed former South African vice president and Speaker of Parliament, Baleka Mbete, as well as former cabinet minister Sydney Mufamadi as his special envoys to Harare - "to identify possible ways in which South Africa can assist Zimbabwe". It also comes as well-placed sources in South Africa have told the Daily News On Sunday that Ramaphosa's surprise move followed preliminary talks within his
South African opposition leader Julius Malema on Sunday urged Zimbabwean youths to take decisive steps to end President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s increasingly autocratic rule, warning that social media activism alone would not bring about the desired change. Zimbabwe is going through its worst economic crisis in over a decade, with inflation of over 700 percent. Many blame Mnangagwa, the 77-year-old successor of Robert Mugabe, for the crisis which has seen doctors and nurses going on an indefinite strike in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. Economic Freedom Fighters leader Malema spoke at a Women’s Day event close to the grave of anti-apartheid icon Winnie Mandela, charging that Zimbabwean women wake up everyday with a threat of arrest, abduction or rape by Mnangagwa’
Opposition MDC Alliance Vice President Tendai Biti has accused the generation of politicians who fought the liberation war of holding the country to ransom and said their primary focus was power retention, state capture and benefiting from corruption under President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Biti slammed the war veterans for holding the country to ransom by claiming they were the liberators of the nation and using that as a launch pad to monopolise key political positions. The former Finance Minister was co-panellist during a Thursday SAPES Trust online Policy Dialogue whose focus was on “What will it take to reach a Settlement in Zimbabwe”. Biti added that the war veterans generation was still fighting a war that was won in 1980. “We still have a few and the few ar
