"RBZ policies are litany of promises to be broken." Sadly, povo who suffer consequences are powerless - change is overdueW Mukori

“Unsurprisingly, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)'s 2020 monetary policy statement is more of the same — a tired litany of promises waiting to be broken and targets queuing up to be missed. Governor John Mangudya, who just a year ago promised to "preserve value" has since delivered over 500% inflation and 94% devaluation,” wrote Anthony Hawkins in Bulawayo 24.

“Such active value destruction continues, compounded by the issue of Treasury Bills to institutional investors. Just how issuing TBs at 14% or 15% qualifies as preserving value is beyond comprehension. Perhaps Mangudya will explain?”

“A tired litany of promises waiting to be broken and targets queuing to be missed” and, sadly, those who suffer the consequences of the broken promises and missed targets the most are totally helpless as they have no meaningful political and economic power to hold anyone involved to account. None! This encapsulate the economic and political tragedy that has been playing out in Zimbabwe since the country’s independence in 1980.

Those with the political power do as they please. Whilst government’s failed economic policies have caused untold economic hardships to the ordinary people the latter have no effective means to force those in positions of power and authority to change their policies much less remove them from office. None!

“Seek ye first the political kingdom and all things shall be added unto you,” said Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president. 

The people of Zimbabwe thought that was exactly what the nation was fighting for in the struggle to end white colonial exploitation and oppression. “One man, one vote!” was the clarion cry. 

Whilst there was a determined effort by some black nationalist leaders to honour the promise to given the ordinary people a meaning vote after independence, notably South Africa. In Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies took a dim view of the country’s Lancaster House constitution and its promise to deliver one man, one vote in a multi-party democratic Zimbabwe. 

Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies wanted Zimbabwe to be a one-party, Zanu PF, state. They viewed the insistence on free, fair and credible elections as a ploy to deny Zanu PF the right to rule the country which they had earned through the barrel of the gun. 

It came as no surprise then was no surprise then Mugabe did not honour his Lancaster House undertaking to withdraw all his freedom fighters to the designated assembly points to stop them intimidating the electorate. Worse still, Zanu PF’s key message to the electorate was that if the party lost the elections, it would not honour the result and instead rekindle the bush war. 

So instead of the first elections being about electing who was to rule the country in free, fair and credible election process, as the people had hoped; it was about electing to end the war. And once in power Zanu PF has left no stone unturned to ensure the party won all the elections that followed. 

The nearest the country has ever come to holding free, fair and credible elections was in the March 2008 elections. SADC had put Zanu PF under pressure to a meaningful voting system and, with the economy in ruins, the Zimbabwe electorate were desperate for political change and so voted for the opposition party. 

When it was clear that Zanu PF was gong to lose the elections, Zanu PF hardliners supported by the top brass in the Police, Army, CIO and Prison Services stop ZEC declaring the results. For the next six week the hardliners “cooked up” the results to give the opposition a marginal lead in parliamentary. 

In the presidential race, they reduced Tsvangirai’s 73%, as admitted by Mugabe in Freudian slip years latter, to 47% and thus force a run-off. 

“What was accomplished by the bullet cannot be undone by the ballot!” boasted Robert Mugabe. Zanu PF thugs and rogue war veterans supported by the personnel from the country’s uniformed security services unleash the most barbaric election violence the country had ever seen. Over 500 innocent civilians were murdered and millions had their properties destroy, were beaten and/or raped. The electorate were beaten into submission, Mugabe “won” the run-off with 84% of the vote! 

Zanu PF has retain’s dictatorial powers to rig the elections to this day. Without first implementing the democratic reforms designed to take away these dictatorial power it clear Zanu PF rig the 2023 elections just as the party has done these last 40 years. 

The people of Zimbabwe lost their freedoms and rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections before the 1980 elections, before they even had the chance to taste. 

40 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption have all but destroyed the Zimbabwe economy; unemployment has soared to dizzying heights of 90%, basic services like education and health care have all but collapsed, 34% of the population now live in extreme poverty, etc. As Anthony Hawkins rightly pointed the future is grime because any promises by the regime to revive the economy will never be honoured. 

Still, the country’s economic meltdown has sunk so low caused so much human suffering and deaths, this cannot go on for much longer. The cup is full to overflow, there must be change. 

By refusing to implement the democratic reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections Zanu PF has closed the door to peaceful change. What the party has done is delay change and, more significantly, opened the door to violent revolutionary change. No one can stop change, no one; the choice is always between peaceful and orderly change or violent and chaotic change. 

Having imposed the choice of violent and chaotic change on the nation, Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies must know they will be held to account for all the destruction, human suffering and deaths that will follow.

"Have passion to repair stadia" boasted Coventry - butterfly metamorphosed into caterpillar c/w ED regalia and scarf N Garikai

Power corrupts and absolute power - it does not get any more absolute than in Zimbabwe where those in power are accountable to no one and so have done as they pleased for 40 years and counting - corrupts absolutely. 

Before her appointment as Minister of Youth, Sport and Culture in September 2018, Kirsty Coventry was a decent person, one of us ordinary Zimbabweans. Asked, she would have castigated the Zanu PF as a party of corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous thugs; without a moment’s hesitation. She has since changed.

The day she receive her invitation to join the Zanu PF cabinet, received the keys of the ministerial limo, she metamorphosed from the graceful butterfly into the ugly eat-everything caterpillar. A brush against her bristling hairs will give you a rash!

Kirsty Coventry, like Professor Mthuli Ncube, were invited into the Mnangagwa cabinet of corrupt and murderous thugs to give it a human and intellectual face. Coventry and Ncube knew that and, just to prove they understood their principle role of sprucing up Zanu PF’s image, they have, in all they have done if not in words too, endorsed the July 2018 elections as having been free, fair and credible. 

After a year and half on the Zanu PF gravy train, hobnobbing with the Zanu PF thugs, the transformation of Kirsty Coventry is complete; she now thinks and talks nonsense just like any other seasoned Zanu PF thug!

“Local government (ministry) and municipalities own and operate our sports facilities and it has been up to that federation to organise the event. The Ministry of Sport, despite it being sport, has had no role to play,” said Minister Coventry.

“Good news: It has finally been agreed that the ownership and operations of the National Sports Stadium in Zimbabwe will now be transferred to the Ministry of Youth, Sport, Art and Recreation. We have the experience and passion to now use this opportunity for Zimbabwe to become a sporting powerhouse.” 

What a truck load of bull!

1. Is she telling us that she did not know the sorry state of decay and rot of National Stadium - the same can be said of everything else including hospitals, schools, roads, railway, you name - until now!

1. The country is broke, those refurbishing the stadium will want to be paid in money and not your royal highness’ “experience and passion!” 

1. Zimbabwe is facing an serious economic meltdown; unemployment has soared to 90% and basic services like education and health have all but collapsed. 34% of our people now live in extreme poverty, they cannot afford one decent meal a day much less other basic necessities such as shelter and health care. Whatever money the country has it must be used to revive the economy, the health care service, etc. before one dollar is spend on such things as sporting stadium. 

1. The threat of coronavirus outbreak is hanging over the nation’s head like an ominous monster storm, your continued wittering about the stadium is an annoying  distraction. Just because you and your fellow ruling elite can afford health care service outside the country does not meaning we must abandon the millions out there who have no choice but used the non-existent local service.

1. Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous tyrants and you are nothing more than pompous mascot paid, and paid well, to pretend Zimbabwe is a healthy and functioning democracy. Zimbabwe’s economic recovery and, indeed, the country’s very survival depends of dismantling the dictatorship which you are propping up. Madam, you need to get off your high horse and smell the coffee! 

Even now, Zimbabwe cannot even test much less deal with coronavirus because of "illegal sanctions" - insult to make blood boil P Guramatunhu

“The Chinese Government has pledged to refurbish and equip Wilkins Infectious Diseases Hospital to improve its capacity to handle suspected and confirmed cases. To this end, China is set to dispatch a team of experts to visit Wilkins Hospital soon to assess the facility's needs as part of the Eastern Asian county's initiative to assist African countries to deal with the coronavirus. Where local facilities fall short as in the case of test confirmation laboratories, the country leverages on its cordial relations with South Africa to ensure that nothing is left to chance,” advised Nobleman Runyanga in Bulawayo 24.

Zimbabweans have very good reasons to be alarmed at this. Why is it that the country does not have even one fully kitted facility to test and treat coronavirus victims nearly four months since the outbreak of the virus? 

“Other people have even criticised these arrangements as though they do not know the enormity of the economic challenges which the country has had to contend with since 2001 when illegal sanctions were imposed on the country,” continued Runyanga.

I pray to God that there is no coronavirus outbreak in Zimbabwe because if there should be it is articles like this that make the people’s blood boil with anger! 

There is no deny that the outbreak will cause untold human suffering and deaths in the country and all because the country’s economy has all but collapsed and so too has its health care service. The economic meltdown was caused by misrule and not sanctions!

40 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and rank lawlessness that has earned the country the pariah state label have left the country in economic ruins. The country has failed to maintain the hospitals and other infrastructure it inherited from the white colonial regime in 1980, much less improve on them. 

The Zanu PF ruling elite have creamed off the wealth generated by the nation to bankroll their prodigal and extravagant lifestyles. Billions of dollars were poured into building palatial mansions such as Mugabe’s Blue Roof, the epitome of the regime’s selfish greed, whilst even the referral hospitals like Parerenyatwa and Mpilo Hospital were starved of funds so much so they often run out something as basic as painkillers and even clean running water! 

Two weeks ago, ZACC, government’s own appointed anti-corruption Tzar, reported that it had uncovered US$ 7 billion in cash and assets salted out of the country by corrupt individuals including government leaders. There are billions more in cash and assets inside the country whose owners have no tax returns to prove they earned the loot legally. 

ZACC will never recover even a fraction of the looted billions because the Godfathers of corruption are President Mnangagwa and his fellow Zanu PF cronies themselves. He promise “zero tolerance on corruption” when he took over from Mugabe in November 2017 but has since failed to stamp it out. He has admitted that corruption is “deep rooted”. 

To uproot corruption, one must first uproot the Zanu PF dictatorship itself. And that is the one thing Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies will never do and risk losing power. They are addicted to power and the loot it has guaranteed.

Of course, it is an insult to be told the country’s economic meltdown is caused by sanctions when one can see all the evidence of ruling elite’s insatiable greed and the wholesale looting. 

“Afirwa haatariswe kumeso!” (One must never look the aggrieved in the eye, especial those who played a part in the death!) So goes the Shona adage. 

For Zanu PF to blame sanctions for any coronavirus deaths will be tantamount to spitting the aggrieved in the face. The nation has been cowed by brute force into submission but that does not mean we are stupid not to see what is going on! 

"Suspected corona virus (4th) tested negative" official twitter - wilfully inadequate, must fear the worst P Guramatunhu

A suspected coronavirus case (fourth one in Zimbabwe) was reported at Masvingo Provincial Hospital on Sunday morning.The individual had travelled from Dubai and test result was negative.

“In Masvingo, a traveller from Dubai tested negative for Coronavirus. He is now in self-quarantine and being monitored,” read the twitter message by the Information ministry.

It is all very well for the officials to say these suspected cases tested negative and were advised to self-quarantine. It is a well known fact that in the early stages of the infection individual can test negative and yet not only have the virus but, worse still, be infectious. There are a number of question the people have a right to have answered (which cannot be answered in these twitter messages)

• What measures are in place to ensure these suspect cases are kept away from the rest of the population as soon as they suspect they might have the virus? Did our traveller walk in and mingled with the other patients before he finally got tested?

• How well kitted are the staff carrying out these test? 

• How stringent is the self-quarantine procedure? Is the individual provided with all the basic needs for the entire quarantine period? It is pointless to ask someone to self-quarantine when he/she has to go out to the shops to buy food! 

The fear in Zimbabwe is that if there was to be a corona virus outbreak, God forbid, it will spread like wild fire. The fear is wholly justified.  We have one of the most corrupt, incompetent and utterly reckless regime in the world. And four decades of misrule has left the country’s economy in ruins and the nation weak and feeble. 

Our health care has all but collapsed; we have no doctors, nurses, no medicine, no equipment. If countries with well resourced health care services are being tested to breaking point; we face our worst nightmare!

One gets the feeling that not only is the regime failing to take maximum precautions to stop the corona virus outbreak but that it will be found wanting in stopping the spread of the virus. The regime will be tempted to deny the outbreak, just as the Chinese did. By the time the regime finally admit there is a problem, the wild fire would have spread far and wide! 

In Zanu PF, we are dealing with a regime whose cold-hearted indifference to the suffering and even deaths of the ordinary people is well documented. The ruling elite have soaked up the country’s wealth and resources building palatial mansions like Mugabe’s Blue Roof and starved essential services like health care of funds. Even the country’s big hospitals like Parerenyatwa and Mpilo are in advanced stage of rot and decay, they regularly run out of something as basic as painkillers and clean running water!

Zimbabwe’s economy is now in such a mess, unemployment has soared to dizzying heights of 90%. According to a WB report last year, 34% of Zimbabweans (countries in the region all have single digit figures) now live in “extreme poverty” - they cannot afford one decent meal a day much less decent shelter, education for their children, health care, etc. It is here the grim-ripper such as corona virus will have a field day.

Data on the corona virus in countries like China and Italy shows, with medical care most people will recover and only 1% to 2% will die. Of those who die, most of them are either old or had some other underlying illness. The fatality figures in Zimbabwe will be much high and the underlying cause will be extreme poverty!

As a rule of thumb, nations get the government they deserve. In Zimbabwe we certainly deserve this corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous Zanu PF dictatorship complete with its coterie of corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless opposition parties, all 130 of them. 

Let us hope and prey that corona virus pass us by. Still, it must be a wake-up call to us all to snap out of our 40 year old sloth-like slumber, demand democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections and thus finally end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance.

Caucus race to cajole Mnangagwa and Chamisa to meet heats up and, unlike the Dodo's, everyone is losing big time N Garikai

“After swimming around in Alice’s pool of tears, the animals need to dry off, and the Dodo recommends a caucus race. There are no rules; all of the participants run haphazardly around in no particular direction, and everyone wins.” 

Lewis Carroll: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 

Ever since Zimbabwe’s rigged July 2018 elections (why MDC has disputed the result beggars belief since they knew Zanu PF rigging the elections and they, like all the other opposition parties participated regardless) the country has grappled the challenge of the economic meltdown. (MDC leaders like Tendai Biti insisted the economic meltdown was worse under Mnangagwa than it was under Mugabe, a bit of self-indulgence nonsense as futile as comparing cobra to a black mamba - they are both deadly snakes.) 

How to revive the nation’s economy has therefore become the country’s primary concern - the equivalent of getting wet animals to dry off.

Alice questioned the logic of a race in which there is no starting line, no finish line, no rules. But even the Dodo would question Zimbabwe’s caucus race for not only are there no rules but worse still, after one and half years of running around like headless chickens the economic is sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss. 

Someone has seeded the idea that getting Zimbabwe’s main political leaders, Emmerson Mnangagwa and Nelson Chamisa to meet will solve all the nation’s political and economic problems. There is nothing to support this, indeed all the evidence show this is a waste of time but that is exactly why it is a caucus race. The race has been gathering momentum as more and more people joined in. 

 “Like SADC, the church also tried to cajole the main political protagonists to put the people first and their interests behind, but met a brick-wall from the politicians who now stand accused by political observers of being selfish and myopic,” reported one of Zimbabwe’s leading papers, Daily News.

“A deadly cocktail of high unemployment that stands at over 90 percent, the devastating effects of a drought that has left more than 5,7 million people exposed to extreme poverty and inflation that stands over 500 percent only means that for nostalgic Zimbabweans the past where a unity governance brought some stability to the economy is more ideal.”

Zimbabweans have had two national elections post the 2008 to 2013 GNU in which to reflect over the events of that period. The primary purpose of the GNU was to implement the raft of democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 Global Political Agreement. 

Lest we forget, the GNU was necessary because not even SADC and the AU, known for endorsing dodgy elections, would accept Zanu PF’s claim of electoral victory of the 2008 given the blatant cheating in the March vote count and the wanton violence in the run-off that followed. The raft of reforms were designed to ensure there will be no repeat of the same cheating and violence. 

The 2008 GNU failed to get even one reform implemented and hence the reason Zanu PF was able to blatantly rig the 2013 and then 2018 elections. 

The economic “stability” the 2008 GNU brought was transient, as we can now see with the economic meltdown. There was no significant inward investment because investors and lenders were disappointed with the failure to implement the political reforms. 

 “According to the World Bank, Zimbabwe's economy is expected to have contracted by 7,6 percent this year with prospects for growth dim due to a number of factors, such as endemic corruption and failure to attract foreign direct investment,” the Daily News acknowledged. 

The WB, IMF and all the other international financial institutions have just told the Zanu PF regime that they will not give it any financial assistance because the regime’s reform programme is “off-track”. We can be 100% certain that the WB and investors will not be trouping back into Zimbabwe just because Mnangagwa and Chamisa shook hands and formed a new GNU, especially when they know it will not implement any democratic reforms, just as the 2008 GNU failed to do. 

There is no cause for all this “nostalgic” hysteria over a new GNU; just a continuum of the pointless caucus race of the last 40 years. 

What Zimbabwe needs is to finally stop wasting time and treasure and implement the all important democratic reforms and end this curse of rigged elections and bad governance. Zanu PF and MDC will never ever implement the reforms, a new GNU will not change that. We need to get a new body that will.

"Solution is for Mnangagwa to meet Chamisa" say CEO - will never legitimise pariah state by adding MDC manikins W Mukori

What makes Zimbabwe’s economic and political crisis so, seemingly, intractable is that not even those one would expect to offer solutions are doing so. Everyone, including the country’s leaders across the spectrum, is confused and running around like a headless chicken. 

Someone, it is not clear who but that is now irrelevant, has suggested that getting the leader of ruling party, Zanu PF,President Emmerson Mnangagwa, to meet the main opposition leader, Nelson Chamisa, would see all the country’s economic and political problem disappear like morning mist. The idea has caught on and the headless chicken brigade has jumped on the bandwagon, there is no stopping them!

Zimbabwe business executives are hosting this year’s CEO Africa Roundtable 2020 Edition in Victoria Falls and they are hoping to succeed where others have, so far, fail - get Mnangagwa and Chamisa to meet and talk!

“We have gone past the stage of trying to find how shallow or deeper our problems are but, to find solutions,” CEO Africa Roundtable chief executive officer Kipson Gundani argued. 

“Of which in the solution equation, I think largely Zimbabweans agree that they have got their roots from our politics which are kind of toxic, which has kind of polarised our nation and until or unless we come together as Zimbabweans and start to believe again, then we can start thinking of solutions to this country.”

Just because you have a number of headless chickens agreeing on something that does not mean that is the solution. The majority is not necessarily right, especially when it is composed of the headless chickens! 

The best possible outcome of the political dialogue between Mnangagwa and Chamisa will be the two agreeing on some power sharing arrangement. The two parties had a similar power sharing arrangement during the 2008 to 2013 GNU and they failed to implemented even one democratic reform designed to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. There is nothing to suggest the two will do any better this time. Nothing!

The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic and political crisis is the failure to hold free, fair and credible elections. Zanu PF rigged the July 2018 elections just as the party has rigged elections these last 40 years. 

Zimbabwe is pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs and as long as the country remains a pariah state there will be no meaningful economic recovery. No one wants to do business with in a pariah state.

The IMF, WB, AfDB and all the other international institutions, from whom Zimbabwe has been hoping to get the financial assistance the nation needs so desperately to kick start the comatose economy, have all confirmed they will not give the country even one dollar. The country’s economic and political reforms are “off-track” said IMF. 

The addition of MDC leaders to the illegitimate Mnangagwa government will neither transform the pariah regime into a democratic one nor miraculously get all the reforms on track. The proposed power sharing government will still be a Zanu PF regime in all but name, with or without a few MDC manikins! 

What Kipson Gundani and his fellow Roundtable buffoons have failed to comprehend; just as the church leaders, other civic society leaders, etc., have done; is the exact nature of Zimbabwe’s economic and political crisis.

Mnangagwa and Chamisa are no more than two slave masters whose fundamental difference is that slaves cannot be whipped with the same whip used on horses! Getting the two to kiss and make up will resolve the fundamental issue - the abolition of slavery! in which one 

Similarly, the fundamental issue here is ending the curse of rigged elections and pariah state. Getting Mnangagwa and Chamisa to kiss and make up will neither change the political reality that Zanu PF rigged the July 2018 elections nor will it legitimise the pariah state! 

This Zanu PF regime is illegitimate, it is a pariah regime and it must step down anything else is a waste of time! 

"Chamisa is a 42 year charlatan behaving like 2 year old" - folly to invite inside tent hoping will piss out P Guramatunhu

“There is an old English adage that says life begins at 40. If the adage is true, maybe that's the reason Chamisa is behaving like a toddler. Maybe indeed his life started at 40 and he is now a 2 year old boy,” wrote Chipo Mutasa in Bulawayo 24.

The dismissal of Chamisa as an amateur politician, a 42 year old with intellect of a 2 year toddler, is true enough. The very fact that MDC has failed to implement even one meaningful reform in the party’s 20 years on the political stage speaks volumes of just how breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent MDC leaders are.  

“No country is devoid of challenges and Zimbabwe is not an exception. However, His Excellency President Emerson Mnangagwa opened a door, through the Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD), for all political players to discuss and proffer solutions to challenges bedevilling our motherland,” continued Mutasa.

Well that was a dead give away, exposing Chipo, herself, as an intellectual green horn of small intellectual and analytical ability. 

Prime Minister, Boris Johnson won the December 2019 UK elections with a working majority, allowing him to govern without having to seek political support from any other party. His predecessor PM Theresa May did not have the majority and so was forced to seek the support of the DUP. PM David Cameron went into a coalition with Liberals. 

Mnangagwa has more than 2/3 majority in parliament and in senate  following the July 2018 elections. He does not need the political support of anyone much less that of political minions who do not even have one elected local councillor much less a MP or Senator! 

Mnangagwa has failed to come up with “solutions to challenges bedevilling our motherland!” His “Zimbabwe is open for business!” mantra is dead in the water. He continues to wear the multi-coloured scarf, symbolising the mantra, and out of recalcitrant pig-headedness!

The one man Mnangagwa had pinned all his hopes of reviving the economy was his Minister of Finance, Professor Mthuli Ncube. He was bowled over by the Professor’s booklet size CV, his 600 pages technicolour Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) - the blue print Zimbabwe’s post November 2017 military coup economic reform programme -, etc. 

IMF, WB, AfDB and all the other leading financial institutions were not so easily fooled by Professor Ncube’s all show and no substance programme. There was nothing in the TSP to stamp out corruption, for example, and yet it is biggest economic problem in Zimbabwe.  The IMF and the rest have refused to bankroll the TSP regardless of  Minister Ncube’s repeated assurance that they will. 

Last week the IMF publicly dismissed Zimbabwe’s reforms as “off-track” and ruled out any hope giving the country any financial assistance in time soon. The WB, AfDB, the Paris Club and all other financial institutions have followed IMF’s example and walked out! 

So Finance Minister Ncube’s TSP, just like Mnangagwa’s “Zimbabwe is open for business!”, is dead in the water. 

Since Mnangagwa and his regime had failed to come up with solutions to the revive the nation’s economic Mnangagwa formed POLAD in the hope that even political minions like Chamisa may do better than him! The move underlines just how desperate Mnangagwa himself must be. And it speaks volumes of your own kop, Mutasa, from your praise of POLAD.

Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies believe because they fought in the liberation war; they have the divine right to rule Zimbabwe, by right of conquest. 

Yes of corse, Mnangagwa had hoped “Zimbabwe is open for business!”, TSP, etc. would revive the country’s economic fortunes. The failure does not mean he and his Zanu PF cronies have given up their claim as the only one fit to rule Zimbabwe. They have not! 

POLAD is just a variation on the 2008 to 2013 GNU in which Zanu PF allowed others to have a role in the governance of Zimbabwe but with the party retaining an iron grip on power. As the economic meltdown gets worse, Mnangagwa will concede to MDC demands and give Chamisa and a few MDC leaders cabinet posts. 

The IMF, investors, etc. will not be so easily fooled with a Zanu PF government in all but name. Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown will only get worse.

So the only other benefit Mnangagwa will derive from sharing power with Chamisa would be to shut MDC leaders up. 

“It’s probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in,” as US President Lyndon Johnson, in a comparable situation once said regarding FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. 

Even then, if the economic meltdown continue to get worse it will not be long before the people wake up to the reality they had been short changed. The pressure for real solution to their economic hardship will mount and this time Zanu PF will be forced to accept meaningful reforms leading to the holding of free, fair and credible elections. 

In the end Mnangagwa will be forced to admit he gained little by admitting 42 year old Chamisa into the political tent only for him to behave like 2 year old with mental diarrhoea and no one the nappies!