Paper short abstract:

On 1 August 2018, Zimbabwean army shot 6 civilians caught up in the crossfire of protestors alleging ZANU PF electoral theft of the July 30 elections. Heavy involvement of the military in the ruling party and governmnet pauses a lot of questions that must be interogated by way of research.

Paper long abstract:

Post-Mugabe era and the feasibility of regime change in Zimbabwe

Alexander M Rusero

ECAS 2019

Abstract

On 13 November 2017, the then Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces General Constantino Chiwenga called for a press conference whose central objective was denouncing President Robert Mugabe's sacking of his vice president and long-time confidant Emmerson Mnangagwa. Events of the unfolding week finally pressed Mugabe to announce his resignation following the impeachment proceedings that had started early morning of November 21. The whole political process took Zimbabwe and the world by surprise and occurred in the context of 'democratic fatigue' where all attempts to unseat and or remove Mugabe and his ZANU PF party had proved to be a pipe dream for the opposition. The main opposition of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was in massive disarray, financially constrained and had dismally failed to morph a unified coalition that could dethrone ZANU PF in the forthcoming 2018 harmonised elections later held on July 30. It is against this background that there is need to interrogate the feasibility of regime, which in essence occupies the attic on the menu of the socio-economic and political problems bedevilling Zimbabwe. With the visible military-ZANU PF conflation now the new political order, toppling ZANU PF from power in the immediate, precisely in the aftermath of the ZANU PF 2018 electoral victory is to greater extent proving to be an elusive dream.

Key words

Regime change, ZANU-PF, MDC, Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Mugabeism