2024 was a year of consolidating autocracy and kleptocracy: Luke Tamborinyoka

By Luke Tamborinyoka

We have just ended a tumultuous year whose major highlight was the strenuous and strident effort by the regime to consolidate both autocracy and kleptocracy as evidenced by the intended unconstitutional extension of Emmerson Mnangagwa’s term of office as well as the brazen looting of State resources.

The thieving lot in the ruling party and government led by Mnangagwa himself in the past year systematically put in place an elaborate plan to repress citizens and to loot the State as ED rapaciously engages in a “last supper” mode in his final term in office.

Dear reader, this week we look at the past year in retrospect where it is clear that all the major happenings of 2024 had mostly to do with consolidating Zimbabwe’s credentials as both an autocratic and a kleptocratic State.

Indeed, repression and looting were the regime’s main agenda in 2024.

To the uninitiated, a kleptocracy refers to a country run by a government of thieves, as is Zimbabwe at the moment.

The year began with the resignation of Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) leader Nelson Chamisa, who quit the party citing infiltration.

In his 13-page public resignation letter, Chamisa said most in his leadership had been compromised by the regime and vowed that he would “not swim in sewer” or what he called “a river infested with hungry crocodiles.”

The alleged infiltration to destroy the legitimate opposition was unto itself a deliberate plot at autocratic consolidation by the regime in order to create a de facto, if not a de jure one-party State.

And indeed, throughout the year, with the connivance of the State, Zanu PF, Parliament and the judiciary, the regime’s hired hatchet man Sengezo Tshabangu, continued with his paid mission to undermine democracy by recalling elected MPs and councillors. We are Ignite Media Zimbabwe. Predictably, this hired political gunman won all his cases in court by dint of his backing by the regime and other arms of the State.

The citizens were also shocked when, with neither shame nor compunction, some of those they had elected as councillors on the opposition party ticket attended Zanu PF’s ideology school, further vindicating and lending credence to allegations of a bribed and a compromised opposition.

Throughout 2024, the unconstitutional plot to extend ED’s presidential term through the sonorous mantra of “2030 vaMnangagwa vachange varipo” went several decibels higher across the country’s provinces. It was well-choreographed and appeared to have Mnangagwa’s tacit approval.

On his part, Mnangagwa, at an event in Mutare, half-heartedly said he would not extend his term beyond his constitutional term limit.

But at the party conference in Bulawayo in October 2024, he appeared to deliberately allow the party to formally adopt the controversial resolution first before appearing to pour water on it. The resolution was adopted first then Patrick Chinamsa stood up to say he had been specifically asked by Mnangagwa himself to tell the conference that the resolution would not see the light of the day because the President was a constitutionalist.

And yet the party’s first secretary, a lawyer himself, had tellingly allowed the conference of a party he leads to first adopt an unconstitutional resolution before seemingly alerting them to it’s practical untenability after it’s adoption.

ED appears to have plucked from the handbook of strategic ambiguity by indicating left when he intends to turn right. He is pretending he does not want a term extension while at the same time tacitly exhorting the provinces to sonorously sing the 2030 discordant tune.

Related to the 2030 mantra was the firing by Mnangagwa of Mike Bimha as political commissar of the party in May 2024. At a press conference held one evening, Bimha was fired and in his place was appointed the principal of the Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology, Clemence Munyaradzi Machacha.

Machacha, a Karanga like Mnangagwa,, hit the ground running and went around the provinces, deftly exhorting them to formally adopt the controversial 2030 resolution

As a result of this resolution, we saw during the year the escalation in the souring of relations between Mnangagwa and his deputy, retired army general Constantine Guvheya Nyikadzino Chiwenga and his allies, who see the resolution as a deliberate ploy by Mnangagwa to shut him out of the succession race.

As part of the politics of elimination—itself a subset of the gamesmanship and brinkmanship associated with succession politics—several military generals aligned to Chiwenga died in suspicious circumstances in the past year and burials at the National Heroes Acre almost became a weekly ritual.

In the past year, as relations between ED and his military deputy further deteriorated, the children of Mnangagwa’s allies, Chris Mutsvangwa and Oppah Muchinguri were arrested by the country’s anti-graft body for separate and unrelated crimes.

Mutsvangwa, upon the arrest of his son Neville, publicly put the blame on Chiwenga.

Mutsvangwa, the Zanu PF spokesperson, had earlier tellingly said Chiwenga was not a shoe-in to succeed Mnangagwa; stating that no one was anointed as an automatic successor and at the time of the President’s departure, the party would democratically elect a new leader, a statement that reportedly further widened the rifts in the party. This is an Ignite Media Zimbabwe news production. As the Mnangagwa/Chiwenga relations reportedly hit low ebb in 2024, there were reports that bullets had been planted right in the bedroom of the Borrowdale house of David Kuda Mnangagwa, ED’s son who is also the deputy Minister of Finance. There was also a separate reported arson attack on another property belonging to Emmerson Mnangagwa in the same Borrowdale area. .

On another note and as part of the autocratic consolidation and the promotion of the 2030 agenda, Mnangagwa acolyte and moneybag Wicknell Chivayo continued throughout 2024 to flaunt his ill-gotten wealth by buying vehicles for musicians, athletes, footballers, artists and other social media influencers.

Many neutral observers believe all this is part of a deliberate plot to purchase support for autocracy by compromising key and influential voices ahead of the unconstitutional 2030 game-plan.

What irked most Zimbabweans was that one of the recipients of Chivayo’s largesse during the year was one Bobby Makaza, a convicted rapist pardoned by Mnangagwa after raping a 10-year old Murehwa girl.

While Mnangagwa and his moneybag Chivayo did not do anything for Makaza’s victim, they not only pardoned the perpetrator but even pampered him with a car and hordes of cash!

But perhaps the biggest news of the year was ZEC-gate, which first came to light through Chivayo’s leaked audios that went viral and caused the arrest of his erstwhile colleagues Mike Chimombe and Moses Mpofu, who are still languishing in prison to this day.

The leaked audios and the ZEC scandal not only exposed that Chivayo was ED’s runner boy, but it also exposed how the elections management body was compromised and how it was systematically looted through overpriced receipts.

The US$40 million ZEC scandal, itself palpable evidence of the consolidation of kleptocracy in Zimbabwe by the high and mighty, sucked in Mnangagwa himself, his daughter Chido, his office, ZEC chair Priscilla Chigumba and CIO boss Isaac Moyo.

Related to the compromise of our national elections was the most telling statement in the past year that exposed the country’s endemic problem of military overreach into electoral matters. The stand-out statement of the year was the unconstitutional rant by serving army commander Anseleem Nhamo Sanyatwe.

Addressing a rally in his wife’s constituency in Nyanga last July, Sanyatwe said Zanu PF would continue to rule until donkeys grow horns. The army, he tellingly said, would continue to drive “command voting.”

The other major highlight of the year was the admission by the United Kingdom of its complicit role in the 2017 coup in its mistaken belief that Mnangagwa was a pragmatist.

Of course, we in Zimbabwe already knew the active role played by London’s envoy to Harare, Catriona Laing during the coup.

But the admission of the UK’s role in the coup was made by the former UK Minister for African Affairs, Rory Stewart, in his memoirs, Politics on the Edge—A Memoir from Within.

Stewart was the first Foreign Minister to visit and meet with ED after the coup.

2024 will also be remembered as the year in which Mnangagwa embarrassed himself and the country when he publicly pleaded with Russia to arm Zimbabwe to countermand what he said was the US military presence in neighbouring Zambia.

ED’s televised rant in St Petersburg, Russia, was embarrassing in more ways than one. Here was an incoming chair of SADC besmirching and gossiping about a neighbouring country and a fellow regional member to a foreign Head of State.

On another note and to the embarrassment of every proud Zimbabwean, the country throughout 2024 continued to “host” its football matches in foreign countries such as South Africa and faraway Uganda. The reason for Zimbabwe hosting her football matches outside her own borders was that the stadia in the country led by the esteemed chair of SADC had been condemned by football bodies CAF and FIFA.

But perhaps the consolidation of Zimbabwe as a centre of autocracy and kleptocracy was showcased in the run up to the SADC summit in Harare.

Just as millions, if not billions, were looted through the murky Mutapa Investment Fund, further millions were looted as the country ”prepared” to host the summit, including through the construction of multi-million dollar Swiss villas for Heads of State that were completed late and were never used during the summit!

Meanwhile, innocent Zimbabweans were arrested as the regime feared massive demonstrations by the country’s citizens over the 2023 harmonised plebiscite that was dismissed as a charade by the SADC observer mission.

Some civic activists like Namatai Kwekweza and several others were even smuggled from a plane and tortured before being thrown into prison.

Former MP and CCC organising secretary Amos Chibaya was needlessly arrested as the regime went rogue. My colleague Jameson Timba and the innocent youths he had provided space at his house for them to commemorate the day of the African child were rounded up, brutally assaulted and thrown into prison where they spent almost six tenuous months.

The fresh clampdown in civic and political activists escalated just as Zimbabweabs welcomed home political activist Job Sikhala, who was released from prison after spending almost two years on trumped up charges.

The SADC summit therefore became a sordid platform for the regime to showcase its autocratic and kleprocratic credentials; its huge capacity both to steal and to repress.

Indeed, millions were looted in the name of the summit while citizens’ rights were brutally curtailed as the regime feared people power, knowing full well that it had brazenly stolen the 2023 election that had even been condemned by the region as a farce.

The region in 2024 also witnessed the erosion of the traction of liberation movements. In South Africa, Botswana and Mauritius, the liberation parties massively lost their hegemony for the first time in their history, in the process ushering in a breed of leaders in SADC. Mozambique is burning to this day at a time the regime in Harare is facing charges of gross interference in the elections of other countries in the region.

On the musical front, Chillmaster, Winky D, Jah Prayzah, Alick Macheso and others produced highly imaginative artistic products that charmed and entertained the nation.
The Zimdancehall lines “Pfira Dandy” and “Hatitongwe nemasalad” trended in their own ephemeral moments during the year.

But for me, it was Mbare-bred Killer T’s ballad Kana Ndanyura that had the whole country on its dancing toes!

For me, Kana Ndanyura was the song of the year.

As the year sank yesterday (kunyura) and as we all reminisce on what has been a tough 2024, we can only bid badbye to a bad year.

It was a dark year as evidenced by ZESA’s epic show when they fittingly blacked out the live coverage of the national budget presentation and made Mnangagwa to grope for the exit out of the New Parliament building amid pitch darkness.

By way of conclusion, 2024 was largely the year in which the regime consolidated its autocratic and its kleptocratic credentials as the country stutters to being a full-fledged banana republic under this regime.

Govt clarifies retirement age extension

THE extension of the retirement age for uniformed forces and civil servants seeks to leverage their skills and vast experience, Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi has said.

In an interview in Harare yesterday, Minister Ziyambi said the move also takes into account the rising life expectancy in the country, with middle-aged adults now on average reaching their 80s.

Effective immediately, the retirement age for members of the uniformed forces and the three civilian public services has been raised by five years.
This is an Ignite Media Zimbabwe news production.
This change aligns Zimbabwe with international trends, as seen in countries like China and France, which have also adjusted their retirement ages.

Without such adjustments, either pensions would have to be reduced or the working population would have to support far more older people as technology and medical advances mean that people live longer and in any case, most jobs do not require backbreaking physical work.

Minister Ziyambi said Cabinet’s decision stemmed from an evaluation of the current life expectancy, which now averages 80 years.

He underscored the importance of the use of experienced personnel for enhanced efficiency.

“Why waste productivity and experience? Instead, we must tap into that. We must harness experience to ensure efficiency. We started with the judges to say those capable must serve on the bench so as to harness experience on justice delivery,” Minister Ziyambi said.

The retirement age for judges was adjusted to 70, with an option to serve until 75 for those who are mentally and physically fit.

Concerns regarding reduced opportunities for younger workers were addressed by Minister Ziyambi, who indicated that the job market would eventually adjust to the changes as, in the end, the older workers would eventually retire.

According to Statutory Instrument 198 of 2024, the retirement age for civil servants has been raised from 65 to 70. Regular soldiers can now retire at 55, up from 50, with options to extend their service to 60 and even 65.

Commissioned officers in the Zimbabwe Defence Forces can now retire at 65, with the possibility to serve until 70.

This trend is not unique to Zimbabwe.

China has initiated a gradual increase in retirement ages for many job categories, and France has raised its state pension age from 62 to 64 in recent reforms.

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