The world’s most wretched nation has been identified, and Zimbabwe tops the list.
This is supported by an annual “misery index,” which scores over 160 nations based on variables such as unemployment rates, inflation rates, and bank lending rates.
The 16 million-person African country has now been included in the list of the five most depressing countries for three years running.
According to the yearly report, Robert Mugabe’s ruthless dictatorship over Zimbabwe resulted in corruption, violence, and a severe economic catastrophe that pushed tens of thousands of people into abject poverty.
The consequences of Mugabe’s 37-year rule on the economy are still being felt in this mineral-rich nation.
Venezuela, which has likewise suffered from “economic mismanagement,” and Syria, which has been engulfed in a horrifying civil war for more than ten years, are the two countries that trail Zimbabwe in Hanke’s Annual Misery Index.
The economist who created the rating, Professor Steve Hanke, claimed that Zimbabwe’s political party’s ‘iron grip’ on power is one of the main causes of the country’s’most wretched’ placement. Over the past three decades, there have been charges of election tampering and bloodshed.
Additionally, the country has had two bouts of hyperinflation, which occurs when prices increase by at least 50% month over month, under both Mugabe and his successor President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Shocking images of individuals filling buckets with cash to buy a loaf of bread were caused by the currency’s falling value.
He said: ‘With elections around the corner, [opposition leader] Nelson Chamisa and his Citizens Coalition for Change is polling well, and, on the assumption that there will be fair and free elections in Zimbabwe, he just might pull Zimbabwe out of the gutter.’
Venezuela, Syria, Lebanon, and Sudan are among the nations with the worst conditions, along with Zimbabwe.
In his ten years as president, Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela has seen two instances of hyperinflation.
Professor Hanke said: ‘Since Maduro came to power in 2013, it has also seen the oil production of its state-owned oil company PDVSA collapse by 76 percent.’
‘No wonder more than 7million Venezuelans have fled their homeland since 2015. They’re miserable,’ Professor Hanke said.
