President Emmerson Mnangagwa has urged people to “remain vigilant” against critics as Zimbabwe enters its 43rd year of independence and prepares for elections later this year.
On Tuesday, he spoke to a gathering in Mount Darwin, a farming and rural community in Mashonaland Central, 160 kilometers north of Harare.
“As the harmonized general elections draw nearer, I call on the nation to remain vigilant and protect our hard-won independence. No voices, foreign or local – inclusive of rogue NGOs (non-governmental organizations) – should sow seeds of division and disharmony among us,” he said.
Mnangagwa stated earlier this month that he would not welcome foreign election observers from what he referred to as “hostile” nations.
The Private Voluntary Organizations Amendment Bill, which would impose strict operating guidelines for NGOs, particularly those thought to be engaged in political activity, is also anticipated to be signed into law by him.
Nelson Chamisa, the head of the Citizen’s Coalition for Change, claimed in his message of independence that political oppression and corruption were the reasons why the nation was not yet free.
He said:
We salute the gallant citizens who fought for our independence. That independence is yet to come. It’s not yet Uhuru. True independence and a happy and prosperous Zimbabwe for everyone is definitely coming! Get ready. All citizens and political prisoners must be free.
Democratic Union of Zimbabwe (DUZ) president Robert Chapman said that, while remembering the country’s past, “we also have to think about building our future”, especially while being faced with challenges such as “injustice, corruption and misgovernance”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Zimbabwe had a “chance to set itself on a path to promote citizen engagement and to respect human rights”, and that the US would “continue to support the people of Zimbabwe to live longer more prosperous, and healthier lives”.
The country is celebrating independence day during an election season marked by a rapidly constricting civic space, including the criminalization of dissent and the targeting of political activists and human rights defenders, according to Flavia Mwangovya, Amnesty International’s deputy director for East and Southern Africa.
“Forty-three years after independence, authorities are yet to guarantee in practice the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly which are increasingly being threatened despite being guaranteed under the constitution and international law,” she said.
‘Dissenting voices are being criminalized’
“The right to freedom of peaceful assembly has continuously been violated and undermined, with the authorities refusing to give clearance for some of the main opposition party’s rallies, arresting and convicting peaceful protesters and using unnecessary and excessive force to stop protests.
“As Zimbabwe approaches elections later this year, freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly have come under increasing attack. Dissenting voices are being criminalized, with some opposition activists put in lengthy pre-trial detentions.”
As the lone representative of the original government that was installed in 1980 by a majority vote, Mnangagwa is the last guy standing.
The independence day speech has lost its appeal since the revolution that overthrew the late Robert Mugabe in November 2017, according to newspaper vendor Themba Ncube, who spoke to News24.
“During Mugabe’s time, despite being a bad leader, we looked forward to his speeches on independence day. It was a specialty and he would hint at his next move, cruel or not, and attack the opposition. It was a show,” he said.
Similar to the late Fidel Castro of Cuba, Mugabe would spend hours lecturing the country on the history of the liberation struggle and use rhetoric that was anti-Western.
Then he would shout, “They are agents of regime change!” as he attacked opposition MPs, namely the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC T).
Though he is known as “the crocodile,” Mnangagwa is not a guy of many words, as even his political adversaries have noted.
