HARARE – For 89-year-old ailing strongman President Robert Mugabe and his band of former guerrillas in Zanu PF, the coming general elections are a matter of life and death. History is replete with examples of nationalist movements that died a natural death as soon as they lost power and we need not go any further…
HARARE – Four years after Zimbabwe had one of its bloodiest polls since independence in 1980 — political tensions are mounting and the shadows of the past have returned yet again to haunt ordinary civilians. In what many see as a flashback to the horrors of Zimbabwe’s violent 2008 elections, an innocent 12-year-old schoolboy was…
HARARE – It is now six years since the historic event on March 11, 2007 when police violently broke a peaceful prayer meeting at Zimbabwe Grounds in Highfield that sadly led to the death of an MDC youth member, Gift Tandare. On this day in 2007, heavily armed riot police disrupted a peaceful prayer meeting…
HARARE – Referendums have been dramatic at times because citizens traditionally use them to express displeasure with a governing party by voting against its position mid-term. This can be said of the referendum on the draft constitution in 2000. Ask some of the people who voted against the draft, many will not be able to…
HARARE – It does not need a rocket scientist to revive government’s struggling parastatals, including national airline Air Zimbabwe (Airzim). This week, Airzim’s board — chaired by bank executive Ozias Bvute — told Parliament’s portfolio committee on State Enterprises and Parastatals (Seps) that there is urgent need to appoint a substantive chief executive. And we…
HARARE – Most people often cite having children or raising their families as one of the principal reasons for going to work or accumulating material possessions. If people are not paid on time they are quick to point to the difficulties they will face in caring for their children. Some parents had to leave their…
HARARE – Public institutions must be credible for them to be effective. The lack of credibility has been the bane of Zimbabwe’s public institutions. The same can be said of the National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Board (Nieeb) after the recent revelations about its handling of indigenisation contracts awarded to Brainworks Capital. But credibility is…
HARARE – As elections and time for people to take sides approach, the MDC slowly gets exposed. Bit by bit, the MDC is being shown that they have jumped into bed with a devil and the product of that political intimacy is slowly being born, making its way into the world horns first. It is…
HARARE – Christpower Maisiri’s death, as diabolical as it was, has put into sharp focus the role of police in dealing with politically-motivated cases of violence. A life of struggles and pain, his 12-year-old boy who was born in the mountains as the mother fled violence allegedly fomented by Zanu PF thugs, was killed in…
HARARE – I have never been a big fan of Valentine’s Day because I believe that a present is best appreciated when it’s a surprise to the receiver. The fact that the day has been so commercialised and has become an opportunity for businesspeople to milk the public does not help matters. But then I…
