Despondent and waiting in a long queue for daily food handouts from a well-wisher, Milka Mandimutsa gets nostalgic about Zimbabwe’s autocratic and longtime ex-leader Robert Mugabe, who died a year ago.<\/p>\n
Had Mugabe been still ruling Zimbabwe, “I don\u00b4t think it (life) would be like this,” said the woman, in her late 20s, waiting to receive a portion of cooked beans and white maize meal in the working-class town of Chitungwiza, 30 kilometres (20 mile) south-east of Harare.<\/p>\n
“He was far much better,” said the unemployed Mandimutsa, who was born after Mugabe was already a decade in power.<\/p>\n
Another woman in the queue echoed her sentiments.<\/p>\n
“Ever since the new president took power, I have not seen anything positive,” said Diana Nhemachena, also in her 20s, bemoaning the high cost of living in the country where official inflation is more than 800 percent.<\/p>\n
Mugabe died on September 6 last year, aged 95 in a Singapore hospital, two years after he was forced to resign in 2017, and after 37 years in power.<\/p>\n
Zimbabweans thronged the streets celebrating his ouster.<\/p>\n
His successor Emmerson Mnangagwa came in with promises to fight corruption, revive the moribund economy and reduce poverty.<\/p>\n
– ‘Ngwena’, means crocodile –<\/p>\n
But many Zimbabweans say they are worse off than they were under Mugabe despite his creating an authoritarian regime which savagely repressed opponents.<\/p>\n
He is also remembered for implementing controversial land reforms 20 years ago that resulted in economic collapse.<\/p>\n
But far from being the expected messiah, Mugabe’s former deputy Mnangagwa has also become known for brutally crushing his opponents.<\/p>\n
A month ago, he threatened to “flush” out bad “apples”, two weeks after an opposition politician and a journalist were arrested on charges of incitement to commit public violence.<\/p>\n
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Despondent and waiting in a long queue for daily food handouts from a well-wisher, Milka Mandimutsa gets nostalgic about Zimbabwe’s autocratic and longtime ex-leader Robert Mugabe, who died a year ago. Had Mugabe been still ruling Zimbabwe, “I don\u00b4t think it (life) would be like this,” said the woman, in her late 20s, waiting to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":12431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[34,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-27288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all-news","8":"category-files","9":"tag-emmerson-mnangagwa","10":"tag-mugabe"},"yoast_head":"\n