BELARUSIAN President Alexander Lukashenko (largely regarded as Europe\u2019s last dictator) is under siege from hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in his country who want him to vacate as a leader for what they say were rigged elections in August this year.<\/p>\n
Lukashenko has been in power for an uninterrupted 26 years.<\/p>\n
Opposition political parties in Belarus are now fed up with his authoritarian rule and have blamed him for all the socioeconomic and political rot in the country.<\/p>\n
But the Belarusian president (who \u2018romped\u2019 to victory by 80 per cent) has refused to budge, going on to ask Vladimir Putin of Russia to help him quell the internal unrest.<\/p>\n
Switch over to Zimbabwe\u2026<\/p>\n
Just like his Belarusian counterpart, Lukashenko, President Emmerson Mnangagwa has described as fictitious the claim by many Zimbabweans of \u201cunbearable socio-economic and political problems\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n
He said this while responding to the possibility of South Africa intervening to help resolve the political deadlock in the country.<\/p>\n
For starters, to many neutral observers, the Zimbabwean economic scoreboard does not read good, with most pointers in the red zone.<\/p>\n
The year-on-year inflation rate for August, for instance, as measured by the all items Consumer Price Index, stood at 761,02 per cent.<\/p>\n
This is a terrible economic outlook for any country outside a war zone.<\/p>\n
Compounded to this, Zimbabwe has about US$8 billion external debt, with domestic debt alone hovering above ZWL12 billion, according to the Finance ministry.<\/p>\n
In view of the above economic hardships, it would be unthinkable for Mnangagwa and his colleagues in government to describe problems besetting Zimbabwe as imaginary and unreal.<\/p>\n
On the political front \u2013 members of Parliament, journalists and human rights activists \u2013 have recently been incarcerated and charged with espionage.<\/p>\n
ZimRights, a local human organisation, reportedly recorded about 820 \u201chuman rights violations\u201d, including arbitrary arrests, assaults by State agents, attacks on journalists, abductions, \u201cgunshot assaults\u201d and dog bites between the end of March and now when the COVID-19 lockdown was introduced.<\/p>\n
Recently, journalist Hopewell Chin\u2019ono and Jacob Ngarivhume got detained for over a month and refused bail by what others have described as a captured judiciary.<\/p>\n
Member of Parliament for Zengeza Job Sikhala has steadfastly be refused and remains incarcerated at Chikurubi Maximum Prison.<\/p>\n
Yet, in all these abuses by the State on citizens, the Government of Zimbabwe maintains that the country\u2019s problems are a mental construct, emanating from opposition politics.<\/p>\n
Zim Morning Post asked MDC Alliance spokesperson Fadzai Mahere what she thought about Mnangagwa\u2019s view:<\/p>\n
\u201cIs the hunger of 8.6 million Zimbabweans imagined?<\/p>\n
\u201cIs the pittance being paid to civil servants as a salary imagined?<\/p>\n
\u201cAre the bodies that end up in morgues because of lack of access to basic healthcare imagined?<\/p>\n
\u201cSuggesting that the poverty and hardships that prevail in this country are a construct of the opposition betrays just how out of touch Mnangagwa is with the lived reality of Zimbabweans.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo reduce the nation\u2019s plight to opposition fantasy betrays a leader who has long departed from the lives of those he purports to lead.\u201d<\/p>\n
A former Alpha Media Holdings Editor-in-Chief who did not want to be named rebuffed Mnangagwa, saying he was trying to hide by finger:<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is hiding behind the finger. We have several crises \u2013 political, economic and social.<\/p>\n
\u201cCalling them challenges is a mere euphemism.\u201d<\/p>\n
This publication also sought comment from University of Zimbabwe political scientist, Eldred Masunungure, on the issue:<\/p>\n
\u201cMnangagwa can clearly see what most Zimbabweans are privy to; that there is a problem of mammoth proportion in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy saying problems in the country are imagined, Mnangagwa is trying to block moves by South Africa, the region and international community to find a lasting solution to issues that have bedevilled this nation for about two decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cSouth Africa should, therefore, not be deterred by Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter all, South Africa feels the heat coming from Zimbabwe\u2019s toxic politics more than any other country in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BELARUSIAN President Alexander Lukashenko (largely regarded as Europe\u2019s last dictator) is under siege from hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in his country who want him to vacate as a leader for what they say were rigged elections in August this year. Lukashenko has been in power for an uninterrupted 26 years. Opposition political parties in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":26465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,12],"tags":[34],"class_list":{"0":"post-28100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all-news","8":"category-head-lines","9":"category-policy","10":"tag-emmerson-mnangagwa"},"yoast_head":"\n