Zimbabwe civil society and opposition groups on Tuesday denounced as “terrorism” several attacks on events challenging moves by the ruling party to keep President Emmerson Mnangagwa in office until 2030.
The ruling Zanu-PF on October 18 announced it would support constitutional changes to allow an extension to Mnangagwa’s term, fuelling anger and fears of deepening authoritarianism.
Groups opposing the 2030 extension were meant to hold press conferences in Harare and Bulawayo Tuesday, ahead of Mnangagwa’s annual State of the Nation speech.
But the event’s venue in the capital, at the premises of the Southern African Political Economy Series (SAPES) Trust NGO, was attacked by “arsonists” overnight, according to SAPES director Ibbo Mandaza.
A security guard reported that about 10 people attacked the site shortly after midnight, Mandaza told journalists.
“They bundled him into a vehicle, gagged his mouth. He didn’t see the rest, he just heard the explosions. A petrol bomb was thrown into the seminar (room),” Mandaza said.
The house of activist Gilbert Bgwende, a member of the Constitutional Defence Forum, was also burnt down shortly after.
The press conference in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, was also cancelled after the venue was “literally sealed by some state security personnel and vigilantes”, according to organiser Prince Dubeko Sibanda, a former member of parliament for the Citizens’ Coalition for Change.
“The regime’s attacks at SAPES Trust and at the home of Constitutional Defender Gilbert Mbwende is desperate broad day-light terrorism,” prominent lawyer Tendai Biti said on social media.
“The regime’s paranoia, violence and psychosis is unacceptable,” Biti added. “It will not stop or derail our resistance.”
“This is a new process, a united process of concerned citizens against the mutilation of our constitution,” he also told journalists in Harare.
Former parliamentarian Job Sikhala — an outspoken critic of the government — said the attacks showed that “the dictatorship is in panic”.
Mnangagwa, who ousted long-time ruler Robert Mugabe in 2017, has presided over a collapsing economy that has suffered hyperinflation and unemployment, undermined by alleged corruption and cronyism.
Critics have also accused the ZANU-PF — in power since independence in 1980 — of stifling democracy and dissent in the former British colony.
AFP