There is a people’s movement on social media — #ZanuPFMustGo, that has been calling for an uprising to remove Zanu-PF from power for state capture and state failure. Zanu-PF has succeeded in capturing all institutions that are meant to uphold democracy.
Not only has Zanu-PF captured the state, it is incapable of running it. It has no capacity, no desire and no agenda to deliver that which governments are mandated to deliver. It has failed to effectively and efficiently allocate resources. Ours is a very small (population) resource-rich country that would be thriving were it better managed. Zanu-PF has failed to provide public goods and to facilitate the provision of merit goods. Under its watch, the economy has collapsed, the state has collapsed.
It is one thing to capture a state and run it efficiently, and another to capture the state only to run it to the ground, and then unleash armed forces on anyone who complains.
On Thursday last week, Zimbabwe Republic Police abducted a 22-year-old journalism student called Tawanda Muchehiwa. He was arrested with two of his cousins, Advent and Amandlenkosi Mathuthu, but bundled away into a separate car.
Later that same day, police raided the home of Tawanda’s uncle Mduduzi Mathuthu, a journalist and Editor of ZimLive newspaper, which has been exposing corruption-linked scandal after scandal by the Zimbabwean government. They claimed to be searching for “subversive materials”. They abducted Mduduzi’s sister Nomagugu Mathuthu and vowed to hold her illegally until her brother gave himself up.
