Zimbabwe: The 2008 Remake Is to Be Feared

By on December 20, 2010

With no surprise, the Zimbabwean presidential party has nominated Robert Mugabe, 86 years old, as its presidential candidate and set the election date for 2011.

Calisto Jokonya, a businessman and former president of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries said: We are our own worst enemies because we let politicians dictate the future of the nation. The economy began to recover thanks to the power-sharing agreement but now everything is being questioned because of this imminent election, and the risk of plunging the country into a new political and economic crisis, the analysts said. The ruling party, the Zimbabwe Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) wants the dissolution the coalition government, formed in February 2009 by Mr Mugabe and his rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, while the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Prime Minister Tsvangirai expressed his support for the presidential election next year but the legislatives only in 2013. Analysts and Western diplomats now fear a remake of 2008 events and agree that the country’s economic growth is fragile and statements by President Mugabe, at the ruling party congress, are not at all reassuring foreign investors: he has threatened to seize foreign firms if Western sanctions against him and his family were not lifted.

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