Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News Blog

It is puzzling how President Mnangagwa is now flinching from making the bold decisions that are needed to start Zimbabwe on a path to recovery. The most glaring dropping of the ball is the refusal or reluctance to demonetise the Bond Note. It can only be because he wants to protect and encourage corruption and black market activity, fuellled by a criminally negligent Dr Mangudya at the RBZ President Emmerson Mnangagwa is in the process of undoing an image that he had carefully built up since November last year and which had brought him massive support and goodwill that he should have capitalised on to correct market sentiment. But he has dropped the ball so massively that even his own supporters are beginning to have second thoughts. They are beginning to think that there was nothing to all the talk and display of resolve except a desire to win the election and become President. Fundamentally, the problem with Zimbabwe at the moment is the complete lack of confidence in Pre...

Zimbabweans owe a huge debt of gratitude to Morgan Tsvangirai for the fact that it is now impossible to rig elections in Zimbabwe. We will explain today why. The mistake Nelson Chamisa and his Alliance made this time around was using the pre-reform tactics to fight this election instead of adapting to the news circumstances. It is the main reason we kept saying Chamisa had brought a knife to a gunfight. But let's look at why it is now impossible to rig an election in Zimbabwe and why this last election also falls into this category of "impossible to rig". It is all about knowing how to use the tools Tsvangirai gave us as Zimbabwe. All ballot paper books printed have serial numbers. Each ballot paper has a serial number. This is incredibly important for any party that does not trust the process, especially combined with the presence of their agent at the polling station throughout voting. Each party has a polling agent at every polling station in Zimbabwe. ...

Have people actually read through both sets of documents submitted to the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe by Nelson Chamisa and Emmerson Mnangagwa? Monitoring the conversation in the media, both social and traditional, we see that almost 100% of the talk about the case is emanating from MDC supporters. ZANU PF supporters, on the other hand, are almost non-existent. One could argue that it is to be expected, since Nelson Chamisa's supporters have the most to look forward to and have clearly invested more, emotionally, in the outcome of the case. The same, however, could be said, of ZANU PF supporters, since a ruling against their candidate would result in either an Chamisa presidency or a re-run. It is clear from the chatter all around us that few MDC Alliance supporters have bothered to read the responses from Emmerson Mnangagwa and Priscilla Chigumba. What you see instead is a search for hope, grounded not in facts, but in people's hopes that their own prejudice...

Jameson Timba, the man who mysteriously disappeared as Chamisa's Chief Election Agent on the day of the announcement of the election results, with Morgan Komichi claiming to be the Chief Election agent, is seen here in his trademark bowler hat on Friday as he filed the Nelson Chamisa's challenge to the election and their results at the Constitutional Court in Harare. Nelson Chamisa's electoral challenge, filed this last Friday, August 10 2018, is so embarrassing that in any other court of law, he would have been fined for wasting the court's time, one Nelson Chamisa's own lawyers, Advocate Dali Mpofu, has allegedly told his comrades in the Economic Freedom Front of South Africa. Mpofu is also the Chairman of Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Front. Malema has congratulated Emmerson Mnangagwa on his electoral victory and urged Nelson Chamisa to accept the results and move on. Malema and the EFF are natural allies of ZANU PF and the two are in constant ...

Serious disagreements emerged within the government of President Mnangagwa immediately after the election observer missions' interim statements in Harare this week. Vice President Chiwenga reads the observer mission statements, especially the European and other Western powers utterances, as indication that there is not going to be any difference in the approach of the West to the newly elected government of Emmerson Mnangagwa. President Mnangagwa, on the other hand, is of the view that whatever criticisms are leveled at the country, its institutions and this election must be accepted as good faith criticism that should be incorporated into reforming key areas of the country that can make Zimbabwe a strong democracy. "Your strategy has failed," VP Chiwenga, we are reliably told, said to President Mnangagwa on Thursday this week. "It has failed. We open up more, allowing anyone to do what they want, Zimbabweans will think this is a sign of weakness on the p...

So, it is congratulations to President Emmerson Mnangagwa on winning the Presidential election. His party also controls parliament, which means there will be no excuse whatsoever for non-delivery. Mnangagwa now has his own mandate, in his own right, not one inherited from former President Robert Mugabe. But the margin with which Mnangagwa won means that the protestations from Nelson Chamisa and the MDC Alliance should now be taken seriously if Mnangagwa's new administration is to have credibility and legitimacy. Nelson Chamisa's approach was wrong this last week, as he sought to block the announcement of the results while he tried to double-check and tally the totals from polling stations in order to satisfy himself that he has indeed lost. Insistence on continuing to delay the result announcement because he disputed was not the main problem. It was his dishonest concealment of the fact that he was delaying the announcement because he was still double-checking and ver...

A proposal to elevate the office of the Leader of the Official Opposition to an official Office of State is now in jeopardy as President Mnangagwa went into the election without signing it off. Aides to Mnangagwa suspect that the President feared the move could be spun by detractors to paint him as a man who was setting up a cushy office for himself in preparation for defeat at the Harmonised Poll of 2018. Hence it was left to be picked at the beginning of a new President's term. Sources in ED's office revealed that the matter has since been complicated further. Now that he and those around them know they have won the election, the President fears it would be misinterpreted as a sop to a man complaining about his victory being stolen". Which would distract from government business as it could embolden a beaten man to think the approach a sign of weakness.  Because of Chamisa's chosen strategy of agitation and threatening anarchy, this important pillar ...

By 2:30a.m. Monday morning, we are informed Vice President Chiwenga was able to relax on the basis that the election was pretty much in the bag. Was he correct? Let's break it down? Nelson Chamisa is almost certain to do better than Morgan Tsvangirai did in 2013, especially in the urban, peri-urban and growth point areas. But we are likely not to get anything resembling the 2008 results. No GNU is in the offing, unless it is on the Mnangagwa's terms, with Nelson Chamisa as a quarrelsome supplicant. The root of this scenario is the failure by the NPF and Thokozani Khupe to be factors in this election. Mnangagwa is doing better than most would have expected in the urban constituencies and wards. Nelson Chamisa has managed to consolidate the vote of the opposition around his presidential ambitions here. But the opposition numbers have never managed to overwhelm ZANU PF nationally, even when consolidated. It may not look like it, but apathy also played a part. Apath...

Former President Robert Mugabe endorsing Nelson Chamisa today his Blue Roof mansion under the watchful eyes of Grace Mugabe and his first born, Bona Chikore. The choreographed dance between Nelson Chamisa and Robert Mugabe, which started on this last Saturday, came out in the open on Sunday. The two scheduled simultaneous press conferences in anticipation of each other's big reveals. It is a classic Jonathan Moyo move, designed for nothing else but to give the impression of momentum. What this move on Sunday telegraphs is an alarming state of affairs in the opposition camp. Because, you see, this is an extreme move. In other words, a last-ditch effort. One does not go broke unless one knows they have nothing left to lose. Desperate times, they say. Desperate measures. The strategy's risks are not lost on a man of the smarts and intelligence of Nelson Chamisa. Not at all. So, knowing this, aware of the fire-breathing electoral dragons that live down this road, Ne...

President Mnangagwa with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Harare earlier this year. President Emmerson Mnangagwa has spoken to Vladmir Putin in South Africa who promised to alert American President Donald Trump of what the ZANU PF government considers unfair prejudging of the elections by elements in the American Senate, specifically. We received this information earlier today. Both Mnangagwa and Putin were in South Africa for the BRICS summit, together with the Chinese President. The discussion with Putin was to discuss the various investments that Russia and Russian companies have committed to Zimbabwe, such as the Darwendale Platinum Group Minerals mining project. The Russians are also setting up a refining and smelting plant in the area. It was during the course of that discussion that President Putin asked about Mnangagwa's prospects in the coming election. The Zimbabwean leader responded by telling Putin that all indications are that he, Mnangagwa, is ...

This qualifies as one of the top of the images from the 2018 Zimbabwean election. The various Mapostori Christian sects in Zimbabwe number more than a million. The Johanne Marange sect, whose Passover celebrations President Mnangagwa is seen here attending is by far the largest, followed by the Masowe sect. Now, just wondering: we all know about the rivalry between these two sects and the many others scattered all over Zimbabwe. Does this mean the other sects will now boycott Mnangagwa and vote someone else because they hate the Marange faction? Not entirely sure if all of them are registered to vote, but this sect has become a stomping ground for ZANU PF leaders and they have tended to support the ruling party. Getting this bloc to support you and vote for you is a prize coveted by every politician in Zimbabwe. Mnangagwa, seen here sitting right in the middle of the throng, sitting on the dusty ground like everybody else, has taken this to another level. Mugabe and Chiwen...

JUSTICE Chigumba, the ZEC Chair, briefing observers at the Harare International Conference Centre earlier today, doubled down on a trend of refusing or failing the transparency test. She is within the law on everything she has done, but ignoring the key test of transparency impacts massively on the credibility of this poll, to the detriment of whoever end up winning this election. We have always defended ZEC against the baseless accusation thrown against them by an opposition that is bent discrediting the election in the hope of it being declared not free and fair and thereby, hopefully, forcing a Government of National Unity with Nelson Chamisa as Prime Minister, but the needless lack of transparency by the electoral body is now wildly carvoting in sabotage territory. Take Justice Chigumba's briefing with Observers today at the Harare International Conference Centre. One thing that has raised alarm bells is her announcement that the electoral body will not be using indeli...

Welshman Ncube of the MDC Alliance, at Ross Police Camp in Bulawayo today, where police voted today in an incident made a scandal only by the fact that ZEC appeared not to know that ballot papers that it should be in charge of were now in Bulawayo, at a police camp   It is a blunder of monumental proportions, no doubt and we do not need to recount to you what transpired at Ross Police Camp in Bulawayo. But just in case you have been on Mars today, here goes: An alert was sent to the MDC Alliance by a policeman at Ross Camp saying the policemen there were being "forced" to vote in the presence of their superiors and crying out for help. The Alliance immediately broadcast the alert across social media. The Acting Chief Elections Officer for ZEC denied that there was any voting taking place, saying he was still processing postal vote applications. Videos and images soon emerged showing that there had indeed been voting at that Camp and ZEC Commissioners scrambled t...

According to sources close to the development, the reason we are seeing Nelson Chamisa going ballistic in the last few days is because of a message delivered to him by a representative of President Mnangagwa, whom he met this last week. The message was in response to Chamisa's repeated attempts to meet with Mnangagwa and the two letters he has sent asking for a meeting. The first one, already published, asked for the meeting as a "courtesy visit". The response to Chamisa has been that President Emmerson Mnangagwa will only meet Nelson Chamisa in the presence of Thokozani Khupe, who also claims to be the legitimate leader of the MDC-T. The visit last week from an ED representative was to update this position and the message, we are reliably informed, was: "We had hoped to arrange a meeting after the court case you had brought against Khupe and the other MDC-T. That court case would have settled who really is a representative of the MDC-T. Unfortunately, y...

"Nelson Chamisa is embarrassing and Emmerson Mnangagwa is very very dull," is what one American journalist with an international news network put it to me when she called this morning to get an update on the election and sentiment on the ground. It is a stunning turn of events, this complete ignoring of Zimbabwe's 2018 elections by international media. For the first time since 2000, the international media (CNN, BBC, SKY, even China Global Television) are almost completely ignoring the Zimbabwe elections. Haru Mutasa, at Al Jazeera, is the only international journalist who is getting the story of this election out, but in very small drips. Previous Zimbabwe elections were a daily fixture on international news platforms before. Mugabe's rallies were covered on a weekly basis from the week he started campaigning to election day. Tsvangirai was never covered as much but featured as a counterpoint to the fiery rhetoric of Robert Mugabe. This time around, ther...

The EU Observer Mission giving a press conference in Harare, at which only one journalists, from Openparlyzw, proved to be the only real journalist operating in Zimbabwe today. The European Union Observer Mission to Zimbabwe for the 2018 elections held a press conference today in Harare.  That press conference should be a cause for grave concern for ZEC and for the government of President Mnangagwa. The statement itself was full of diplomatic speak but it was the question and answer that really bust the whole thing wide open. Zimbabwe and the government should thank the guy called Daniel from Openparlyzw, who is the only journalist in that room who asked a real and pertinent question. All the other so-called journalists in that room appeared to have been there just to eat the sandwiches and are disgrace to the profession. Daniel asked about the process of observing the printing of the ballot paper and asked the observers to say whether they had come across similar issues...