Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News Blog

A private vehicle burns after being torched by MDC protestors in Harare this past week, before soldiers moved in to quell the situation It is a common and ancient saying in Zimbabwe. Much like the english speak of cutting off one's nose in order to spite one's face: "burning the house down to flush out a rat". The situation in Zimbabwe is straightforward: Nelson Chamisa narrowly lost the election to Emmerson Mnangagwa. After this, he and Tendai Biti sent drunk youths into Harare City Centre. They were armed with stone, iron bars and fire. They smashed shops. They burnt cars. But the plan was much worse than this. The reason you are not hearing greater condemnation of government's heavy-handedness, the reason why some people appear "shocked" that the "world is remaining silent" in the face of this is simple enough: The government has concrete evidence that it has shared with foreign governments about the actual plan by Nelson C...

These are some of the people reported to have been shot this afternoon when Nelson Chamisa supporters gathered in the streets to demand he be declared the winner of the Presidential poll, after the opposition MDC Alliance called for people to gather in the city centre and "defend their voted" before the official results are announced. The constant agitation by Nelson Chamisa, who keeps claiming he has won the election before results are announced has managed to get loads of crowds into the streets of Harare. First they were met by riot police as the crowds of hundreds of people tried to storm the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission National Command Centre at the Harare International Conference Centre. As they became more rowdy, blockading roads, burning buildings, the police remained restrained. That was when army trucks rolled into the city centre. The army had to fire live rounds, just now, apparently, because Tendai Biti has just said publicly that he and Nelson Cha...

Nelson Chamisa will be challenged at the next MDC-T Congress by current Secretary General Douglas Mwonzora for the presidency of the party. Mwonzora, who beat Nelson Chamisa at the last Congress for the Secretary-General post, is positioning himself astutely at the moment through the primary elections for the MDC-T and through background control of the MDC-T notorious Vanguard. While Nelson Chamisa, his supporters and certain members of the MDC-T are busy keeping their eye on the elections against President Emmerson Mnangagwa's ZANU PF, the party is being methodically, quietly and ruthlessly taken over by Secretary General Douglas Mwonzora. There really are now two factions within the Nelson Chamisa MDC-T party led by Nelson Chamisa. One faction consists of Chamisa loyalists. The other is Mwonzora's faction, which is in the ascendancy at the moment. So much so that Mwonzora has effectively and astutely locked up the party primaries. The notorious MDC-T Vanguard, outw...

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai chats with President Robert Mugabe at State House after the President had sworn in ministers nominated by the Prime Minister from his own party to replace those he had fired Harare, Zimbabwe 18 July 2010 A source extremely close to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai this last week described the fighting in Tsvangirai's party as "frightening" while claiming that the opposition party is so disorganised that "we will never take power from ZANU PF". The source, a confidant of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, blamed all the infighting on the Prime Minister, saying he was told "not to rock the boat" but went ahead anyway to reshuffle the cabinet on his side." The source also confirmed that Tendai Biti, the Finance Minister in Zimbabwe's coalition government and MDC-Tsvangirai's Secretary-General was saved from being reshuffled or fired by President Mugabe himself. "The PM came back from a Monday meeting one d...

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, seen here holding hands with President Mugabe after the swearing-in of new MDC-T Ministers to replace those fired by Tsvangirai in his struggle to contain infighting within the opposition party has now gone ahead and fired  Harare, Zimbabwe, 04 July 2010 Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who is also president of the MDC witha surname (the MDC-T), has taken gloves off and taken the fight to Secretary General Tendai Biti (also Zimbabwe's Finance Minister in the coalition government). Tsvangirai last week fired high level officials at Harvest House, the MDC-T's Head Office in Harare, Zimbabwe. Among those to go were the Finance Director of the party and members of the Secretariat, which Tsvangirai is accusing of being in service of Tendai Biti in his alleged bid to unseat Tsvangirai at the next Congress of the MDC-T. This is coming after Tsvangirai fired several ministers and demoted others in a recent reshuffle of his ineffective rump of the Coa...

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai At the Press Conference today when he fired Energy Minister Elias Mudzuri and shifted some deck chairs on the Titanic Government. Harare, Zimbabwe, 23 June 2010 Clearly, the knives are now out for those said to be plotting against Morgan Tsvangirai's Life Presidency of the MDC that carries his surname. The Prime Minister of Zimbabwe has fired one of the two heavyweights against him in the party. Elias Mudzuri, the Minister of Energy, is now no Minister at all, "redeployed to the party", according to Morgan Tsvangirai. Tendai Biti the PM left alone. This is basically a shot across the bow for the Finance Minister. Now he knows Tsvangirai means to be elected president at the next Congress and still has power to destroy careers for the leaders of the MDC-T. Indeed, the tone of the press conference left no doubt at all that the Prime Minister had said he was firing Mudzuri for incompetence. Mudzuri also suffered for what Tsvangirai considered ...

The Econet Founder and Rockefeller Foundation Trustee, Strive Masiyiwa, is now said to have effectively taken over the MDC. Those in the MDC-T aligned to Tsvangirai believe that the man wants the job of leading Zimbabwe and the opposition for himself, but they may be mistaken. What is not in doubt is that Masiyiwa will be a nominee, from the floor, for president of the MDC-T at the next Congress. Harare, Zimbabwe, 19 June 2010 Lets cut right to the chase: Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai lost control of the MDC-T six months ago, it has now emerged. Yes, the latest news from Zimbabwe is that the Prime Minister lost his party to Strive Masiyiwa, the founder of Econet and a man many believe would make a good president, seeing as he has already done wonders in the private sector, is a staunch christian and is unlikely to filch funds from the state like some of the so-called leaders we have now have been known to do. News of Strive's takeover of the party has been clouded for some time ...

"Oh my God! Is that a gun you are holding, Morgan!" Tendai Biti and Morgan Tsvangirai are shown here before they came into office (but not power) in the Inclusive Government and before Tsvangirai doctored the MDC-Tsvangirai constitution to abolish term limits for the presidency of his party. Harare, Zimbabwe, 13 June 2010 Morgan Tsvangirai, the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, on 2 June called a surprise emergency meeting of the MDC-Tsvangirai National Leadership to confront Tendai Biti, the Minister of Finance and MDC-T Secretary-General over allegations that the Minister was undermining the Prime Minister and blocking funding. Tsvangirai produced a report, which he claimed had been compiled by the Security Department of the MDC-T. The report alleged that Biti and his loyalists were busy going around the country "re-organising" party structured to pack them with their own sympathisers ahead of the MDC-T Congress slated for some time next year. The meeting was attended b...

Morgan Tsvangirai, president of the MDC-T and Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, addresses a press conference at his party HQ in Harare on May 16 2010. Tsvangirai is frantically trying to contain a looming threat from two factions in his party that have now joined forces and are pushing for a Congress to be held so that they can challenge his position. Tsvangirai has reacted by stripping Secretary General and Minister of Finance Tendai Biti of the majority of his powers, as well as effectively suspending Elias Mudzuri from the position of National Organising Secretary, a post effectively now held by a Tsvangirai loyalist, Morgan Komichi. The MDC-T Congress, postponed time and again, is now, according to Komichi, only to be held after a General Election in Zimbabwe, whenever that may be. Harare, Zimbabwe, 25 May 2010 Some time back, I was accused of being a nay-sayer, a hater of the MDC etc for pointing out facts that are now emerging to be true. Last week, Tendai Biti, the most potent and cre...

Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank Governor, Gideon Gono (above), is still operating pretty much as though he were the de facto Prime Minister he was before the formation of the coalition Government between Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe. Harare, Zimbabwe, 07 February 2010 Senior staff at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, headed by Mugabe's blue-eyed boy, Gideon Gono, have spent US$215 000 on food in the last month, with the money having been authorised by officials in Tendai Biti's Ministry of Finance. Biti is also the MDC-Tsvangirai Secretary-General. The Minister claims that this expenditure is being made without his knowledge and that he is being "circumvented"! Gono has been emboldened by Biti's failure to have him fired. Mugabe has personally and publicly said "Gono is not going anywhere, show me what wrong he has done." Quite a lot of wrong, he as done, it turns out. Recently, as Tendai Biti toured the world, going to America to lobby Congressmen to rem...

While Morgan Tsvangirai was busy enjoying himself at the Davos World Economic Forum (above), back home in Zimbabwe, he was having the rug pulled from under him by Mugabe, who has instructed all ministers, including Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, to report to the two Vice presidents of Zimbabwe. Harare, Zimbabwe, 05 February 2010 First of all, apologies to Isaac and other avid readers who have fired off emails DEMANDING that I update the blog!!!! (I appreciate your keen interest). The lapse in updating the blog has been the result of a few developments over here in Zimbabwe that took me away from my computer for a few days - out in the bush, my other means of connecting are not as reliable as the broadband in Harare. Now to today's story. In a stunning development revealed by The Independent here today, one of the men I have previously identified as one of the three most powerful men in Zimbabwe, Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Misheck Sibanda, has written to all Minister...

This is the current Zimbabwe parliament, a place filled with history and a perfectly acceptable home for our legislature. But no, Mugabe and Tsvangirai now want to build a US$120 million brothel somewhere in the Kopje area, motel and everything, to house an even larger contingent of MPs. The word "priorities" seems to mean nothing to these people, both MDC and ZANU PF. One is like the other and they are now cheering each other on in their glutton. Instead of tightening their belts, they are having their stomachs surgically expanded in order to gorge themselves Harare, Zimbabwe, 10 January 2010 While teachers threaten to go on strike because they are being paid poverty wages, while nurses and doctors moonlight because government pays them slave wages, the Inclusive Government of Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe has announced that it will build a new "state of the art" Parliament Building in Harare this year. Finance Minister Tendai "Kiya Kiya" Biti confi...

Robert "The Solution" Mugabe has solutions of his own when it comes to Tendai Biti, the Finance Minister who has even been sent bullets in the mail. The just-ended ZANU PF Congress (Mugabe is seen listening to the wrap up yesterday, Saturday 12 December, in the photo above) condemned Tendai Biti in strong language and urged Mugabe not to give in on anything the MDC wants addressed until they get sanctions lifted and stop the broadcasts of independent, foreign-based radio stations which are now referred to by ZANU PF as "pirate radio stations". Harare, Zimbabwe, 13 December 2009 The ZANU PF Congress which ended in Harare yesterday "condemned in the strongest terms" Fnance Minister and MDC-Tsvangirai Secretary-General Tendai Biti over the way he is managing the country's finances. “Congress condemns in the strongest terms, the reckless actions of the Minister Biti’s in particular his abuse of constitutional authority to prevent the release of the US$510 ...