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1 year after Mugabe fall, Zimbabwe asks ‘what has changed?’

One year ago the unthinkable happened in Zimbabwe: Robert Mugabe fell from power.

Tanks rolled in the streets of the capital, Harare, on Nov. 14, 2017, and the military put
Mugabe under house arrest, in reaction to Mugabe’s firing of Vice President Emmerson
Mnangagwa.

Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans danced in the streets to celebrate the end of
Mugabe’s repressive rule that had brought ruin to the once prosperous economy.
Mugabe, then 93, soon resigned, ending his 37-year rule.

A year later Zimbabwe’s economic problems have worsened and restrictions on basic
freedoms remain, bringing some Zimbabweans to ask ‘What has changed?’ and ‘Are
things better?’

The euphoria at Mugabe’s fall has evaporated. Mnangagwa promised Zimbabwe “a new
dawn” but to many the country looks depressingly familiar with long lines at the banks to
withdraw paltry amounts of cash and shortages of basic goods have led to the rationing
of cooking oil, bottled water and beer.

“They played us, we marched for nothing,” Adrea Magoronye, a Harare resident said as
she stood in a line for cooking oil at a supermarket.

Mnangagwa started well but his disputed election victory in July, followed by the military
opening fire and shooting dead six civilians, a cholera outbreak and an economic
implosion have cast a pall over the 76-year-old’s first year in power.

Mnangagwa promised to turn the collapsed economy into a middle-class one by 2030,
underpinned by democratic reform and reengagement with the U.S. and other Western
countries that placed sanctions during Mugabe’s time.

Those sanctions have not yet been lifted and the signs are not reassuring. In
September, inflation climbed to its highest since 2010, according to Zimstat, the national
statistics agency.

Drugs are in short supply in a country where the health system has long been on the
brink of collapse. Private pharmacies with drugs in stock are charging in U.S dollars
cash that are scarce and out of the reach of many.

“Our patients are relapsing, deteriorating, operations being cancelled. We urge the
government to increase the allocation of forex (foreign exchange) as the gap is currently
huge as a matter of urgency,” said the Zimbabwe Medical Association in a statement
last week.