So, at the age of 94, the present finally caught up with Robert Mugabe. In a surprisingly civilized coup, the Zimbabwean military put an end to almost forty years of personal rule, as the dictator saw his power base collapse overnight. The long oppressed people of Zimbabwe took to the streets to support the military and at last gain their freedom. Things are bound to get better, right?
Source: thediplomat.com
Well, no. Not really.
Zimbabwe is a mess. With the white farmers kicked out of the country and most of the arable land given to political cronies that know nothing of farming in a "land reform" process that was as tragic as it was corrupt, with the business class intimidated into fleeing the country or taxed and stolen from into poverty, Zimbabwe's economy has completely collapsed. There's hyperinflation, so bad that it rendered the country's currency worthless, a shortage of US dollars that reduced parts of the country to bartering for goods, a breakdown of agricultural production so complete that Zimbabwe, once one of Africa's biggest food exporter, now has up to 80% of its population reliant on the UN's World Food Program for sustenance. Infrastructure and public services have also collapsed, leading to cholera epidemics in the capital.
Source: cato.org/publications/commentary/botswana-zimbabwe-tale-two-countries
All these problems Zimbabwe has, and it would need three basic things to fix them:
1- A not completely corrupt, stable government;
2- Foreign capital, either by way of loans or foreign investment;
3- Foreign technical expertise, especially with regards to agriculture.
Replacing the senile dictator with a man that served him as his chief crony since 1980, under the exact same party that ruined the country in the first place will not provide it with any of these. It will only saddle the country with another kleptocrat dictator that, lacking Mugabe's "prestige", and given his history, will probably increase the regime's longevity and brutality, continuing to plunder the rotting corpse of what was once a promising country.
I hope I'm wrong. Time will tell.
