On Monday, 12 December 2022, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated four Zimbabwean individuals and two Zimbabwean entities, and removed seventeen Zimbabweans from the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (SDN List).

“We urge the Zimbabwean government to take meaningful steps towards creating a peaceful, prosperous, and politically vibrant Zimbabwe, and to address the root causes of many of Zimbabwe’s ills: corrupt elites and their abuse of the country’s institutions for their personal benefit,” explained Under Secretary of the Treasury Brian E. Nelson.

“The goal of sanctions is behavior change. Today’s actions demonstrate our support for a transparent and prosperous Zimbabwe.”

The Zanu PF regime was completely taken by surprise as it clearly thought it was winning the fight to have the sanctions lifted. SADC and AU leaders had all been blaming the sanctions for Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown and calling for their unconditional removal.

The evidence on the ground shows that it is the gross mismanagement and rampant corruption which are the primary causes of the economic meltdown. 42 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship had left the country in economic ruins and political paralysis.

In a healthy and functioning democracy, the people would have removed the corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF from office. Sadly, Zimbabwe is not a healthy democracy, Zanu PF has blatantly rigged elections since 1980 to retain power. The nation is stuck with the regime.

The Zanu PF regime is upset to hear the Americans are determined to retain the sanctions and demands for free and fair elections, especially when the regime thought it was winning everybody over. The regime has reacted angrily, shooting from the hip!

“What the @ US Dept of State has done is an act of cowardice & undoubtedly barbaric conduct that falls below the diplomatic bar,” fired Zanu-PF information director Tafadzwa Mugwadi on twitter.

“It clearly reflects a demented superpower that has gone rogue, now aiming at non-assuming global citizens like Emmerson Jnr, a Chimuka & an unknown housewife.

“Anyway, needless to remind them that President Mnangagwa has reminded us that with or without sanctions, nyika inovaka navene vayo (a country is built by its owners).”

 How much longer can Mnangagwa keep up the propaganda he is building Zimbabwe when the reality on the ground shows a failed country in ruins! Mugabe thought he could bluff and bamboozle everyone into believing he was delivering economic prosperity for all and was overwhelmed by the reality on the ground and forced to shut up!

Mugabe was so cocksure his Scientific Socialism policies would deliver mass economic prosperity, “Gutsa ruzhunji!” as he called it, he never tired of saying it throughout the 1980s. These were the usual voodoo economic policies centred on reckless spending especial by the ruling elite. There was nothing scientific in that!

By the end of the 1980s the economy was already in serious trouble and government asked for financial assistance from IMF and WB in the form of the 1990 to 1995 Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes (ESAP), designed to end the reckless spending and kick-start the economic revival.

The programme failed to revive the economy because Zanu PF reduce its spending on programmes affecting the masses but continued with the reckless spending to appease the ruling elite. The second five-year ESAP was agreed it too failed to revive the economy for the same reasons – the regime continued to savage cuts to programmes affecting the masses who forced to tighten their belts whilst the chefs loosened their belts.

By the mid-1990s the economy was now in deep trouble, unemployment was high, wages were low, the quality of basic services such as education and health care were very poor, etc. The standard of living for the majority of Zimbabweans had fallen both qualitatively and quantitatively. There was mass poverty and it was nonsensical to talk of “Gutsa ruzhinji!!” and so Mugabe was forced to drop, until then, his favourite phrase!

Indeed, “Gutsa ruzhinji” and “scientific Socialism” were now used to mock Mugabe.    

When Mnangagwa took over the leadership from Mugabe following the November 2017 military coup he was cocksure his “Zimbabwe is open for business!” would open the floodgates of investors and financial assistance the nation had been starved of  the last two decades. He was sure his promise to stamp out corruption and to hold free elections would reassure everyone that Zimbabwe was no longer the corrupt and tyrannical pariah state of Mugabe days. He even insisted in calling his administration a “new democratic dispensation” “Second Republic”. No one was fooled, especially the shrewd investors.

Mnangagwa failed to stamp out corruption, who could he when he is the godfather of corruption and so are all his friends who propelled him into high office.

Zanu PF would never win a free and fair elections. It was inconceivable that he and his fellow November 2017 coup plotters would risk all to stage a coup and wrestle power from Mugabe only to hand it over in a silver platter to others when it was in their power to rig the elections and retain power. And so no one in their right mind was surprised that Mnangagwa did not bother to implement even one token reform to keep his promise to hold free and fair elections.

And so Mnangagwa’s “Zimbabwe is open for business!” was a lead balloon that never took off because everybody could see that Zimbabwe was still a pariah state ruled by the same corrupt, incompetent, murderous and vote rigging thugs or be it with a new dictator and a few other musical-chair changes.

Zimbabwe is a failed state because it is a pariah state and as long as the country remains a pariah state there will be no meaningful economic and political change. How long can Mnangagwa continue to boast of developing and building Zimbabwe when the hospitals, power stations and the rest of the infrastructure Zanu PF inherited from the whites in 1980 are falling apart due to neglect whilst there is precious little of public value the regime has built.

The Zimbabwe Daily had a cartoon of a woman putting neglected ZESA powerlines to some use as drying lines for her washing. In the background is a large elections campaign poster with Mnangagwa promising to electrify the whole country!

Of course, Zanu PF will not win if the elections are free, fair and credible; no one will believe Zanu PF is building the country when all one can see is ruins of whatever the nation inherit from the whites in 1980! To stay in power Zanu PF has no choice but to rig the elections.

The goal of the sanctions is to force the Zanu PF to accept the need to implement the democratic reforms to ensure free and fair elections, “behaviour change” as the American aptly put it. The sanctions must stay.

The sanctions are not going to force Zanu PF to implement the reforms, it is too late for that. Retaining the sanction will remind Zanu PF that the regime will be held to account if the 2023 elections are not free and fair; evidence on the ground points to the regime is rigging these elections. This time the regime must be denied political legitimacy if the elections are rigged.

If Zanu PF is denied political legitimacy then the country will be forced to have another GNU as happened in 2008. The difference is, this time the nation will appoint competent leaders who will implemented the reform and thus finally end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance.