Post Mugabe Era and Feasibility of Regime Change in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Barely a year after Zimbabwe’s long serving President Robert Mugabe was ousted through a military coup which replaced him with his erstwhile trusted ally and vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa, the army shot six civilians caught up in the crossfire of protestors alleging ZANU PF electoral theft of the 2018 July 30 polls. Although the military has always been in the background of Zimbabwe’s politics in general and the ruling ZANU PF affairs in particular, the shooting of protestors incident which occurred on the 1^st of August 2018 left the world shell-shocked on the prospects of any peaceful change of government or even transfer of power, confirming to all and sundry that Mugabe could have exited the political stage, but the system he presided over for 37 years is still intact, if not even more perfected in the aftermath. This has since rekindled debates on the feasibility of regime change in Zimbabwe and in that context the validity and essence of having an election in the first place if any outcome unfavourable to ZANU PF and its candidate is likely to witness the unleashing of armed soldiers and the subsequent killing of citizens in the process. With the security sector involved in politics in contrast to the old adage that politics lead the gun, it thus comes as a paradox that for the umpteenth time, regime change in Zimbabwe shall remain an elusive dream.