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<p>Zimbabwe’s new leader has promised to compensate white farmers whom were forced off their land during former President Mugabe’s controversial land reform programme. This comes as the dispossessed white farmers have tabled a US$9 billion compensation claim. Where will Mnangagwa’s administration get the money to pay these evicted white farmers, and what does this mean for the agricultural sector? For more CNBC Africa&#8217;s Daniel Sango spoke with Zimbabwean Political Economic Analyst, Dr Jabusile Shumba.</p>


Zimbabwe has no clear funding plan to compensate evicted white farmers – Analyst

<p>There is an old joke that used to do the rounds from the lips of journalists in Africa that goes something like this.</p>
<p>President Robert Mugabe invites Kenya’s President Daniel arap Moi to Zimbabwe to show him the wonders of his country’s infrastructure.</p>
<p>“See that bridge?” says Mugabe. Yes says Moi.</p>
<p>Mugabe pats his pocket”</p>
<p>“Twenty per cent.”</p>
<p>The following week Moi invites Mugabe to Kenya and asks him to look across a river outside Nairobi with wretched poor people fording it in the rain.</p>
<p>“See that bridge?” says Moi.</p>
<p>“I see no bridge,” replies Mugabe.</p>
<p>“One hundred per cent,” says Moi with a pat of the pocket.</p>
<p>Now we laugh at these jokes because they’re funny and sadly because they have a ring of truth as they encapsulate the cost of corruption to Africa. It is the so called public servants who get the pleasure and the poor of Africa that get the blame. It is the people wading through a swollen river who pay the price of corruption. The people who profit from corruption usually spend their ill-gotten gains on houses they don’t live in and cars they don’t drive; at the expense of people who have neither.</p>
<p>That is why I was pleased when I heard the new South African president’s pledge to stamp out corruption in his back yard. He has an independent judiciary that will make it easier to get credible convictions to punish the guilty and encourager les autres.</p>
<p>Yet it’s going to be tough; Cyril Ramaphosa will have to see many of his comrades put behind bars in bruising, public, trials that are likely to open up wounds that will last a lifetime.</p>
<p><strong>READ: </strong><a href="http://cnbc.africa/trending/state-capture/2018/02/19/atul-gupta-challenges-south-african-asset-freeze/">Atul Gupta challenges South African asset freeze</a></p>
<p>Right now, many of the people of South Africa are behind Ramaphosa and are sick of the waste of their country’s coffers through corruption. Cyrilmania appears everywhere; it may be many a moon before we see the opposition give the president a standing ovation in Parliament.</p>
<p>Well that is my point. Time is the enemy of politicians who want to make decisive change. For Ramaphosa needs to push hard, while his stock is high, to see the prosecutions though and tighten the gaps to make sure corruption cannot happen. He could take a leaf out of neighbouring Botswana’s book if he wants a model of how to control tightly pubic funds. The leaf may come in triplicate and signed by three people – but that is how Botswana guards its public money.</p>
<p>Overall Ramaphosa needs to move fast before the forces of corruption can organise and fight back. Corruptors are cunning people, that is how they get away with it for so long.</p>


Why Africa should throw people in jail – quickly

<p class="MegaArticleBody_first-p_2htdt">Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa led tributes to late opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Thursday, describing the long-time rival of recently ousted president Robert Mugabe as a dedicated defender of democracy.</p>
<div id="attachment_42372" style="width: 810px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-42372" class="wp-image-42372 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/morgan_tsvangirai.jpg" alt="Analysts react to anti-Mugabe demonstration" width="800" height="490" /><p id="caption-attachment-42372" class="wp-caption-text">Photo: Wikimedia.</p></div>
<p class="">Arguably Zimbabwe’s most popular politician, Tsvangirai died on Wednesday evening aged 65 after a long battle with cancer.</p>
<p class="">His death in a South African hospital cast his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) into unknown territory less than six months before elections, the first in Zimbabwe not to feature 93-year-old Mugabe.</p>
<p class="">Tsvangirai will receive a state funeral, but will not be buried at the National Heroes’ Acre, largely reserved for ruling Patriotic Front guerrillas killed during the independence war, Mnangagwa said.</p>
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<p class="">“He remained a national figure who obdurately insisted on free, fair, credible and non-violent elections as a way of strengthening our democracy,” Mnangagwa, who replaced Mugabe in November after he was forced to stand down by the military, said in a statement.</p>
<p class="">In political terms, the ruling ZANU-PF party and Mnangagwa, who paid a personal visit to Tsvangirai in January, stand to gain from the opposition leader’s death, due to fighting within the MDC over who should succeed its founding father.</p>
<p class="">The party’s National Council announced that its vice president, Nelson Chamisa, was taking the role of acting president following Tsvangirai’s death.</p>
<p class="">The MDC described Tsvangirai as a hero who had “left his footprints on the sands of history”, in large part through his tussles &#8211; both literal and figurative &#8211; with Mugabe.</p>
<p class="">Tsvangirai suffered repeated abuse and harassment from Zimbabwe’s security and intelligence services, including a 2007 beating in police custody that left him with a badly swollen face and a deep gash in his head.</p>
<p class="">Scores of his supporters were beaten and killed during campaigning for a 2008 election that eventually resulted in four-year unity government with Tsvangirai serving as prime minister to Mugabe’s president.</p>
<p class="">The tense relationship between the two was tempered by moments of respect and humour, and the pair once joked about Tsvangirai fearing Mugabe would try to poison him when they started their custom of taking afternoon tea together every Monday.</p>
<p class="">In central Harare, crowds of people wearing bright red MDC t-shirts gathered outside the party headquarters. Many wept with grief.</p>
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<p class="Attribution_content_27_rw">Reporting by Alfonce Mbizwo; Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Robin Pomeroy</p>
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Zimbabwe’s president leads tributes to opposition leader Tsvangirai

<p class="MegaArticleBody_first-p_2htdt">HARARE (Reuters) &#8211; Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai died on Wednesday after a long battle with cancer, casting his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party into the unknown less than three months after the army ousted long-time ruler Robert Mugabe.</p>
<p class="MegaArticleBody_first-p_2htdt">Tsvangirai, who died in South Africa, was 65.</p>
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<p class="">“I can confirm that he died this evening. The family communicated this to me,” MDC vice-president Elias Mudzuri told Reuters.</p>
<p class="">Arguably Zimbabwe’s most popular politician, the mining union leader’s career was ultimately defined by his tussles &#8211; both literal and figurative &#8211; with 93-year-old Mugabe, who resigned after a de facto coup in December.</p>
<p class="">Elections are due within the next six months and Tsvangirai’s illness and now death leaves his party in disarray, to the advantage of the ruling ZANU-PF party, now led by former Mugabe deputy Emmerson Mnangagwa.</p>
<p class="">Although Tsvangirai suffered serious physical abuse at the hands of security forces, including serious head injuries in police custody in 2007, he went on to form an uneasy working relationship with Mugabe in a 2009-2013 coalition government.</p>
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<p class="Attribution_content_27_rw">Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Ed Cropley/James Macharia/Andrew Heavens</p>
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Zimbabwe opposition leader Tsvangirai dies in South Africa

<p>MOSCOW/HARARE/LUSAKA, Feb 8 (Reuters) &#8211; Russian fertiliser producers Uralchem and Uralkali plan to boost sales in southeast Africa, their co-owner Dmitry Mazepin said on Thursday, after meeting the leaders of Zimbabwe and Zambia.</p>
<p>Rising commodity prices and dramatic political change in the region have vastly improved the investment mood in the mining sector this year, a meeting of industry leaders in Cape Town showed this week.</p>
<p>Uralchem and Uralkali plan to create a hub in the two countries that will directly supply mineral fertilisers, the firms said in a statement after co-owner Mazepin met Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Zambia’s President Edgar Lungu.</p>
<p>They expect demand for the product to grow rapidly in the next few years.</p>
<div class="DPSlot_container_2dHIN StandardArticleBody_dp-slot-inline_eUPBt" data-ad-type="other">Fertiliser demand is on the up in Zambia as it tries to diversify its economy away from copper mining to agriculture, but the nation still imports most of its fertiliser from South Africa.</div>
<p>Zimbabwe struggled to feed its population between 2001 and 2016, a situation often blamed on the government and its seizure of businesses owned by white farmers.</p>
<p>This move depressed commercial agricultural output, while a lack of funding for farmers to purchase adequate fertiliser, coupled with drought, also hit production of the staple maize crop.</p>
<p>The country is short on foreign currency needed to import fertilisers such as ammonia, while its own domestic production remains low.</p>
<p>Cooperation with the two Russian companies will allow Zambia and Zimbabwe to reduce prices for their farmers, who are currently forced to buy fertilisers from intermediaries at a cost of $450 to $500 per tonne, Mazepin said.</p>
<p>Russia is able to offer mineral fertilisers in the global market, including at African ports, at $250 to $300 per tonne, Mazepin added. He is the owner of privately held Uralchem, which holds a stake in Uralkali.</p>
<p>According to him, in the short term, Uralchem and Uralkali may boost supplies of their fertiliser products in southeast Africa by 400,000 to 500,000 tonnes a year from the current 100,000 tonnes.</p>
<p>Mazepin also said Zimbabwe’s president had invited the Russian companies to supply fertiliser and participate in mining projects.</p>
<p>“Certainly, we are interested. When we get guarantees of stable business development at such high level, it is very important to us,” he said. (Reporting by Polina Devitt, MacDonald Dzirutwe and Chris Mfula; Editing by Dale Hudson and Polina Ivanova)</p>


Russian fertiliser tycoon eyes Zimbabwe, Zambia for growth

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<p>Africa Chrome Fields, which is owned by non-listed South African company Moti Holdings, announced in 2014 that it would invest over $200 million into a mining project in Kwekwe, Zimbabwe.</p>


Why Africa Chrome Fields is investing millions into Zimbabwe

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<p>Given its abundant mineral resources, Zimbabwe is hoping that the change in leadership will help unlock the country’s investment opportunities in the mining sector.</p>


Africa Chrome Fields’ John Drummond on the mining landscape in Zimbabwe

The Forbes Billionaires List: Africa’s Billionaires 2018

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<p>Given its abundant mineral resources, Zimbabwe is hoping that the change in leadership will help unlock the countries investment opportunities in the mining sector. CNBC Africa caught up with the Minister of Mines and Development, Winston Chitando.</p>


Is now the time to invest in Zimbabwe’s mining sector?

<p>Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, is critically ill in a South African hospital and his supporters should “brace for the worst”, a party source with knowledge of his condition said on Tuesday.</p>
<div id="attachment_42372" style="width: 810px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-42372" class="wp-image-42372 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/morgan_tsvangirai.jpg" alt="Analysts react to anti-Mugabe demonstration" width="800" height="490" /><p id="caption-attachment-42372" class="wp-caption-text">Photo: Wikimedia.</p></div>
<p>Without its founder at the helm, Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is likely to face immediate instability and could even split, handing a gift to new President Emmerson Mnangagwa in an election expected in the next six months.</p>
<p>Mnangagwa came to power in November after a de facto military coup against 93-year-old Robert Mugabe, the former guerrilla leader who had run Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980.</p>
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<p>Tsvangirai, 65, has been in and out of hospital since disclosing in June 2016 that he had colon cancer. He returned to Johannesburg in neighbouring South Africa for his latest round of treatment in early January.</p>
<p>“From the medical report that I received yesterday the situation is not looking good. He is critically ill and we should brace for the worst,” the source in Tsvangirai’s MDC said.</p>
<p>Tsvangirai’s Twitter feed contested the report, saying the former union leader who emerged two decades ago as Mugabe’s principal political challenger was “shocked” to read of his deteriorating condition.</p>
<p>“Of course I have cancer and not feeling too well but I am stable and the process is under control. I have been frequently on Twitter of late, I am recovering,” the feed said.</p>
<p>Tsvangirai spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka said the MDC leader was “stable but the nation should keep on praying”.</p>
<p>Tsvangirai’s illness has exposed deep rifts in the MDC, with his subordinates jockeying publicly to succeed him. Last month, Tsvangirai said it was time for the older generation to step back and make way for “new hands”.</p>
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<p class="Attribution_content_27_rw">Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Ed Cropley and Catherine Evans</p>
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Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai critically ill in South Africa -party source

<p>Zimplats on Thursday reported a 69 percent rise in profit to $41 million for the quarter ended December, helped by the sale of platinum group metal stockpiles from the previous quarter and higher prices.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-297907 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/zimbabwe_shutterstock_405855385-730x480.jpg" alt="" width="730" height="480" /></p>
<p>Zimbabwe’s largest platinum miner, which is 87 percent owned by Impala Platinum Holdings, sells platinum metal group concentrates to neighbouring South Africa because it does not have a refinery of its own in the country.</p>
<p>Zimplats said revenue rose to $184 million from $102 million previously.</p>
<p>“Revenue increased by 80 percent from the previous quarter mainly due to the sale of concentrates accumulated from the previous quarter and a 4 percent increase in the basket price of the metals sold,” the company said in a statement.</p>
<p>Platinum group metal sales rose 73 percent to 170,724 ounces.</p>
<p>The company said it was still in talks with the government, which last year filed a court application to enforce a previous notice to seize more than half of Zimplats’ mining land.</p>
<p>Zimplats said it was also negotiating with the Harare authorities over the implementation of its plans to comply with the black economic empowerment plan known locally as indigenisation.</p>
<p>New President Emmerson Mnangagwa says he has relaxed the indigenisation drive but the law will still be enforced in the platinum and diamond sectors, where the government would own at least 51 percent of the mining operations.</p>
<p>The government has not clarified whether this would apply to both new and existing mines.</p>
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<p class="Attribution_content_27_rw">Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Adrian Croft</p>
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Zimplats quarterly profit surges 69% on higher sales

<p>Zimbabwe plans to take on about $500 million of debt owed by state-owned steelmaker Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company (ZISCO) to allow a new investor to revive the company.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-290706 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/zimbabwe_shutterstock_405855385-730x4801.jpg" alt="" width="730" height="480" /></p>
<p>ZISCO ceased production in 2008 at the height of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown, but under the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company Debt Assumption Bill published on Tuesday President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government would assume all the company’s debts and issue instruments such as treasury bills to pay creditors.</p>
<p>The government said in August that China’s R&amp;F plans to invest up to $2 billion to revive ZISCO operations.</p>
<p>The bill, which will be debated in parliament next month, stipulates that creditors cannot take legal action against ZISCO to recover their money.</p>
<p>A breakdown of ZISCO’s debt shows that it owes $212 million in external loans, $60 million in domestic loans and $219 million to domestic suppliers among other creditors.</p>
<p>ZISCO has been a subject of foreign investor interest in the past. Essar Africa Holdings, a unit of India’s Essar Group, agreed to invest in ZISCO in 2011 but the deal collapsed.</p>
<p>Mnangagwa, who came to power in November after a defacto army coup forced Robert Mugabe to resign, is on a drive to attract foreign investment to the country.</p>
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<p class="Attribution_content_27_rw">Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by David Goodman</p>
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Zimbabwe to take over steelmaker’s $500 million debt

<p>A company helping to produce a new voter roll for Zimbabwe has accused the election commission of “impropriety” in its handling of tenders, potentially tarnishing the credibility of a poll meant to usher in a new era of transparency post-Mugabe.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-290705 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/zimbabwe_shutterstock_405855385-730x480.jpg" alt="" width="730" height="480" /></p>
<p>A credible vote is key to the restoration of democratic legitimacy following a de facto coup in November that ousted veteran leader Robert Mugabe after 37 years at the helm. It is also crucial to unlocking badly needed financial aid and repairing relations with Western powers.</p>
<p>New President Emmerson Mnangaga, 75, a onetime protege of Mugabe, said last week that transparent elections would be held by July and that he would respect the result if the opposition wins.</p>
<p>Laxton Group, a South African-run ID systems firm with production headquarters in China, filed papers with Harare’s Administrative Court on Jan. 25 questioning why it had lost out on a contract to “clean up” the list of registered voters.</p>
<p>The company, whose directors are mostly South African, has been registering Zimbabwean voters since September in a United Nations-backed attempt to generate a “clean” list of voters as the basis for a credible election.</p>
<p>But the Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) held a separate tender for what is known as the ‘de-duplication’ process &#8211; which ensures there is no double entry of voters or other aberrations &#8211; and awarded it to a rival bidder, Ipsidy.</p>
<p>In its legal filing, Laxton accused the ZEC of manipulating costs presented in its bid for the de-duplication contract. It also said the ZEC had given an inexplicably low weighting to Laxton’s favourable rating in a technical test.</p>
<p>“It is submitted that the impropriety of the (ZEC‘s) conduct in awarding the tender (to Ipsidy)&#8230; should be looked at within the context of the whole rationale of regulating public procurement,” Laxton said in the document.</p>
<p>Previous elections in the southern African nation have been marred by allegations of vote rigging, with manipulation of the register of voters frequently at the heart of the controversy.</p>
<p>ZEC officials did not respond to Reuters’ repeated requests for comment on the matter.</p>
<p>Laxton argues it is best-placed to run the deduplication process because the registration data, including fingerprints of every voter, is loaded on its systems.</p>
<p>In its legal filing, Laxton also said U.S.-listed Ipsidy was facing financial difficulties that could harm its ability to do the job properly.</p>
<p>According to its 2016 annual report, Ipsidy has consistently run at a loss, has accumulated debt of $49 million and needs additional finance. The firm is also expected to incur net losses for the “foreseeable future”, it added.</p>
<p>“It is respectfully submitted that this was terribly irresponsible given that a three-year warranty was required,” Laxton said in its filing.</p>
<p>“If a company is unstable or unable to continue operating, it is likely that it will not be in a position to provide these services in three years’ time.”</p>
<p>Ipsidy did not respond to requests for comment.</p>
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<p class="Attribution_content_27_rw">Reporting by Ed Cropley; Editing by Gareth Jones</p>
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Zimbabwe election body accused of tender “impropriety”

<p><em>Gary van Staden | NKC African Economics</em></p>
<p>President Emmerson Mnangagwa has predictably received a warm welcome at the World Economic Forum (WEF) gathering in Davos. The European Union (EU) became the latest multilateral institution to pledge support for the new dispensation in Harare.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-297316 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Zimbabwe_Emmerson-Mnangagwa_GettyImages.png" alt="" width="850" height="566" /></p>
<p>However, like his neighbours in South Africa, he should be aware that foreign donors are watching for delivery and walking the talk.</p>
<p>The sudden and rapid developments in Zimbabwe late last year, which saw the military essentially remove former President Robert Mugabe and subsequently elevate Mr Mnangagwa to the top post, have ushered in a new opportunity for the country to achieve its economic potential as a powerhouse in the region.</p>
<p>Harare sources have said that the reception in Davos has been “very encouraging” and that some short-term progress in outside assistance was in the pipeline, but that the medium- to longer-term prognosis was a little trickier.</p>
<p>These sources offer several reasons for the reluctance of the international financial community to take Mr Mnangagwa at his word, including: his alleged role in atrocities in the 1980s that has never been satisfactorily resolved, the frequent false dawns produced by the Mugabe administration that always failed to materialise, and the potential for pushback among Mugabe loyalists in the ruling Zanu-PF.</p>
<p>The clear message to Mr Mnangagwa seems to be: “show us the change and we will show you the money.”</p>
<p>Those present at Davos who have serious agendas, will seek out Mr Mnangagwa to probe more deeply the prospects for significant political and economic reform and no doubt the president will have some of the answers they seek.</p>
<p>But caution will be mixed with the warm reception the Zimbabwe delegation receives due to the forthcoming elections.</p>
<p>Elections in the country have not been entirely free and fair for close on 20 years and in some cases, such as in 2008, were blatantly stolen. The behaviour of Zanu-PF, the security establishment and State institutions charged with running the elections due in a few months’ time are going to have be, if not above reproach, then at least good enough for Western governments to be able to endorse the outcome.</p>
<p>We believe Zanu-PF will lay off the institutionalised rigging and intimidation and try to run a free and fair poll – then foreign interest in the country will surge.</p>
<p>Those with a higher appetite for risk may not wait for the elections, and we will begin to see a serious uptick in foreign interest before the elections. However, the big money will probably take a more cautious approach even though by waiting they may have to pay a premium.</p>
<p>The Bretton Woods institutions and other multilateral organisations would probably engage relatively quickly.</p>
<p>It is apparent that Davos and the opportunities such a gathering presents will provide Zimbabwe with a platform it has shunned for two decades and, generally, its presence will be widely welcomed. But the mantra may be ‘action speaks louder than words’ and the Mnangagwa administration faces its first real test when elections fall due later this year.</p>
<p>Mr Mnangagwa has already stated that foreign observer missions would be welcome to monitor the polls, a change from the previsions regime that tended to allow mainly ‘sweetheart’ monitors such as the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) to watch proceedings.</p>
<p>An acceptable poll is important for future engagements on business issues, and that may mean Zanu-PF must rein in its own over-zealous followers who may find it difficult to reform past behaviour.</p>
<p>Isolated incidents are expected to arise during the election campaign, but we need to take a wider and deeper view when these incidents occur.</p>
<p>Economic reform and policy reviews will set the tone for change, but the real test is to see Zanu-PF win a genuinely free and fair poll.</p>


Zimbabwe – Mnangagwa charm offensive in Davos will pay dividends

<p>IMF chief Christine Lagarde on Thursday welcomed a commitment by Zimbabwe’s new President Emmerson Mnangagwa to stabilize the country’s economy and work to improve relations with the international community.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-291634 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Emmerson-Mnangagwa_-GettyImages-RZ.png" alt="" width="850" height="591" /></p>
<p>Lagarde met with Mnangagwa on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It was their first meeting since Mnangagwa took power in November when the military ousted Robert Mugabe, who ruled for 37 years.</p>
<p>“This was an opportunity to share views on ways to address the severe economic challenges that Zimbabwe is facing, and how the IMF can help,” Lagarde said on Twitter after the meeting.</p>
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<p>Afterward, the International Monetary Fund said Lagarde “welcomed President Mnangagwa’s commitment to stabilizing the Zimbabwean economy and working towards normalizing the country’s engagement with the international community.”</p>
<p>International donors withdrew support for Mugabe’s government after he imposed policies that included violent seizure of white-owned commercial farms.</p>
<p>The country has not been able to borrow from international lenders since 1999 when it started defaulting on its debt.</p>
<p>The country cleared its 15-year-old financial arrears to the IMF in 2016. It is, however, still in arrears to the World Bank and African Development Bank, which hampers its ability to tap development financing from the two institutions.</p>
<p>The IMF has told Zimbabwe not to clear its $1.75 billion foreign arrears by borrowing from lenders, which would worsen the country’s debts.</p>
<p>Instead it has suggested cuts to public sector wages, reducing farm subsidies, improving transparency in the mining sector and reaching an agreement on compensating farmers.</p>
<p>Addressing an audience in Davos on Monday, Mnangagwa promised to hold transparent elections by July and said he would respect the outcome of the vote even if the opposition wins.</p>
<p>The election will be the first big test of his legitimacy since he took power. [nL8N1PJ4GM]</p>
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<p class="Attribution_content_27_rw">Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by James Dalgleish</p>
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IMF’s Lagarde welcomes Mnangagwa’s promise to revive Zimbabwe economy

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An Insight, An Idea with Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa

<p><em>Chris Saunders, University of Cape Town</em></p>
<p>While each country in Southern Africa has its own politics, recent developments involving presidents provide interesting contrasts across the region. Which presidents gain and lose power in 2018 – and how they do so – will have significance for the region as a whole, not least in helping determine its continued stability.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-292303 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Emmerson-Mnangagwa_Zim_Swearing-In_GettyImages-RZ.png" alt="" width="850" height="566" /></p>
<p>As 2018 begins, Joseph Kabila is clinging to the presidency of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), claiming that there is insufficient funding to hold an election, amid growing protests against him in Kinshasa and elsewhere. It remains to be seen if he will fulfil the undertaking he has made that elections will be held in December this year.</p>
<p>Other countries in the region start 2018 on a much more promising footing. In Botswana, President Ian Khama, approaching the end of his two presidential terms, is expected to step down in an orderly succession in April and will be suceeded by the vice-president.</p>
<p>In both Zimbabwe and Angola autocratic presidents who had been in power for almost four decades lost power in 2017 in very different ways.</p>
<h2>Military intervention in Zimbabwe</h2>
<p>In the case of Zimbabwe the country’s army intervened in November 2017 to force Robert Mugabe to give up power. This came after he had, under the influence of his wife Grace, sacked Emmerson Mnangagwa as vice-president. The Southern African Development Community did not need to intervene, and even the mediation mission it planned wasn’t required.</p>
<p>Instead, the Zimbabwe military acted, with the ruling party, Zanu-PF, to replace Mugabe with Mnangagwa. It did so peacefully, denying during the entire process that a coup was underway. The 93-year-old Mugabe, in office since 1980, initially refused to step down, but was finally removed both as president of the country and of the ruling party.</p>
<p>The country will go to the polls in mid-2018, and Mnangagwa, who was confirmed in December 2017 as Zanu-PF’s presidential candidate, has said that the election will be credible, free and fair, but he has yet to confirm that he will allow international and other observers.</p>
<p>With the military more obviously involved in government than anywhere else in the region, Zimbabwe’s opposition parties divided, and with Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance seriously ill, there is little likelihood that Zanu-PF or Mnangagwa will lose power.</p>
<h2>Angola</h2>
<p>In Angola José Eduardo dos Santos, suffering from ill-health, agreed in early 2017 to step down as president of the country. He nominated a man he thought would be a trusted successor, hoping to continue to wield influence as president of the ruling MPLA.</p>
<p>After elections for the National Assembly in August, João Lourenço duly succeeded Dos Santos as president. To widespread surprise, he began sacking the heads of some of the country’s key institutions. These included Dos Santos’s daughter, Isabel dos Santos, who was CEO of the state oil company Sonangol.</p>
<figure class="align-center "><figcaption>
<div id="attachment_290966" style="width: 860px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-290966" class="wp-image-290966 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Angola_Joao-Lourenço_Dos-Santos_GettyImages.png" alt="" width="850" height="566" /><p id="caption-attachment-290966" class="wp-caption-text">Former Angolan President, José Eduardo dos Santos and new President João Lourenço. Image: Getty Images</p></div>
</figcaption></figure>
<p>And in early 2018 her brother José Filomeno dos Santos, was removed as head of Angola’s sovereign wealth fund. Their father’s influence was rapidly slipping away.</p>
<p>In Angola, as in Zimbabwe, a change of leader to one with a more reformist approach probably means that the ruling party has consolidated itself in power.</p>
<h2>South Africa</h2>
<p>In South Africa in December 2017 the leadership of the governing African National Congress (ANC) passed from Jacob Zuma to Cyril Ramaphosa, who thus became heir apparent to the presidency of the country. While there is no two-term limit for ANC presidents, Zuma had brought the ANC into discredit and Ramaphosa, despite having worked closely with Zuma as deputy president, was seen as the one who would curtail the corruption and “state capture”.</p>
<p>For now, Zuma remains president of the country until general elections due to be held by June 2019. The country waits to see whether, how and when Ramaphosa can arrange to take over as president of the country as well as of the ruling party.</p>
<h2>A presidential challenge defeated</h2>
<p>In Namibia, Hage Geingob had to meet a challenge to his continuing as leader of Swapo, the governing party, in November last year. He was, however, confirmed in his position and will therefore be Swapo’s presidential candidate for the election scheduled to take place in November 2019.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-41104 alignright" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/jacob_zuma__wikipedia-300x185.jpg" alt="South Africa and France sign nuclear agreement" width="300" height="185" /></p>
<p>Geingob supporters now fill all the key posts in his government, enabling him to make policy as he wishes. This is very different from South Africa, where the new ANC leadership remains divided and where Ramaphosa, when he becomes president of the country, will find it difficult to adopt new policies.</p>
<h2>Malawi and Zambia</h2>
<p>Malawi must hold elections in 2019 and the contest for the presidency then has already begun. It is not known whether Joyce Banda, the former president and leader of one of the country’s leading political parties, will return from self-imposed exile abroad to stand again. In 2017 she was formally charged with having been involved in the massive “Cashgate’ corruption scandal” that was uncovered while she was president.</p>
<div id="attachment_41298" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-41298" class="wp-image-41298 size-medium" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/edgar_lungu_flickr-300x189.jpg" alt="Zambia elections body halts campaigning in capital over violence" width="300" height="189" /><p id="caption-attachment-41298" class="wp-caption-text">Zambian President, Edgar Lungu.</p></div>
<p>In 2017 Lungu became more authoritarian. Hakainde Hichilema, the leader of the main opposition United Party for National Development, was arrested on what were clearly trumped-up charges. These were only dropped in August after interventions by the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth and inside Zambia by the local Catholic Archbishop.In Zambia, by contrast, where the next election is not due until 2021, the question is how Edgar Lungu, who took over the presidency after narrowly winning the presidential election in August 2016, will try to consolidate his power.</p>
<p>Lungu wants to serve a third term as president, and the country’s Constitutional Court has been asked to rule on the matter.</p>
<h2>Regional perspective</h2>
<p>Too often developments in one country are seen in isolation from similar ones elsewhere. Given that South Africa is the most important country in the region, how the Ramaphosa-Zuma poser is resolved will be significant for the region. Elsewhere, how presidents gain and lose, and try to consolidate their power, will help shape the continued stability of the region.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89980/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />Will political tensions be managed internally, as in Zimbabwe in late 2017? Or will they require some kind of intervention by the Southern Africa Development Community, in the DRC and perhaps elsewhere, to prevent them from escalating? Throughout the region, contests for presidential power are likely to keep political passions on the boil.</p>
<p><em>This article was originally published </em>on<em> The Conversation. </em></p>


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