War veterans and top military figures got key cabinet positions
Zimbabweans Dismayed over Mnangagwa Key Cabinet Jobs for Military Figures
The Military in Zimbabwe played a big fundamental role in the emergence of new Zimbabwe—Zimbabwe without Robert Mugabe. But President Emmerson Mnangagwa is paying for it. May be as part of the deals for military intervention or just for the choice of it.
President Mnangagwa has named his cabinet, appointing senior military figures to high-profile positions.
Critics have said that it has dashed hopes of change in the country.
A social critic, Dough Coltart @DoughColtart, twetted: “Zimbabwe, you are right to feel betrayed. On 18 November, we ALL came out on the streets, united as a people around a common vision of a new Zimbabwe. This Cabinet does not represent a new Zimbabwe but the entrenchment of the old failed political elite. Aluta continua!”
Some others feel the military is unduly taking the lion’s share in the making of the cabinet.
Tendai Biti to suggest that Zimbabweans were “wrong” to have hoped for change.”Up until now, we had given the putsch the benefit of the doubt. We did so in the genuine, perhaps naive view that the country could actually move forward. We craved change, peace & stability in our country. How wrong we were,” he said.Wilf Mbanga, a Zimbabwean journalist who lives in exile in South Africa, told the BBC that the new minister of agriculture Perence Shiri “was not known for his love of democracy”.A minister who served in Mr Mugabe’s government, Jonathan Moyo, said the changes meant that Zanu-PF, the party which has governed Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, was “dead” and the military was now in charge.Newspaper owner Trevor Ncube said the cabinet was “very disappointing”.
“Largely the same people that caused this crisis have been recycled. The honeymoon comes to an end and reality dawns. His concern seems to have been rewarding those who brought him to power and Zanu-PF unity,” he said.
BBC reported that “Sibusiso Moyo, the general who became the face of the recent military takeover, is the new foreign minister.
The head of Zimbabwe’s air force, Perence Shiri, was named the minister of agriculture and land affairs.He is notorious for having led the military operation against those seen as opponents of Mr Mugabe in Matabeleland in the early 1980s. The operation, led by the North-Korean trained Fifth Brigade of the army, resulted in the killing of an estimated 20,000 civilians.
As lands minister, he will presumably be in charge of Zimbabwe’s controversial land reform programme.This saw the seizure of thousands of farms owned by the white minority which had previously been in charge of the country.
Critics say this wrecked Zimbabwe’s once thriving economy and led millions of Zimbabweans to leave the country to find work.Aside from Maj Gen Moyo and Air Marshal Shiri, leaders of the powerful war veterans’ association, who pushed for Mr Mugabe to go after the military intervention, also got cabinet jobs.Chris Mutsvangwa, who heads the group, is now in charge at the information ministry.Critics say that Mr Mnangagwa has rewarded those whose actions led to him becoming president.
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