A violent crackdown in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe remains on edge following a violent crackdown on fuel-price protests that has left 12 people dead.

Dr Matthew Partridge
By
published
in Features

931-Zim-634

Mnangagwa: meet the new boss

Zimbabwe remains on edge following a violent crackdown on fuel-price protests that has left 12 people dead, says Joseph Cotterill in the Financial Times. There are rumours thatthe "days of beatings andarrests carried out by soldiers against opposition and civic activists" are leading to a split within the ruling Zanu-PF party and in the security forces.

After he replaced Robert Mugabe as Zimbabwe's president, Emmerson Mnangagwa promised a "new Zimbabwe", says Panashe Chigumadzi in The New York Times. Hopes he would deliver this have "died" the country is mired in an economic crisis and Mnangagwa "has turned out to be no different from the strongman he served for decades". Even the hope he would be the kind of "decisive benevolent dictator" the economist Dambisa Moyo has argued African countries need has been dashed as the new regime "has not only closed Zimbabwe for business butalso violently shut downany chance for meaningfulcivic engagement".

It was "always nave" to think Mugabe's departure would solve everything, says The Daily Telegraph, but there is a "great deal of international goodwill towards Zimbabwe" that President Mnangagwa could have tapped into had he chosen to "break with the corrupt and despotic past". The country "desperately needs a return of Western investors and of the middle-class professionals forced to flee abroad". Western countries must "make it clear" that Mnangagwa must deliver his promised reform agenda or "remain an international pariah, just like his old boss".

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri

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