AFRICAN EYE

By Rawlings Magede In 202O, Health Minister Constantino Chiwenga through Statutory Instrument (SI) 225A (Public health COVID -19 Prevention, Containment and Treatment Regulations) suspended the holding of by-elections. While the ban has been challenged in court, the outcome is still pending. Arguments that have been used to challenge the ban include Section 159 of the constitution that requires vacant elective public offices to be filled within 90 days and the lack of extensive multi-stakeholder consultations with citizens, Parliament, political parties, the academia and civil society and other key stakeholders. In my view, the bigger conversation or argument should be that our electoral laws are defective as they do not cover contingencies relating to pandemics and other emergencies. Just as John Nkengasong of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has argued that “COVID-19 will not be the final pandemic to challenge the world as more pandemics will emerge in the f

By Rawlings Magede China’s international resource push began in earnest in 1999, when it’s Going Global Strategy liberalized investment policies and provided financial incentives to encourage overseas investments and contracts. Such a strategy was necessitated by a depletion of its own domestic resources. This scenario then forced China to create partnerships with African countries, a development that has created suspicion across the African continent as most people assume that it is a new form of neo-colonialism. The turn of the millennium saw a drastic change in Zimbabwe’s foreign policy. The disagreement between Zimbabwe and the European Union (EU) in 2003 led to capital flight and economic depression and this resulted in Zimbabwe being isolated from the EU in the form of targeted sanctions. With no viable source for continued support, the country retraced its historical roots and deepened relations with China and this culminated into Zimbabwe adopting a look East policy. The

By Rawlings Magede   When former Tanzanian President John “Pombe” Magufuli passed away earlier this year in March, Tanzanian pop artists led the country in the mourning process by composing songs that celebrated some of his achievements. What was shocking for outsiders like me was how Magufuli was popular among young people in Tanzania who seemed to have paid a blind eye to his authoritarian tendencies during his reign. His famous clarion call “Tuliwekewa mawazo” which means we have been labeled as poor was one of his strategies to rally young people and allow themselves to contribute to the recovery of the country. This tactic seemed to have paid dividends given that about two thirds of Tanzania’s 58 million population is under the age of 25. The use of youths to spearhead political campaigns is not new. In Zimbabwe ahead of the 2018 elections, the late President, Robert Mugabe conducted countrywide Youth Interface meetings to garner election support. In all his faults, he was cog

By Rawlings Magede A recent report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) revealed that only over 1 percent of Africa’s population has been fully vaccinated against Covid 19. Africa has a population of over 1 billion. What is worrying is that the total number of those vaccinated in Africa as compared to other continents is very low. According to the New York Times Covid 19 tracker , Africa has the lowest number of doses administered per 100 people as compared to other continents. Africa has just 3.6% vaccination rate, the lowest out of the 6 continents. According to latest figures, a total of 140 040 people have succumbed to Covid 19 in Africa. While this number is high, it is considerably lower those other continents such as Europe that have recorded more than 3million deaths since the covid 19 outbreak. Europe has instituted stricter Covid 19 lockdowns than Africa yet the fatalities have been considerably high. This development exposes the efficacy of lockdowns in significantly r

  By Rawlings Magede Early this week, Mary Mubaiwa, former wife to Zimbabwe’s Vice President, Constantine Chiwenga appeared in court facing several charges ranging from attempting to kill VP Chiwenga when he was battling for his life at a South African in hospital. She has been on routine   remand for 15 months now with the court failing to put her on trial.Everytime,she has appeared in court, images of her swollen legs and hands have gone viral with many netizens expressing shock as to what could be eating up the former wife of one of Zimbabwe’s powerful politicians. To this end, very little information is known about the cause of the disease that is eating her up. The lack of such information has made discussion around the health of public officials futile. During the tenure of former President Robert Mugabe, there were rumours to the effect that the he had prostate cancer. Even in his death, the cause of death remains secretive. That information is only known by a selective few

By Rawlings Magede Events of the past month have happened so fast and left many without much to do except to just watch as events unfold. Half of Legislators from the MDC-T led by Douglas Mwonzora voted in favour of the controversial Constitutional Amendment Bill No.2.The Bill has ascended to the Senate where it is likely to sail through without much opposition. In response to public outcry over this unfortunate move,MDC-T leader Douglas Mwonzora conducted a press conference during the week where he admitted that half of his Legislators had voted in favour of   bill number   while the other half voted against it. “ Those who voted Yes were voting for the women’s quota, the youth quota, the quota of women in council and devolution. Those who voted No from our camp were voting no to the running mate and the judges’ clause. We think their behavior was reasonable.” , he said. He also highlighted that his there was no backlash or disciplinary measures for those who had voted in favour of

  By Rawlings Magede In 2019, the World Health Organisation (WHO) listed “vaccine hesitancy” as one of the ten greatest threats to global health. More than one and half years later, the world is fighting against a pandemic that has threatened to wipe up the human race. COVID 19 has claimed the lives of more than two million people globally since its outbreak in 2020.Countries such as India and Brazil are among the countries with the highest casualties. In Africa, statistics of COVID 19 related deaths are sketchy owing to the poorly developed public health infrastructure and testing. What however is undisputable is that the pandemic has claimed the lives of many people. In the absence of an effective health infrastructure, people particularly in rural areas continue to die quietly from the virus. In Africa, the fight against the pandemic has also been weakened by misinformation and religion. Ever since reports of the discovery of the COVID 19 vaccine began to filter in, there was a fl

By Rawlings Magede Zimbabwe risks losing the fight against the COVID 19 pandemic if the laxity in the enforcement of COVID 19 restrictions is anything to go by. The 31 December event in Mbare organised by DJ’s Fantan and Levels all but exposed the lack of appreciation by citizens on the severity of COVID 19 in Zimbabwe. How the police allowed this event that was attended by hundreds of people is shocking given the surge in cases of COVID 19 over the festive season. This past week, the sentencing of DJ’s Fantan and Levels dominated discussions on social media with a majority of netizens arguing that the sentencing was harsh given that other elite clubs such as Dreams owned by the late flamboyant Genius Kadungure have continued to open its doors to large numbers of patrons. While such a debate is necessary, there has been a somewhat limited conversation on the complicit role played by police officers who gave the green light for the event. That senior police officers received bribe