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