Harare – Small groups of protesters gathered under heavy security in the Zimbabwe capital Monday, heeding a call to demonstrate to demand that President Emmerson Mnangagwa leave power.
The protests were called by a veteran of Mnangagwa’s own ZANU-PF party over anger at moves to keep him in power beyond the end of his term in 2028.
Security forces were deployed Monday across Harare and the second city Bulawayo to prevent any gatherings, with memories still fresh of the 2017 coup in which Mnangagwa, 82, seized power from Robert Mugabe, the first post-independence leader.
In the capital, people tried to assemble at President Robert Mugabe Square, also called Freedom Square, but were dispersed by police, including with tear gas, videos on social media showed.
“It was announced as a peaceful march but the police are already starting to hit people,” one of the protesters at the scene told the CITE online media.
But “we are not going anywhere… I’m staying here, if I have to die here, for the sake of my children,” she said.
Dozens of young people later threw rocks into a normally busy road nearby and chanted, “We don’t want 2030”, before they were dispersed by police, a witness told AFP.
Claims that Mnangagwa is manoeuvring to stay on until 2030, or even beyond, have ignited anger in Zimbabwe, which is suffering a major economic crisis blamed on government corruption and mismanagement.
The public face of the dissent is a veteran of the ZANU-PF, Blessed Geza, who is in hiding and was expelled from the party in March.
Geza, a former member of parliament, called off the protests on Monday night and accused the government of harbouring a plan to bomb seven installations and blame it on the opposition.
“Calling off the protest for now but will come back to you on Wednesday with a crucial message,” he said in a video posted on social media.
The government dismissed the protest as a failure, citing Mnangagwa’s continued hold on power. “They said we will run. The pseudo-revolution flopped,” spokesman Nick Mangwana said.
Mass uprising ‘unlikely’
A journalist who interviewed Geza in February was arrested after authorities claimed the interview could incite violence.
Blessed Mhlanga is still behind bars, reinforcing claims of mounting repression in the southern African country where the political opposition has largely been suffocated.
Early on Monday, the centre of Harare was deserted and shops, businesses, transport services and schools remained closed in anticipation of the demonstrations.
“There are no people at all,” a man told AFP on condition of anonymity. “They are scared because of stories flying around (about the protests).”
In Bulawayo, major retailers and offices were shuttered and only a few people were in the normally busy fresh produce market, an AFP reporter said. Police patrolled in vehicles and on horseback.
Political analysts said that the economic shutdown could still deliver a strong message to the political elite.
“We are unlikely to see a mass uprising… but what is clear is that tensions within Zanu-PF are very high and it is no longer possible to pretend that all is well,” said Pedzisai Ruhanya, director of Zimbabwe Democracy Institute.
In what was interpreted as a sign that Mnangagwa is worried about the loyalty of the military as the demonstrations were called, he demoted army chief Anselem Nhamo Sanyatwe last week to the less influential post of minister of sports, arts and culture.
Geza and his faction of veterans of the war that led to independence in 1980 are reportedly pushing to replace Mnangagwa with his vice president, Constantino Chiwenga, a retired general who orchestrated the coup against Mugabe.
